This morning, Sara Goldrick-Rab tweeted this:
Yes, it's true: I decided against participating in academic conferences this year to focus on policy work.
The stakes are now too high.
— Sara Goldrick-Rab (@saragoldrickrab) March 16, 2017
I love that. I’ve been critical of academic conferences before, particularly education research conferences. This fall, when I return to being a plain old professor, I intend to follow Sara’s lead. I’ve been inspired by her book and her work. And, I think she’s spot on. The stakes are too high now, especially after we saw President Trump’s proposed budget this morning.
To that effect, here’s what I posted this afternoon:
https://twitter.com/jonbecker/status/842496150519369729
As educational researchers, we’ve got to stop gazing at each other’s navels and start really making a difference. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, spoke to the press today. In that press conference, he claimed that the Meals on Wheels program would be zeroed out because it’s “not showing any results.” That’s a ridiculous statement on a lot of levels, and Aaron Carroll went on an amazing tweetstorm about it:
https://twitter.com/aaronecarroll/status/842461368930455556
Read the whole thread. Not just statements, but links to actual evidence. Aaron Carroll and I wouldn’t know each other if we fell on each other, but from what I can tell, he’s a publicly-engaged scholar. He’s a health policy scholar with YouTube videos and is part of a team blogging about health policy. That’s modern scholarly communication. His tweetstorm today might not make a difference, but I guarantee it’ll have more reach than some journal article behind a paywall. In fact, you might consider sending his tweetstorm to your Senator and Representatives. It’s all easily accessible.
If you’re committed to the resistance, let’s commit to do better public, policy-relevant scholarship, fellow scholars!