[-empyre-] transdisciplinarity and transnetworks

[nicholas knouf]

I just want to add that in addition to the sectors mentioned below,
engineering students, both undergraduate and graduate, are also highly
prized by financial firms; their jobs are to develop and implement the
complicated financial instruments that were one major component of the
recent collapse in the financial markets.  Again, such practices are not
questioned amongst most students and faculty; it's "simply" a "job".

nick



nicholas knouf wrote:
> christopher sullivan wrote:
>>       Tactical Media, does raise question for me in terms of how deeply ones
>> students should be involved in faculty work, political or otherwise. Don't know
>> where I stand, but it is often problematic to me. My best wishes for everyone
>> who is in legal danger from this situation. Chris.
> 
> This cuts many ways, however.  In my program, Information Science,
> students are encouraged by their advisors to work for companies like
> Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, and others.  They're encouraged to
> work with datasets from these companies that require them to sign
> non-disclosure agreements.  They're encouraged to develop iPhone
> applications that they are then encouraged to develop into startups.
> 
> And up the street, on the Engineering quad, students are encouraged to
> work on DARPA challenges, to work with professors involved in DoD
> cyber-security initiatives, to take all manner of Defense Department
> monies without question...it's just money, right?
> 
> While I think Christopher raises an interesting point, which is what is
> the nature of the pedagogical relationship that would make the
> involvement of students consensual and not based on the pre-existing
> power relationship between professor and student (and understanding the
> fluidity of those distinctions), I think the coercive (in terms of
> personal and structural factors) elements within engineering culture in
> general are much more heinous.
> 
> nick
> 
> 
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