An interesting interview with A/Prof Tony Masters in Chemistry. He is the first pure scientist I have interviewed, and I really valued his reflective and reflexive opinions. Really good stuff.
Thinking about interviewing Prof Michael Jacobsen after his defence of the US PhD.
And still have to line up interviews with Derek and Jill Trewhalla. Nearly ready to make a list of questions for them.
Have also critiqued the PhD WP draft report, which was a pedagogical black hole and very poor on evidence.
I'm not sure that there's that much more I can usefully learn about the way the PhD is understood at Sydney at the moment. One thing that's clear is the tension between the rationalists (ie those who are interested in improving the mangement of the process, because they believe (generally without any evidence) that that will somehow (magically?) improve the experience for the students, and those who are more reflective and want to improve the student experience by trying to find out more about what that experience actually is and what is presently lacking in it.
