All posts tagged: Professor

Confessions of a Token Black Professor

Confessions of a Token Black Professor

Published by Sam Flores

As you cross the Androscoggin River into Lewiston, you pass on your left the waterfalls that once set the mills to humming. On your right, affixed to a pockmarked brick mill—now defunct, it had spun tens of thousands of bedspreads a week—a 30-foot-wide neon sign reads HOPEFUL. And so I was. My wife and I drove by that unlit sign on the hot May afternoon when we moved from New York to the interior of Maine. It was 2020. The 100,000th American was about to die of COVID. And I was starting my dream job. Explore the September 2026 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More Arriving at Bates College, we passed the empty quad, took a left, and pulled our U-Haul up to our new home: a century-old colonial just off campus, ringed by a tangle of blooming lilacs and wild blackberries. Someone had just mowed the grass. As we began unpacking, alternating between unloading boxes and marveling at the house—twice the size and half …

Professor T returns for season four

Professor T returns for season four

Published by Daniella Wilson

Add Professor T to your watchlist For Professor T’s executive producer Walter Iuzzolino, launching murder mysteries in the summer just makes sense. According to him, it’s both “a mini holiday from your day” and an after-hours complement to crime fiction beach reads. “If you enjoy that sort of escape, the idea of then wrapping your towel, going back to your holiday home and watching this is quite nice,” he tells RT. “I call these kinds of shows ‘pleasurable’ crime. When I see a crime drama with an actor of the calibre of Ben, or David Mitchell in Ludwig – which exists in the same tradition as this and Death in Paradise – I know I’m going to have a nice time. They’re going to hold my hand. Ben has extraordinary range – he has an absolute blast in some slapstick scenes but he can really pull you in emotionally, too.” When I see a crime drama with an actor of the calibre of Ben Miller, I know I’ll have a nice time Walter Iuzzolino, executive …

Being a Late-Career Professor

Being a Late-Career Professor

Published by Jenni Sidey

As academics get older, their roles and functions at a research university evolve. Throughout the academic lifespan, there are diverse and changing ideas, conceptions, and goals concerning academic tasks and identity. The developmental trend tends to move from gaining a tenure-track position, chasing tenure and promotion to associate professor, maintaining a productive research lab, increasing administration and university governance responsibilities, promotion to full professor, a plateau phase, and (probably overdue) retirement. I once had sympathies with the anti-tenure crowd who argue that tenure protects professors of poor quality, those who have checked out of their responsibilities and do the minimal amount of work. Rooting out the deadwood old professors to replace them with younger, hungrier, and cheaper assistant professors is one goal of the folks wanting to get rid of tenure. I had an appreciation for the mandatory retirement age for professors that many nations use. I had complained that old professors are often not current on growing scientific literature, they have given the same lectures for the last 30 years, and their ideas are …

Humanists UK mourns Professor Pat McKeown (1930–2026)

Humanists UK mourns Professor Pat McKeown (1930–2026)

Published by Sam Flores

Humanists UK is deeply saddened to hear of the death of its patron, Professor Pat McKeown OBE FREng, a pioneer in the field of ultra-precision engineering, and a dedicated humanist. He was 95 years old. After initial student apprentice training (1951-54) in the aircraft industry, he attended the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield University before joining the world leading Swiss high precision metrology and machine tool company GSIP. There, he specialised in the comprehensive geometric and thermal error analyses and calibration of high precision machines. After 13 years in industry, he returned to Cranfield University in 1968 to establish the Cranfield Unit for Precision Engineering which went on to design, construct, commission, and supply a wide range of ultra-precision machine tools and metrology equipment, used worldwide. These included single-point diamond turning machines capable of nanometre accuracy, grinding machines for large telescope mirrors, as well as several specialist metrology instruments. He was the founding president of the highly successful European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology (EUSPEN) in 1999, received lifetime achievement awards from the precision …

Professor Anil Seth – Humanists UK

Professor Anil Seth – Humanists UK

Published by Sam Flores

Humanists UK is delighted to announce the appointment of its newest patron, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Anil Seth. He joins a stable of over 200 Humanists UK patrons with notable careers in arts, literature, science, academia, politics, and community and civic activism. With more than two decades of research and outreach experience, Anil’s mission is to advance the science of consciousness and to use its insights for the benefit of society, technology, and medicine. An internationally leading researcher, Anil is also a renowned public speaker, best-selling author, and sought-after collaborator. Anil is Director of the Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex as well as Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness and a European Research Council Advanced Investigator. He has published more than 200 research papers and has been recognised by Web of Science, over several years, as being in the top 0.1% of researchers worldwide. His 2017 TED talk, Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality, has been viewed over fifteen million times. …