SPEL Colloquium: THU 29 JAN

Pablo Gilabert

Associate Professor of Philosophy
Concordia University

"Labor Human Rights and Human Dignity"

Thursday, January 29th
5:00pm
UUW-324

Confirmation of enrollment

IMPORTANT:  If you have not already done so, please confirm your enrollment for your Spring semester courses.  If you do not confirm your enrollment via the BU BRAIN by 4:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 30, you will be dropped from all spring 2015 courses.

Paper submissions are open for APA Eastern 2016

The online paper submission system is now open for members to submit their papers to be considered for the 2016 Eastern Division meeting. The meeting will be held January 6 to January 9 in Washington, DC.

Click here to submit your paper. Papers in any area are welcome. The paper submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on February 17.

Eastern Division paper submission guidelines are available on the APA website. There are a number of changes to the submission guidelines that authors need to take note of. These are listed on both the paper submission guidelines page and on the paper submission site. Please contact us with any questions regarding the submission process.

To submit a paper or to participate in the meeting program, authors must be current members of the APA. Please be sure to renew your APA membership.

There are two sources of financial support for junior members of the association who submit papers for this year’s meeting program.

• Graduate students submitting papers for the upcoming Eastern Division meeting should be aware that a stipend of $300 will be awarded to each qualifying graduate student whose paper is accepted by the program committee in its normal anonymous review process. See the paper submission guidelines for details.


• The Eastern Division will also award the William James Prize, which includes a $300 honorarium, to the best paper in the area of American philosophy that meets the criteria of the prize as described on the APA website.

Only current APA members are eligible for graduate student stipends and the William James Prize. Renew your membership now.

Click here to submit your paper. 

Global Health Impact

http://global-health-impact.org/index.php


Global Health Impact

Imagine a world where people everywhere have access to the life-saving drugs they need to fight diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. To help extend access on essential medicines, we have to understand the problem. The Global Health Impact Index opens the door to positive change by considering how essential medicines for TB, HIV/AIDS, and malaria are affecting global health.

Evaluating Drugs

There are three main considerations that go into evaluating each drug’s potential impact. These are 1) the need for the drug, 2) its effectiveness, and 3) how many people who need a drug can access it around the world. In the Global Health Impact model, the drug impact scores feed into four Indexes that provide essential information about the access to medicines problem.

The Indexes

The Drug Index ranks the drugs by their impact scores. The Disease Index looks at the size of the drugs’ impact on each of the diseases. The Country Index looks at the amount of need in each country that is alleviated by the drugs used in that country. The Company Index ranks companies by the sum the impact of the drugs each company makes. For more general information on the construction of each Index, see resources and for technical papers see methodology. For more information on the Company Index, in particular, seeCompanies and Drugs.

Potential Uses

There are many ways Global Health Impact information might be useful to policy makers, researchers, companies investors, consumers, and other people interested in global health. For some information about potential uses of the Index, see Resources andNews. Together we can leverage the Global Health Impact Index to save millions of lives.

media links:

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/01/8560712/suny-professor-indexes-pharma-companies-impact

http://blogs.wsj.com/pharmalot/2015/01/23/a-new-index-measures-impact-pharma-has-on-infectious-diseases/

On speaking out

http://www.thismess.net/2015/01/academics-say-nothing-if-you-want-job.html

Nicole on Marketplace

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/health-care/new-effort-ranks-drug-makers-impact

Obama releases philosophy from strategic reserve

President Obama authorized the Department of Education on Monday to release 100,000 counterexamples from the Strategic Philosophy Reserve (SPR). The move follows worries that the nation’s friends, family members, and acquaintances are increasingly getting away with overgeneralizations, invalid inferences, and general bullshittery. This is the first release since 2010, when Obama tapped into the SPR in a failed attempt to head off $2,000-per-year subscription rates for Springer journals.

link for rest of story



also: random generated fuzzbeed article
http://fuzzzbeed.herokuapp.com/users/ellahoward/the-10-incredible-things-philosophers-know-to-be-true

from the Graduate School

Graduate Assistantship Job Openings in the Graduate School

Please inform interested students about graduate assistantship job openings in the Graduate School. We are currently seeking qualified applicants for the following 20 hour/week positions:

• Degree Completion and Awards
• Admissions Support
• Content Manager / Writer
• IT Support Technician

For more information, visit the Graduate School Assistantships page of the Graduate School website. 



Free Course for International Teaching Assistants

The English as a Second Language (ESL) Program will continue to offer a free, non-credit course for all international teaching assistants this semester. Please encourage those teaching assistants who you feel could brush up their standard English pronunciation or use assistance with teaching skills and strategies for the North American classroom to register for the course. The course is GRD 575 and will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30am to 9:55am.

over in the Capital region

it looks like the Albanyites have coordinated their speaker schedule somewhat:

Capital District Philosophy Speakers: 2015

The Capital District of Upstate New York offers a rich harvest of philosophical talks of interest.

College of Saint Rose

Siena College

Skidmore College

State University of New York at Albany

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Union College

For information see the program at 

<https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9e_ZX5lC0PHYnk1amdieHI0ZWs/view?usp=sharing>

some links about education

just for ha-has


http://www.alternet.org/education/7-big-public-education-stories-2014?page=0%2C0


https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/01/07/no-discernible-growth-online-education-market


http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/m-night-shyamalan-steps-education-wars


http://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/31/shocker-after-pearson-aligns-ged-with-common-core-passing-rates-collapse/


http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/01/16/poverty_among_public_school_students_more_than_half_are_low_income.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/business/a-rich-childs-edge-in-public-education.html?pagewanted=all

SEO

Who in the department has an Academia.edu page? A brief survey:


Only 6 faculty members:

Ami Bar On
Eric Dietrich (actually has two; the other I assume is for BizarroEric)
Charles Goodman
Bob Guay
Tony Preus
Tony Reeves 

and 14 current graduate students:

Jake Bartholomew
Aaron Bell
John Chao (actually has two; the other is for his cat)
Shelly DuFord
Jenn Dum
Phillip Emerson
Karin Howe
Seulki Kim
Hüseyin S Kuyumcuoğlu
Gina Santiago
Richard Saucedo
Christina Warne-Friedlaender
Jess Wielgus
Blake Wilson

Awards calendar

the Grad School updated their awards calendar:

click on this to go there

this is horrible

http://www.binghamton.edu/inside/index.php/news-briefs/show/florence-margai-dies

the world is a worse place.

Interviewing at the APA

pulled from Facebook: