Sequester Impacts

That thing where someone else at the University is walking around, obviously checking out under-utilized lab space and then when caught says:

“Oh, well, it looked on RePORTER like you have just like the one grant in no-cost extension so…. [awkward pause]”

Academia is heritable

I tweeted a link to A Manifesto for Community Colleges, Lifelong Learning, and Autodidacts and include the lede

As some are raised a Catholic or an atheist or a vegetarian, I was raised an academic.

I was later bemused by the number of RTs and I started to think about why. I think it was the “raised an academic” part more so than any enthusiasm for the post itself.

Then today, someone on the Twitts responded to something or other about the dismal grant situation in science right now by referring to quitting to join the family business.

Academia IS my family business.

As with a great number of the people I ran across in graduate school, postdoctoral training and know now as a person with a RealJobTM in science, I was raised academic.

Are we at a particular juncture where this is possible? Did the GI bill and general expansion of higher education in the US following WWII lead us to a unique position where academic careers could become something other than a rarity within a family? Where that tendency to do what your parents do for a living was even possible when that job was within a University or College environment?

This I wonder.