NSF reviewers can bite me. As some of you may know I applied for an NSF dissertation improvement grant a little while ago. I received notification from the project director (John Yellen) that I would not be receiving funds. Yellen was way cool and offered to discuss any of the reviews I wanted to go over. Seems like a helpful guy. One of the reviews was “Very Good”, the other two reviews were “Fair”. By the NSF rules if you have even one “fair” you’re out. The two reviewers who gave me fair had some good points. Basically they both said that I need to discuss my specific hypotheses more and my methodology. Which is fine. I had kept me proposal kinda general because I wasn’t sure exactly what they wanted. Both “fair” reviewers said they would like to see my project funded, I just have to make those changes. Fortunately, you can re-apply when ever you want with the dissertation grant. So I’ll be fixing the problems and sending it back in….hopefully in a month or two. They were fast at reviewing it, only a month. So for any of you who will be applying for an NSG Dissertation Improvement Grant, there is a lesson for you. When I rewrite and get accepted (which I will!) if any of you are interested in getting a copy so you can see the format and what they are looking for just let me know. Or if you have questions about the process....because “Fastlane” was freaking confusing at first.
As some of you may know, on the side I’m interested in the “Curation Crisis” (the YAR will live one day!). Lately, I’ve been curious as to the percentage of MA’s or PhD’s that are completed using new archaeological data vs. those based on curated collections. I’ve been sending out a survey to archaeology faculty all over the country to help get this info. I’m hoping to write up a little article on it. My main bone to pick right now is that professors don’t really push collections at the MA level. I mean many suggest it, but I think departments should make a concerted effort to have their MA’s use unanalyzed collections. This would really help with getting this information off of the dusty useless shelves and into the literature. Yeah for Cady. So if you overhear any of the faculty at your school saying “Did you get this damned survey from some kid named Yoder at UNLV?!”, politely suggest that completion of the survey shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes and the gods of archaeology will bless them with cosmic karma. May all the weather on your excavations be 65 degrees with sunny skies.
2 comments:
Dave,
Joel's been pushing me to do something with the PVAP projectile points...I'll probably rebel, but there it is. Proof positive that he is trying to get others to work on an existing collection.
Cady, what were you going down to Escalante for?
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