It's been a busy and eventful week. The first thing is, I missed the dramatic grad student meeting last week due to being sick (i was so sad to not be there...) But, I've been filled in. I was pretty confused when the notes were emailed out and one of the big topics of discussion was "the departments long history of gender discrimination." This idea rubbed me the wrong way, since only two people from my cohort are men. So, I asked a colleague about it and aparently the scandal is that the median income for female faculty members is only $53k while it is $88k for men. When I heard this, the reluctant statistician in my cried "That's because there are only 3 females with tenure!!!!!!!!!" It has nothing to do with being a woman, it has to do with not sticking around long enough to get tenure! It also has to do with the fact that (no offense ladies) most of the women faculty are totally non-contributors to anything. The exception is SH who is an amazing scholar and makes a TON of money here (and is leaving to go where she is less "discriminated" against.) Anyway, I was also mad that no one seemed to notice that among the men, we have some very distinguished acacemics who are among the leaders of their speciality. So frustrating....

I couldn't help but be skeptical of the fact that all the people crying wolf are the gender scholars and those who have a bone to pick with the "scientific" sociologists. Perhaps if a "scientific" sociologist had run and interpreted the numbers the proper things would have been controlled for and we would see that there probably isn't gender discrimination.

Anyway, on to more pleasant topics, my parents are coming to visit tomorrow! Yay! I hope they like C-ville. Also, I got a cute email from a student that is a friend of one of my students who refered to her me because she was having trouble finding data for a paper she is working on. I thought is was sweet - though I'm having data problems of my own right now. I have to find some data to examine for my next race paper which is a follow up to my first. I also need data for my stats paper, which God bless BW for allowing us to omit the literature review for!! That makes life so much easier!

I must get on with my day now. I have to do my stats homework, plan my lesson for tomorrow and go to our colloquium this afternoon. TC is speaking, as he is finally retiring this semester. After spending literally his entire adult life here, he's decided that it's time to retire (good thing, since he can no longer stay awake in classes! Ha! But, I'm looking forward to his colloquium. I'm a sucker for cute old men.