One good thing to do in these types of discussions is to start by reading the mission statement (http://software-carpentry.org/scf/) and reflecting on how personal opinions mesh or do not mesh with the mission statement. For example, I couldn't find anything in the mission statement that excludes researchers from corporations in our workshops.
Some thoughts below: Jason moorepants.info +01 530-601-9791 On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 11:35 AM, Greg Wilson < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > A couple of people have mailed me about this directly as well, so here's > my thinking: > > 1. Some people have objected because they dislike Monsanto's business > practices and/or GMOs in general. However, we have instructors who won't > teach at the US national labs because of their involvement in the nuclear > weapons program, others who won't teach at Catholic-affiliated institutions > because of their record of covering up child abuse, and others still who > think that we should have gotten off GitHub last year because of their > treatment of Julie Ann Horvath. I have (very strong) personal feelings > about some of these issues, but everyone slices them differently, and I > respect everyone's right to choose what they do or don't volunteer for. > The organization should have some principles in place. For example, few people in the organization would would likely support training ISIS in data science to further their work (if they have any researchers). So some stance should be made in general in bylaws, but this stance would hopefully be broad and reflect the consensus of the group. If that is in place, then people who adamantly disagree with training Monsanto researchers, for example, can simply avoid volunteering as an instructor for groups that don't mesh with their beliefs. > > 2. Other people have said that corporations should be charged market > rates. I'm all in favor of bringing in more money (after all, that's what > pays my salary) but what about Harvard? They're sitting on a $29 billion > endowment - should we charge them what we charge the Fortune 500? How > about small companies: do we ask a start-up less than we ask Monsanto? > We've already started down this road by not charging admin fees for > workshops in less affluent countries; should the subcommittee that the > executive is putting together to regularize fee waivers look at charging > market rates for companies, affluent institutions, or some other group? > Very good point. Even though universities have big budgets (some as big as Fortune 500 companies) they generally are non-profit and have very different missions than corporations. For me it is easy to sympathize with a graduate students' plight because I've been there working for pennies myself. But it's hard to sympathize training a whole group of corporate researchers that make way more money that you and aren't even willing to pay you to teach them. Some instructors may be fine with that, but others may not. > > 3. I take Stephen's point about having a lot more companies knock on our > door if word gets out that we can provide high-quality training at low > cost, but I actually think that's a good thing. Many of our instructors > are considering careers outside academia, and I'd be pleased if we could > help them make connections. > The connections made are valuable to volunteers but it doesn't necessarily put food on the table (now or in the future). Our trainings hold value to the parties we serve. Most of the time these are self-interested graduate students that are slogging through their grad work with little pay (i.e. you are teaching people that are in your same shoes). > > This one's likely to generate a long thread, but it's an important topic - > I look forward to hearing more about what you think. > > Thanks, > Greg > > > On 2015-03-04 1:12 PM, Daniel Chen wrote: > > I agree, a discussion is definitely warranted. > > Iterating off of Jason's e-mail: many services offer academic and > corporate pricing tiers. This could be something we do? > > > > > > On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 1:05 PM, Turner, Stephen D. (sdt5z) < > [email protected]> wrote: > >> I'll second the apprehension about providing free labor to corporations >> who can very easily pay for it. And I wouldn't blow this off as a one-off >> thing, a "let's just do it this time and figure it out later if it becomes >> a problem" -kind of thing. When word gets out that we're providing training >> worth big money for free to any corporation who asks for it, I'd imagine >> we'll have lots more Monsantos knocking at our door (and not just global >> multibillion dollar corps). I'd suggest some serious discussion amongst the >> steering committee and everyone else on this list about what a policy >> should look like. >> >> Stephen >> >> ----------------------------------------- >> Stephen D. Turner, Ph.D. >> Bioinformatics Core Director >> University of Virginia School of Medicine >> bioinformatics.virginia.edu >> >> >> >> On Mar 4, 2015, at 12:25 PM, Jason Moore <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> This is the first time I've noticed one of the workshops for a >> billion dollar corporation. What is SWC's policy on providing volunteer >> labor for corporations? I can get behind helping grad students at >> universities for free, but this seems very different. Corporate training is >> big money. For example, my girlfriend's place of business just paid $20k >> for a lousy two day workshop a couple weeks ago. Seems like this kind of >> thing would be ideal to do to fund SWC's more altruistic goals, but I'm not >> sure that having volunteers teaching it is necessarily what everyone has in >> mind. Not to mention, Monsanto isn't the most liked of companies. I'd >> potentially feel ok volunteering for corporate training if I knew it meant >> a strong pay off to our non-profit. >> >> That's just a thought. Sounds like something worthy of a board >> discussion if it hasn't happened yet. At the last non-profit I worked at, >> these topics certainly kept us at the meeting longer than we'd wished. >> >> >> Jason >> moorepants.info >> +01 530-601-9791 >> >> On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 6:43 AM, Greg Wilson < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Hi everyone, >>> >>> We've been approached by Monsanto to run two or even three workshops >>> side by side on April 20-21 in St Louis. They're looking for instructors >>> with backgrounds in stats, genomics/bioinformatics, or both - if you're >>> interested and available, please add yourself to >>> https://swcarpentry.etherpad.mozilla.org/instructors-US. They have a >>> lot of scientists who need our skills, so I'm hopeful that a good first >>> showing will lead to repeat business... >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Greg >>> >>> -- >>> Dr. Greg Wilson | [email protected] >>> Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Instructors mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> >>> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/instructors_lists.software-carpentry.org >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> >> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> >> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing > [email protected]http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org > > > -- > Dr. Greg Wilson | [email protected] > Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >
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