Monday, September 20, 2021

Putting Worker Safety a Top Priority in Buildings

When it comes to pre-assembled items, you can't defeat the security and ease of upreared steel steps and barriers. These frameworks are made with a single piece of steel that is welded with each other by experts to form a secure installation website for your new job!

Steel stairs and barriers aren't the only premade items that maintain installation sites risk-free. Any item can be made with these same benefits when you collaborate with a group of specialists that know where to resource top-notch materials like metal stairs!

Although steel stair jobs are faster than traditional construction tasks, they include a lot of advantages. That's since steel staircase installment sites don't have to worry about the standard risks of structure from scratch like climate hold-ups or malfunctioning products! For several company owners, metal barriers are a crucial part of their layout procedure for commercial facilities. Steel stairs and steel railings feature several benefits contrasted to various other products like wood or fiberglass.

Using metal for a metal stairway barrier or steel stairway installation is much more cost-effective and lasting. Making use of steel in staircases makes them robust, resilient, as well as resilient. They do not end up being compromised by dramatic ecological modifications, and also, unlike wood, they will not be destroyed by termites. However, to deal with steel corrosion, an alloy is generally purchased to be both of those things. Steel stairways can deal with more weights than timber actions, which enables even more creative styles.

Metal stairs are incredibly functional, which means people can use them on any industrial facility, from restaurants to hotels! Metal barriers go particularly well with commercial buildings given that it adds an upscale check-out low costs. For example, steel stair railings are attended to be a lot more appealing than steel stairs since they can be personalized with elegant shapes and layouts, which removes the need for extra interior decoration.

Also, if a person is using one side of the stairwell, or perhaps if you are holding something in the other hand, you ought to never endanger safety. Despite the situation, you have an included level of protection with steel staircase railings on both sides. This is since steel railings are not just a lot more reliable but also supply the needed assistance that will maintain you risk-free.

When it pertains to metal stairs and steel stairway barrier systems, there are many alternatives of services offered for you to get precisely what best suits your requirements.

Monday, April 11, 2005

The Game's Done

The following is a reprint of a post I published in 2003. I thought it was the most fitting post to leave up as the last one on this blog. Thank you to all my regular readers. The game's now over. Nobody won. If you scroll to the very bottom of this page, you can read "a final word."

Code of Conduct
Here's a second (revised) attempt at a code of conduct, with thanks to those folks who provided commentary on the initial version. As usual, comments very welcome and necessary. If you have a long comment to make, you might find it easier to post to the discussion board rather than to the comment boxes, where comment length is limited.

Professors in Teaching or Research: Code of Conduct

In the following draft, "professors" means as anyone conducting research or providing instruction at a post-secondary institution.

1. Professors will establish as their first interest the well-being and human dignity of their students and all people within the scope of their professional authority.

2. Professors will never take credit for work that has not been done by them. All thesis and dissertation work will be considered as performed exclusively by the student, even if that work becomes published. Whenever "first author" status is important in a discipline, students will be listed as first author on all publications arising from their thesis and dissertation research. Co-authorship should not be granted to thesis or dissertation supervisors unless the subsequent publication clearly goes beyond the scope of the students' thesis or dissertation research.

3. Professors will perform teaching and research with social responsibility and in accordance with the laws of the land.

4. Professors will not abuse their power or authority over others for any reason and in any circumstance.

5. Professors will not use deception in their teaching and research, unless specifically authorized to do so by a qualified and recognized university or college ethics board for a particular project and for a limited period of time.

6. Professors will never require or give academic credit for student participation in research studies.

7. Professors will uphold academic freedom as well as freedom of speech for colleagues, contingent faculty, and students at all levels.

8. Professors never will use threats, intimidation, coercion, or any other form of harassment toward a colleague, student, or any other person under the scope of their professional authority.

9. Professors will teach students in a manner that allows for open thought and sharing of ideas in the classroom. Ideological and political biases of a professor should not be used as measuring sticks for the quality of any student's work.

10. Professors will make every effort to do no harm to those more vulnerable to them in an academic setting, including, but not limited to, students, contingent faculty, and non-academic staff.

11. Professors will take all reasonable care to limit danger of death, injury, or ill health to all persons as a result of their work and/or the products/outcomes of their work.

12. Professors will maintain and develop their professional competence as well as encourage people under their supervision to do the same.

13. Professors will not take upon themselves any professional duty, task, or responsibilities that they do not believe themselves competent to perform.

14. Professors will accept personal responsibility for work done by them or under their supervision. They will take all reasonable steps to ensure that people working under their supervision are prepared and competent to carry out the tasks or duties assigned to them.

15. Professors who are asked to give an opinion in their professional capacity will, to the best of their ability, give an opinion that is not tainted by vested interest or personal bias and that is based upon the best available information.

16. Professors will inform their department head, dean, and other affected parties in writing of any actual or potential conflict of interest that might exist or arise between their personal interests and the interests of their students, employer, or others under the scope of the professors' professional authority.

17. Professors will not disclose any confidential information about their students or others within the scope of the professors' professional authority unless authorized to do so in writing by the concerned party or by exigent circumstances under the law.

18. Professors will not, without written employer consent, accept any payment, personal gain, or benefit from any organization or person other than their employer in connection with professional services rendered to the employer or supported by facilities and resources of the employer.

19. Professors convicted of a criminal offence anywhere in the world will inform their employer promptly.

20. Professors will not use designations or post-nominal letters to which they are not entitled and will never misrepresent their professional qualifications or credentials.

21. Professors will refrain from engaging in sexual affairs with their students, colleagues in their particular academic department, or others under the scope of their professional authority.

22. Professors will act transparently regarding the interests of their students and others under the scope of their professional authority, providing rationale for their decisions and actions. This includes rationale and guidelines for student grading and other forms of evaluation, which should be distributed at the same time school work or duties are assigned.

23. Professors will reject all forms of bribery or inappropriate gifting.

24. Professors will be open to honest and genuine criticism of their work.

25. Professors will not engage in personal vendettas of any kind against colleagues, students, or others within the scope of their professional authority.

26. Professors will provide some professional expertise toward the benefit of persons in their local community every year without receiving any form of monetary or other compensation.

27. Professors will avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by negligent or malicious actions, reports, votes, or statements.

28. Professors will support the principle of "fair wages for equal qualifications and equivalent work" for academic and non-academic employees who work in academic settings. Accordingly, professors will make every effort to not participate in, arrange, vote for, or condone exploitation of academic or non-academic laborers in academic places of employment.

29. Professors will act as role models and mentors for their students at all levels and, whenever possible, will act with integrity and without abusing power, authority, or privilege in arranging or supporting student recommendations, access to resources, scholarships, and merit-based awards.

30. Professors will not allow personal likes and dislikes, political memberships, or religious beliefs to interfere with the fair evaluation of others' work.

Adapted, in part, from the Institution of Electrical Engineers Code of Ethics and Rules of Conduct.

Academia's not the only game in town.

Sunday, October 05, 2003

Previous Quotations

"The only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"Ditto for women." - Academy Girl

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"The conception of worth, that each person is an end per se, is not a mere abstraction. Our interest in it is not merely academic. Every outcry against the oppression of some people by other people, or against what is morally hideous is the affirmation of the principle that a human being as such is not to be violated. A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered." - Felix Adler, From An Ethical Philosophy of Life

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."
- Oscar Wilde

". . . it takes an academic to completely strip all sense of relevance from the events which constitute our daily reality."
- Sigh of Dismay...posted to Colloquy

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
- Mahatma Gandhi

"The cynics are right nine times out of ten"
- Henry Mencken

"Academicians already have a reputation for engaging in discussions that lack any sort of common sense."
- Stuart Rojstaczer, posted to Colloquy, October 21, 2003

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
- Thomas Edison

"...there are some ideas so stupid only an academic could believe them."
-Anonymous, posted to Colloquy (Oct 20, 2003)

"Always do right. This will gratify some and astonish the rest."
- Mark Twain

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

"...in academia, real thought requires pseudonyms."
- Academy Girl

"There is a certain satisfaction in living a life in complete and total failure."
- svijayak

"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You know, I've been running since I was born, and I was
just wondering...when can I stop and put my feet up?"
- Academy Sis

"Things do not change; we change."
- Henry David Thoreau

"Government programs are based on political realities, not on long-term visionary thinking."
- Lu Carbyn

"Gracious condescension is far more powerful than back- or front stabbing -- because it makes your opponent feel guilty."
- Ms. Mentor (*nasty*)

"The executive suites at numerous universities are occupied by individuals who, if the word got out, would have to hide in spider holes rather than sip sherry in panelled common rooms."
- Stephen Karlson

"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now."
- Martin Luther King Jr.

"Rather than fostering intellectual diversity ... our colleges and universities are increasingly bastions of political correctness hostile to free exchange of ideas."
- Anne Neal, President of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni

"If your local university is excellent, then so are its graduates. Hire them."
- Academy Girl on Tips for University Reform

"The system exploits idealistic, financially naive students, and it seems to do so quite consciously."
- Rose on Tips for Reform

"To give my shoulder to a crying student would be such an act of catharsis that I might cry myself."
- Thomas Benton

"He who sells his product for a lower price know what it's worth."
- Stephen Karlson

"tenure . . . just show up for class and office hours, and try not to get a DUI."
-John Bruce

"Wolves look at dogs as lunch, not lovers."
- Jim Kenyon, as quoted by Lu Carbyn

"The grief that pressed my aching breast/Was heavier far than earth can be"
- Emily Bronte, At Castle Wood

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."
- Tom Clancy

"Folks, if your students aren't mature enough to resist 'indoctrination,' then they're not old enough for you to play doctor with them."
- The Little Professor

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
- Sir Winston Churchill

"Today is the first day of the rest of my life."
- Academy Girl

"True academics rarely tolerate sedition."
- Academy Girl

Academia's not the only game in town.

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Welcome to the Academic Game Blog

I created this blog because, after spending a considerable portion of my life and career in academia, I've realized that it's not working -- not for most of the students and not for most of the faculty.

In 1996, Professor Emeritus Kekes at SUNY Albany published an article in The Monist entitled "Academic Corruption." This phrase sounds kind of bombastic, doesn't it -- corruption, like it was some kind of underworld. But actually, it kind of is.

Academia is at the heart of the North American system. Universities and colleges all over the United States and Canada are set up to shape young minds and nourish new ideas.

If you believe this, then, honestly, how could you be so naive?

Colleges and universities are about Money and Power. I'm not really very interested in promoting an "academics are big evil tyrants" stance. If truth be told, many academics are SMALL, evil tyrants. Small-minded people with small ethics combined with a big dose of self-interest and ego-mania.

All joking aside now (was I joking?), serious problems exist with our public education systems in the United States and in Canada. Kekes wrote about how the peer evaluation system is biased and corrupted throughout academia, including the teaching, research, and hiring aspects of academia. Cronyism, mutual back scratching, friendships, sexual affairs, marriages -- all of these affect who gets to teach and how students are taught, who gets to be students, who passes, and who fails.

In turn, it affects what gets studied and what we learn. Peer evaluation means . . . does the person being evaluated agree with what I believe . . . will this person vote for me to be chair next year . . . can I get my patent faster if we ditch this faculty member . . . do I like this person . . . if I give this grant application a good review, will they give me a good review next year . . . . Peer evaluation means a lot of things, but it is definitely not unbiased and definitely not free from self-interest and self-promotion.

Universities have other kinds of problems too, like why, on some campuses, do 50% of engineering students flunk out in first year? Why, knowing this is going to happen, do universities allow these students to enter and then TAKE THEIR MONEY!?! Why not have a "satisfaction or your money refunded guarantee"? I know this sounds consumerist, but that's what campuses are like now-a-days -- consumerist.

Why, on some campuses, are 40-60% of the faculty underpaid, overworked slaves -- Masters and PhD-level faculty who are refused tenure but then "invited" to teach at much lower rates of pay so that the university can make more money by accepting more students -- while, at the same time, ripping off its part-time faculty of decent wages so that tenured profs can make more money and teach mostly small, upper-level and graduate classes -- oh, of course, and do research on a topic of their own choosing, whether or not the world actually cares about what they're studying?

Yup, lots of problems, alright. And these are just the tip of the ice-berg.

Who gets to study, who gets to teach, whose opinions are blocked, who is underpaid -- this is the wide-open side of academia. Write to me and tell me about your academic experience. On this blog, I'll publish quotations from your e-mails and reflections on what people send to me, but I can't publish people's names or institution names . . . you know why.

A few topic possibilities . . .

grad school pressures and supervisors

the life of a new academic

contract work in academia

academic faculty associations that hurt instead of help

cronyism

the "justice" of merit increments

grant awards -- who gets them, who doesn't

I have so many stories to share with you, but I'll let you share first and then elaborate as we go along.

If nobody shares . . . then, alas, you'll only get to hear all my war stories . . . over and over again.

A final word:

Nearly two years after starting this blog, I'll tell you what my battle cry was (from the "war stories" link above):

Skulking on the fields, clutching a thorned whip, cometh Academy Girl! And she gives a gutteral cry: "I'm going to redefine your concept of 'playing hardball with the big boys'!!"

I don't know if I did that or not, but, after two years of discussing university reform on academicgame, I don't want to play with the big boys anymore. There are a few people I'd like to thank, fellow bloggers whose blogs I will keep reading and whose perspective I have come to value. In thanking them, of course, I want to make it clear that they in no way actually know me or even support this blog in anyway. Nevertheless, as I leave this blog, I'd like to tip my hat to Stephen Karlson over at Cold Spring Shops, Milt Rosenberg at Milt's File, Jay Rosen at PressThink, Rana at Frogs and Ravens, wolfangel at A Wolfangel is not a Good Angel, David Foster at Photon Courier, and the Invisible Adjunct, wherever you are. To the many readers, e-mailers, and commenters who kept up with this blog, my sincere thanks to all.

I wish you well, and remember, academia's not the only game in town.