Reforming graduate education

Via Fabio and Tyler, and Inside Higher Ed article about Harvard GSAS under Theda Skocpol initiating important reforms that rest on the premise that "graduate students need to get on to a life where they have their own careers or income before they are entering middle age" and that grad school simply should not take 9 or 10 or more years.

The reforms and results also make plain that the onus is on departments and advisors. When departments were provided with appropriate incentives, time to degree started to fall...

Heh.

Todd pointed this one out to me: the New York Times has a funny bit on recommended science fiction reading for the presidential candidates. Sample:

JOHN McCAIN
Senator from Arizona

Should tell reporters he’s read “Starship Troopers,” by Robert A. Heinlein: An impressionable young man is drafted into an intergalactic military campaign and finds that war solves all problems.

Might also consider reading “The Forever War,” by Joe Haldeman: An impressionable young man is drafted into an intergalactic military campaign and finds that war doesn’t solve anything.