The Critter People

Piotr Redlinski for The New York TimesDoctoral students at the American Museum of Natural History include Edward Stanley (with lizards), Dawn Roje (with flatfish) and Phil Barden (with ants, collected by sucking on tube).

Beyond the noisy throngs marveling at the dinosaurs, the dioramas and the immense blue whale, up on the fifth floor where visitors are not allowed, the American Museum of Natural History takes on an entirely different character.

Pedro Peloso (with frog).

The neatly labeled metal lockers that line the hallway are much like the stacks of a research library, except that instead of books there are many of the museum’s millions of specimens, from ants in amber to dry-mounted birds. Signs point the way to invertebrates, entomology, ornithology. Here, it is the quiet home of the Richard Gilder Graduate School, whose 13 students are earning doctorates in the specialized field of comparative biology, teasing out what fossils from the Gobi Desert and leeches and frogs have to reveal about the evolutionary tree of life. The museum is the first in the nation accredited to offer a doctorate in its own name.

But around the country, all kinds of museums are venturing deeper into the world of education, finding new ways to use their collections in research and teacher training, and bringing in more students, in person and virtually. Many have entered into partnerships with local universities. Last year, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry introduced a master’s in science education with the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Getty Conservation Institute is in partnership with the University of California, Los Angeles, in a master’s in conservation of ethnographic and archeological materials. The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York joins with Parsons, the New School for Design, in a master’s in the history of decorative arts and design.

And it may not be long before others try to follow the Natural History Museum’s lead in offering their own degree. “We’ve had inquiries from quite a few other museums, and they’re watching what we’re doing with interest,” says John Flynn, the paleontologist who is dean of the Gilder Graduate School, in its third year and accredited since 2009. “Many museums already have a lot of what you need — the collections, the curators, the libraries, the tradition of research.”

The Museum of Natural History, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, also has built online graduate courses in science that are used, for credit, by eight colleges and universities, and this month was approved to participate in a state-financed pilot program in which it will develop and offer a master’s in teaching for earth science.

“There’s been a redefinition of the schoolhouse, as the roles of different institutions are being blurred,” says Ellen V. Futter, the president of the museum.

All told, about 100 graduate students, including visiting students from the museum’s longtime partner universities and postdoctoral fellows, roam the fifth floor. Gilder itself accepts only four or five students a year, an eclectic group of American and international scholars, some straight from college, some with master’s degrees and years of work experience as a veterinary technician or a high school biology teacher.

On a sunny morning this spring, the four first-years — and two visiting students from other New York grad schools — gathered for their “Evolution” seminar in a cozy classroom that reflects the museum’s Victorian character. It has a fireplace, bay window with window seats, and huge mounted caribou head with elaborately arching antlers. “Evolution” is one of only three required classes. (The others are “Grantsmanship, Ethics and Communications,” in which students write grant proposals — and sometimes get money — and “Systematics and Biogeography,” which deals with the relationships among species and organization of life, past and present.)

For an hour and a half, Jin Meng, a paleontology curator who team-teaches the class, talked about the morphological differences between New World and Old World monkeys, the history of the research and fossil finds, and how delicately Darwin had to approach the new concept of human evolution.

In many ways, it could have been a graduate seminar at any research university. But the Natural History Museum’s program has some real differences. It is four years instead of the usual five. And most students go on extended field trips around the globe.

Tamar Lewin is an education reporter for The Times.

View the original article here

Doctors Inc.: New for Aspiring Doctors, the People Skills Test

At Virginia Tech Carilion, the nation’s newest medical school, administrators decided against relying solely on grades, test scores and hourlong interviews to determine who got in. Instead, the school invited candidates to the admissions equivalent of speed-dating: nine brief interviews that forced candidates to show they had the social skills to navigate a health care system in which good communication has become critical.

The new process has enormous consequences not only for the lives of the applicants but, its backers hope, also for the entire health care system. It is called the multiple mini interview, or M.M.I., and its use is spreading. At least eight medical schools in the United States — including those at Stanford, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Cincinnati — and 13 in Canada are using it.

At Virginia Tech Carilion, 26 candidates showed up on a Saturday in March and stood with their backs to the doors of 26 small rooms. When a bell sounded, the applicants spun around and read a sheet of paper taped to the door that described an ethical conundrum. Two minutes later, the bell sounded again and the applicants charged into the small rooms and found an interviewer waiting. A chorus of cheerful greetings rang out, and the doors shut. The candidates had eight minutes to discuss that room’s situation. Then they moved to the next room, the next surprise conundrum and the next interviewer, who scored each applicant with a number and sometimes a brief note.

The school asked that the actual questions be kept secret, but some sample questions include whether giving patients unproven alternative remedies is ethical, whether pediatricians should support parents who want to circumcise their baby boys and whether insurance co-pays for medical visits are appropriate.

Virginia Tech Carilion administrators said they created questions that assessed how well candidates think on their feet and how willing they are to work in teams. The most important part of the interviews are often not candidates’ initial responses — there are no right or wrong answers — but how well they respond when someone disagrees with them, something that happens when working in teams.

Candidates who jump to improper conclusions, fail to listen or are overly opinionated fare poorly because such behavior undermines teams. Those who respond appropriately to the emotional tenor of the interviewer or ask for more information do well in the new admissions process because such tendencies are helpful not only with colleagues but also with patients.

“We are trying to weed out the students who look great on paper but haven’t developed the people or communication skills we think are important,” said Dr. Stephen Workman, associate dean for admissions and administration at Virginia Tech Carilion.

Dr. Charles Prober, senior associate dean at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said Stanford always valued social skills in students — particularly the ability to work collaboratively with colleagues and establish trust with patients — but did not have a reliable way of ferreting these skills out until adopting mini interviews.

The system grew out of research that found that interviewers rarely change their scores after the first five minutes, that using multiple interviewers removes random bias and that situational interviews rather than personal ones are more likely to reveal character flaws, said Dr. Harold Reiter, a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who developed the system.

In fact, candidate scores on multiple mini interviews have proved highly predictive of scores on medical licensing exams three to five years later that test doctors’ decision-making, patient interactions and cultural competency, Dr. Reiter said.

A pleasant bedside manner and an attentive ear have always been desirable traits in doctors, of course, but two trends have led school administrators to make the hunt for these qualities a priority. The first is a growing catalog of studies that pin the blame for an appalling share of preventable deaths on poor communication among doctors, patients and nurses that often results because some doctors, while technically competent, are socially inept.

View the original article here

The Critter People

Piotr Redlinski for The New York TimesDoctoral students at the American Museum of Natural History include Edward Stanley (with lizards), Dawn Roje (with flatfish) and Phil Barden (with ants, collected by sucking on tube).

Beyond the noisy throngs marveling at the dinosaurs, the dioramas and the immense blue whale, up on the fifth floor where visitors are not allowed, the American Museum of Natural History takes on an entirely different character.

Pedro Peloso (with frog).

The neatly labeled metal lockers that line the hallway are much like the stacks of a research library, except that instead of books there are many of the museum’s millions of specimens, from ants in amber to dry-mounted birds. Signs point the way to invertebrates, entomology, ornithology. Here, it is the quiet home of the Richard Gilder Graduate School, whose 13 students are earning doctorates in the specialized field of comparative biology, teasing out what fossils from the Gobi Desert and leeches and frogs have to reveal about the evolutionary tree of life. The museum is the first in the nation accredited to offer a doctorate in its own name.

But around the country, all kinds of museums are venturing deeper into the world of education, finding new ways to use their collections in research and teacher training, and bringing in more students, in person and virtually. Many have entered into partnerships with local universities. Last year, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry introduced a master’s in science education with the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Getty Conservation Institute is in partnership with the University of California, Los Angeles, in a master’s in conservation of ethnographic and archeological materials. The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York joins with Parsons, the New School for Design, in a master’s in the history of decorative arts and design.

And it may not be long before others try to follow the Natural History Museum’s lead in offering their own degree. “We’ve had inquiries from quite a few other museums, and they’re watching what we’re doing with interest,” says John Flynn, the paleontologist who is dean of the Gilder Graduate School, in its third year and accredited since 2009. “Many museums already have a lot of what you need — the collections, the curators, the libraries, the tradition of research.”

The Museum of Natural History, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, also has built online graduate courses in science that are used, for credit, by eight colleges and universities, and this month was approved to participate in a state-financed pilot program in which it will develop and offer a master’s in teaching for earth science.

“There’s been a redefinition of the schoolhouse, as the roles of different institutions are being blurred,” says Ellen V. Futter, the president of the museum.

All told, about 100 graduate students, including visiting students from the museum’s longtime partner universities and postdoctoral fellows, roam the fifth floor. Gilder itself accepts only four or five students a year, an eclectic group of American and international scholars, some straight from college, some with master’s degrees and years of work experience as a veterinary technician or a high school biology teacher.

On a sunny morning this spring, the four first-years — and two visiting students from other New York grad schools — gathered for their “Evolution” seminar in a cozy classroom that reflects the museum’s Victorian character. It has a fireplace, bay window with window seats, and huge mounted caribou head with elaborately arching antlers. “Evolution” is one of only three required classes. (The others are “Grantsmanship, Ethics and Communications,” in which students write grant proposals — and sometimes get money — and “Systematics and Biogeography,” which deals with the relationships among species and organization of life, past and present.)

For an hour and a half, Jin Meng, a paleontology curator who team-teaches the class, talked about the morphological differences between New World and Old World monkeys, the history of the research and fossil finds, and how delicately Darwin had to approach the new concept of human evolution.

In many ways, it could have been a graduate seminar at any research university. But the Natural History Museum’s program has some real differences. It is four years instead of the usual five. And most students go on extended field trips around the globe.

Tamar Lewin is an education reporter for The Times.

View the original article here

Personal Loans For People With Bad Credit - Get Approved For a Loan

Having a bankruptcy, repossession or other negative credit marks on record is not an obstacle to receiving a loan. In fact, there are many companies who specialize in personal loans for people with bad credit. These loans are available as secured or unsecured. They typically have higher interest rates and lend smaller amounts.

Unsecured

A personal loan is categorized as unsecured or secured. An unsecured note is not backed by collateral. The applicant approval is based on minimal documentation, usually no more than proof of employment and a valid checking account. Because no formal closing is necessary, the process is fast, and some companies will process the application and get the funds deposited in an individual's account in 24 hours or less. Online processing can be even faster.

Secured

A secured personal loan can be more complicated. The borrower needs assets equivalent to or in excess of the sum being borrowed. Examples are a home or other real property, a business or a car. Homes and property with equity are eligible for home equity lines of credit, also known as a heloc. The borrower is taking a line of credit for a portion of the equity value in their home, up to the maximum value. In some cases, lenders will allow homeowners to exceed the value. These loans generally have lower interest rates and are similar to a revolving credit line.

A title note is based on the value of the individual's automobile. For a car owner with bad credit, this is one way of getting personal loans with equal risk and reward. Title loans are a relatively quick process, but if payments are missed, the vehicle will be repossessed.

Payday

Other options for personal loans for people with bad credit are payday lenders. The payday lending industry has a reputation for charging high annual interest rates on small sums of money, but with regulation in more than 30 states, this has become a viable resource for those in desperate need. In regulated states, annual fees are capped off at a percentage that varies from state to state.

This note is the easiest to obtain, quickest to process and also has the shortest terms. The payback due date is the next paycheck, typically 14 days. Borrowers can extend the terms to 30 or 31 days, but additional charges usually apply.

To qualify for any type of note, the individual should, at minimum, have a steady job, a valid checking account, proof of citizenship, a phone number and a valid address.

Having bad credit can really stop you from getting the loan you need but sometimes that loan is necessary. To get a guaranteed loan no matter how bad your credit is click here.

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For People With Bad Credit: Loans From Non-Traditional Lenders Provide an Alternative Solution

During financially trying times, more and more people will find themselves in a situation where they're forced to make multiple credit loans. As a result, they end up falling into several debts which results into a history of bad credit.

Because of this bad credit, future loans become much harder to come by for these people, as they become blacklisted by money lending offices and organizations. The rising number of people with bad or less-than-perfect credit has also created a niche market for non-traditional lenders specifically in the business of serving the kinds of people more conventional lenders, such as banks, would normally avoid.

While this is certainly good news for anyone with less-than-perfect credit loans, this also makes it all the more important for a borrower to weigh his options carefully, since loan providers have different policies and requirements for anybody looking to borrow money.

Some providers may use a client's credit score to help determine the rates to charge, and the exact amount they are willing to lend. Other lenders may also require collateral, or may charge multiple fees in exchange for the loan. The bottom line is that it's important for the borrower do his own research diligently to ensure that he finds a credible provider whose loaning methods best suit his financial situation, and are able to offer a reasonable loan.

Bad credit loans are only one of many alternatives to traditional loans to help people get out of a financial jam. With the help of these alternative loaning methods, one can gradually bring himself out of previously incurred debts, and redeem his credit standing.

Hence, debt management is still a crucial practice when managing alternative loans. The key to managing loans, whether traditional or non-traditional, is to diligently make payments on time. Aside from ensuring that the borrower does not end up with more debts, this practice ensures that he does not suffer from the interest rates that most loans require for late payments.

Another method of making credit loans more manageable is for the borrower to work with a lender that offers reasonable rates and flexible payment terms to make debt consolidation faster and easier to complete. It also helps if the lender remains transparent with their data, as it helps the client keep track of their cash flow. Thanks to a lender's transparency paired with flexible payment terms, a debtor is less likely to use their money haphazardly.

Resource Box:

KwikCash accommodates personal loan applications from people with less than perfect credit. Loans are fast and easy, some of them approved and credited in 24 to 48 hours. Learn more at KwikCashOnline.com or call 1-800-478-6230 for more information.

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