Eureka!

A Call for Compassion

EUREKA

new findings and research

NOTES

Musicologist William Cheng seeks to humanize the humanities.

The ivory tower is increasingly a dog-eat-dog world for scholars who must compete for publication credits, academic prestige and professional advancement toward the holy grail of tenure. Academia’s hallowed halls, however, need not be so cutthroat, argues assistant professor of music William Cheng in Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good (University of Michigan Press, 2016).

“The book advocates for a practice of musicology that places care, empathy and compassion at the core—rather than at the extracurricular fringes—of daily pursuits,” says Cheng, who notes that the original idea for Just Vibrations developed out of his experiences with severe chronic pain and subsequent interest in care-oriented scholarship.

“Just Vibrations holds a mirror up to musicology and other humanities disciplines,” writes preeminent music scholar Susan McClary in the book’s foreword. “[Cheng] challenges us to infuse the humanities with the ideals we profess to uphold.”

It might seem odd for a book that examines academic labor to come from a professor of musicology, a discipline traditionally associated with the history and analysis of European classical music. Cheng argues that musicologists, who cultivate sensitive listening practices as a key part of their professional training, are in an ideal position to explore empathy in the academy. “Musicians and musicologists are extremely proficient at demonstrating care toward music: We cherish beautiful notes, their meanings, the things they let us feel and say,” says Cheng. “All I’m suggesting is that we channel more of this attentive devotion toward colleagues and strangers as well.”

Cheng’s “modest plea for care-oriented scholarship,” as he describes it, was named a 2016 Book of the Year by Times Higher Education. It has also provoked fierce opposition from certain members of the academic community who have taken issue with the book’s nontraditional focus on the “soft” subjects of care and compassion. “A message that deviates from music appreciation can come across, to some ears, as outright threatening,” responds Cheng. “I didn’t think that my work was saying anything that’s never been said before. I think it’s just an accessible and personalized work that, thankfully, has spoken to some readers.” —James Napoli

James Napoli

D+

Grade assigned to sea ice cover by engineering professor Donald Perovich, lead author of the sea ice section in the 2016 Arctic Report Card

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

“We live in a world where going to college has always been a risky proposition, but now it seems riskier than it’s ever been.”

—assistant professor of sociology Jason Houle, commenting on a study he published in the journal Sociology of Education that linked student debt, college completion rates and racial identity to the growing number of young adults who “boomerang” back home to live with parents

New Boundaries

Commuter travel reveals megaregions.

The ability to precisely demarcate megaregions—dense networks of interconnected cities linked by shared infrastructure, topography, culture and economy—has largely eluded researchers. Until now. Starting with the premise that daily commutes reflect megaregion cohesiveness, postdoctoral fellow in geography Garrett Nelson and his research partner used information from the 2006-10 American Community Survey to visualize the daily travel patterns of 130 million commuters across the United States. The researchers then identified the strongest of these commuter links by applying an algorithm developed at MIT’s Senseable City Lab. The combined datasets resulted in a hybridized map that marks the boundaries of America’s top 50 megaregions, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Flouston, Chicago and the New York metro area. Nelson hopes the findings can provide policymakers and urban planners with a clearer picture of the country’s economic geography.

Melting Pot Economy

Foreign workers boost innovation.

»> Immigrants are taking high-paying jobs from American workers—and that’s good news for the U.S. economy, according to Matthew Slaughter, dean of the Tuck School of Business.

In a working paper recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Slaughter and his coauthor argue against popular claims that domestic workers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupations are being replaced with cheaper foreign-born labor. “In the data, what catches the eye is the strong and rising presence of foreignborn master’s and doctorate-degree holders in STEM fields whose training, occupational status and earnings put them in the highest rungs of the U.S. skill and wage distributions,” they write. Further, they note, immigrant STEM workers may play a key role in advancing technological and scientific innovation: “The success of Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft seems to depend, at least partially, on the ability of the U.S. economy to import talent from abroad.”