At 17:16 -0400 14/04/08, Job M. van Zuijlen wrote:
I was not going to react to this, but since this is now becoming a
very public discussion, I feel compelled. Nothing in the
qualifications of the person involved as provided in Andy Way's
email would necessarily make him ineligible as far as I can see,
and, moreover that is not the issue. I'm sure he behaved improper
in his response, but I think we have to be careful in making this a
vendetta against one person. I've had my share of abusive behavior
from NLP employers, but never felt the need to make those events
public.
As far is age goes, that remark sounds like age discrimination to
me. But maybe things are different in Europe nowadays, since I left.
In most countries, there are age limits for PhD *grants*. In France,
that limit is 26. 39 is way over. You may find this discriminative,
but not putting such a limit mith also be seen as discriminative --
against the younger would-be researchers in a situation to make their
whole carrier in research.
On the other hand, nothing (at least in France) prevents anybody to
get hired in a lab on a research contract and get support for a PhD
this way. Or to work in any company and do his PhD "on the side". I
have recent and ancient experience of both situations in my lab, with
people over 40.
The point is that Andy got out of his way to warn us about that person.
My remark is that, anyway, considering what he choose to tell us
about that person, there would not be a big risk of any "usual" lab
offering a PhD grant to that person. No big harm in this remark, or
is there?
Perhaps, after all: I may be wrong there, and, ma foi, Job, I would
certainly not discourage you to give a PhD grant to that person.
On the other hand, would it be discriminative or not to give him or
not to give him a grant...? ;-)
Job van Zuijlen
Christian Boitet
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Christian Boitet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 11:05
To: "Andy Way" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]>
Cc: "Mosleh Al-Adaileh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "daoud"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Daoud Maher Daoud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Mt-list] Rogue student's answer (PhD application)
Dear Andy, 14/4/08
"Je compatis" with you, as it is always shocking to receive abusive
responses.
On top of that, the profile of that person and his age would not
qulify him for a PhD grant in MT anywhere (neither in CS nor in CL
nor in linguistics nor in translation).
I happen to know a few researchers in Jordan, but not his one.
I relay this to two of them, wo did good research in MT, for
further enquiring.
Best regards,
Xan
(Ch.Boitet)
At 10:00 +0100 14/04/08, Andy Way wrote:
Folks,
As you know, I've recently advertised for a number of PhD positions in
MT in our group at DCU. I'm pleased to say that all positions are now
filled.
Accordingly, on Friday morning last week, I contacted all unsuccessful
applicants informing them of my decision. This was the usual type of
message thanking them for their interest in the positions, and wishing
them well in their future academic careers.
I regret to say that I received an abusive response to this mail from
one applicant, and I think it is worth passing on his details in case he
applies for any other MT-related position.
His name is Ammar Hussein, using the email address [EMAIL PROTECTED],
and in his application to me, he stated the following:
I am a Jordanian citizen, 39 years old. I hold a master's degree
in computer science with a very good average and bachelor's
degree with excellent average. I wish to inquire if it is
possible for students from outside the European union to apply
for the scholarships for PhD studies in machine translation. I
have several years of work experience in the computer field as
well as a couple as a translator. The work I undertook included
feeding machine translation software for a company called Apptek
(www.apptek.com). Needless to say I am interested in the work of
machine translation especially as pertaining to Arabic.
I wouldn't normally do this, but then again, I've never received such a
defamatory response to what was in my opinion just common courtesy. I
know that many other leading MT groups have more money than student
applicants, and it's important to make the community aware of such rogue
students for the common good.
Andy.
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