Meaning: Mentorship is a lifetime commitment that can span generations of students, and no matter how detached you are supposed to be, it's only human to feel the weight of that responsibility.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: As the old master said, experience should fear the strength of youth, but so should it temper it. Also, in research, there comes a time when instinct is your best guide.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: The recalcitrant student must be dealt with firmly, but always fairly and with calm and patience.

Also, as triestine's mother noted, all Chinese people can fly.

Edit, 23:15 CST Thu 04 Dec 2008 - The above is the English-dubbed version, featuring voice actors that aren't quite the equals of Chow Yun-Fat and Zhang Ziyi. I've used it mainly for comprehensibility. The English-subbed Chinese original is better, IMO, but it omits the "three moves" part of the scene.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: Sometimes your best writing is done when people are trying to interfere with you.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: A good educator opens his students' minds to new ideas and pushes them to do things they haven't done before.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: When representing your group, it's important to be firm, but leave room for that win-win situation.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: This is how semesters and academic years often begin. As long as this is not how they end, I'm happy.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: It's important not to let your weaknesses define you.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: OK, I admit, this is me sometimes.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: Sometimes students... dramatize.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: Nobody likes to see their advisees fail.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Like many advisors, I send out a lot of e-mail to my research group. Some are specifically for the benefit of individuals and just "FYI" to everyone else, so I say so "X: This is from our discussion this morning. Everyone else: FYI." Other times, it's an important message for everyone, or a reference. (I actually put "IMPORTANT" or "REFERENCE" in the title in such cases.)

How do you convey the idea that some of your communications are not subject to TL;DR (too long; didn't read)?

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Banazir

How do you keep people from grabbing you when you are swamped? Do you sit down with them and have a quiet, reasoned discussion, explaining why you are sometimes too busy for them? Do you dash on, yelling "sorry, not now!" or "gerroff!"? If so, do you explain later by e-mail, in person, or not at all? Do you stop and stare, say it's rude, threaten mayhem?

Most important: Does it work? Do you ever get grabbed by the same person again? If so, is it only in exigent situations or also for non-emergencies that they grab you?

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Banazir

Meaning: When I say I want everyone in the KDD group to come to a defense, this is what I mean.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

I'm perennially swamped. It's interesting to see how students react to it.

Some go off and choose other advisors, because they feel they want or need have more one-on-one attention and face time. I wish them well, generally. One hopes they find what they are looking for and in any case are not embittered. I believe the Wiccan expression is "merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again".

Some hover in my doorway, hesitant to come in, and ask "are you busy?". (The answer is that I am always busy, but I would not take someone on as an advisee if I wasn't prepared to spend time with him or her.)

Some barge right in, even when other students are sitting in my office, or jiggle the handle even when the door is closed and locked and they have already knocked. (This last one is a pet peeve of mine, especially because it's disturbingly loud from inside the office.)

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Banazir

As some of you know, we've been revamping our system of preliminary exams for the Ph.D. in Computer Science from more of a pure comprehensive exam system to one of written comps (breadth exams) plus oral quals (depth exams or "research proficiency exams"). The first offering of the breadth exam was in fall, 2006.

Is this really the best system, though? I've heard recently that many top universities have moved completely away from comps and quals, to a "progress review" system. We had heard of this practice, first used in CS graduate education by Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science, where it was called "Black Friday". I set out to examine this alternative system and consider its pros and cons.

( Pros of the Black Friday system )
( Peter Lee on Black Friday at CMU )
( Jeanette Wing on Black Friday at CMU )
( Cons of the Black Friday system )

Conclusion: My view is that Black Friday can be a good thing if we have basically turned exams into formalities. It can also ease the strain to something more equitable if we've made things too competitive (which was the rationale for moving away from pure comps in the first place). I don't think standards are intrinsically "too challenging" or "not challenging enough"; rather, I feel that we need to let students "rise to the level of expectations", in the words of Jaime Escalante. We also need to feel some personal accountability for showing them how to achieve this objective. As long as they think they are just jumping through hoops to satisfy us "as a faculty", there will continue to be people who just fall through the cracks. That includes passing without really getting to the next level! In the end, the tasks and milestones we set should challenge students to get better, rather than strike them immobile with the fear of failure. It should be not "up or out", but excelsior.

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Banazir

Meaning: My recent post about the GECCO/AAAI workshop paper made me think of various assertions of liberty, and Leonidas of Sparta's famous epithet, "come and take them" (Molōn labe, Μολὼν λάβε) came first to mind. Since I maligned Frank Miller so recently, 300 has specifically been on my radar. The title of this post comes from Evil Dead.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship. Because as long as you're there, you can make a difference.
    - James T. Kirk to Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Generations

Meaning: In academia, the "bridge of that ship" includes teaching, research, and - perhaps most of all - advising. Promotion entails moving out of research into purely administrative positions, and transfers are analogous to changing jobs and careers, including moving into industry. My destiny, I truly believe, is to stay in research and advising to make that difference.

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir

Meaning: Black Friday, people. It's not just for CMU anymore...

This is part of the David E. Kelley School of Advising series.

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Banazir