The YNHH hospital workers file for their union election. Come december, 1800 workers in a bargaining unit that's been fighting for recognition practically since the late 1940s will finally have a voice on the job. Kind of amazing.
Meanwhile, a former postdoc is suing Yale for royalties from the patenting of medical technology (PT tests) she worked on and says she helped invent in the lab of a Yale PI in the late 1980s.
I went to the "State of the Medical School" address here yesterday, which interestingly did not talk about increasing private-sector funding as a way to replace shrinking NIH dollars. I have no further insight into the reasons for this absence, or what its significance might be, but it seemed noteworthy.
ReplyDeleteWhat solutions did they suggest? What is the state of the medical school these days?
ReplyDeleteThe dean and COO didn't suggest much, mostly some non-substantive blathering about how they're going to help NW researchers be more successful in the ever-more-intense grant competition (mostly, it appears, by trying to hire people with successful funding records away from other institutions).
ReplyDeleteGeneral state of the medical school: NW's doing well, would like to be growing faster (mostly in terms of number of research dollars, maybe also available research and clinical space), still isn't quite the top-tier institution it aspires to be. Following the transition to a new dean next summer, it will continue to be committed to research, teaching, and patient care.
It was not a very exciting address, all in all. (Had the talk been more interesting, I likely would not have noticed the lack of discussion of private funding.)
Following up on my last comment, it could be suggested that a lack of creativity (at least outside of the lab) is maybe not-so-much a hallmark of the NW administration, which is why they are not the world-class university they'd like to be.
ReplyDeleteThen, as always, we could resume analyzing how the initiative that leads to the extraordinary success of top universities is not always particularly good for their students, or faculty, or other workers, or communities.
That's really interesting. Maybe it was the ogre in the room nobody wanted to talk about, or so taken for granted that it didn't merit the mention. or maybe it just isn't a part of their growth plan?
ReplyDelete