a ‘little job’ for the weekend

Well, here I am in Palmerston North, in order to run a Scholarship Biology preparation day tomorrow (for want sounds like being a large crowd). The trip across the Desert Road was amazing: I simply wasn’t expecting to see so much snow 🙂 If it hadn’t been a tad damp – with little snow flurries near the summit – I might even have stopped for a litle wander through the white stuff.

Anyway, I’ve brought a couple of ‘little jobs’ along with me. One of them is looking through the nominations for the Kudos awards, as I’m one of the judges this year. These are annual Waikato awards recognizing significant achievements in various fields of science: things like environmental science, life-time achievement in the sciences, science entrepreneur, & so on. And my own field: science communicator/educator. (There are a number of interesting nominations & it looks like determining a winner will be quite a difficult task – but pleasant – task.)

And I’m driven to wonder why it’s so hard to get people to put their hands up (you can self-nominate), or allow others to nominate them. Marcus has asked the same thing previously, in regard to teaching excellence awards. OK, part of it is workloads, & pressure of time: you have to put together a portfolio & a CV. (Been there, done that, & yes, it can be a bit of a drain when you’ve got so much to do.) And there is a certain amount of reticence, I think, & unwillingness to blow one’s own trumpet & put oneself forward.

But what a great opportunity to show publicly that we value science, &scientists, & that achievements in this area are just as worthy of recognition as those in sports, say, or business. To reward people for maybe being a bit geeky, for a change! So, if next year you get shoulder-tapped for the Kudos – why not go for it? Don’t be reluctant to let your light shine, &maybe inspire some of the next generation of scientists 🙂

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