Wipers On and Looking Back
Massachusetts has a new law: if your wipers are on, your head and taillights also need to be on. It's a safety issue. I like it. I hear that some Massachusetts lawmakers want to repeal it. But, I digress, as I often do when blogging.
It's a new law in Massachusetts, but Maine has had this law since 1997. I know, because I did a research project on this law during my first semester of graduate school. That was fall of 1997. I completed an assignment for a research class on this new law. I was interested in how people know if a new law has been passed. This was before widespread use of the Internet and unlike now, there were no electronic signs along the highways. How would people learn about this law?
I conducted a project in which I assessed the extent to which Mainers were compliant with the law. On five or six days when it rained, I parked on several different roads in Saco and Biddeford and among cars with Maine plates, when the wipers were engaged, I recorded whether the drivers had turned on their lights. I also noted the gender of the driver and whether the vehicle was foreign or domestic. I had no hypotheses. This is what is called exploratory research. I actually love exploratory research and this was some of the first that I conducted on my own.
This memory and reflecting on this new law, dovetails with another recent event: the death of Michael Stone. Michael was the professor who taught that research class. He was also the professor who taught the dissertation seminar the year that I took it - spring of 2000. He died in a drowning accident off the coast of Hawaii when he was traveling in March, just a few weeks ago.
Michael Stone was a brilliant man, a Princeton University-educated astrophysicist, who, in the midst of writing his dissertation discovered social issues. After the completion of his degree, he turned his attention to housing policy and developed the concept of "shelter poverty" - a kind of housing costs-induced poverty. Michael was a precise man, thin, with graying hair and a beard; energetic, intense, and calculated in the classroom. His questions pushed students ahead, but also held them accountable for their work. He was a man with high expectations, but who was also generous with his time. I remember talking to Michael on the phone a number of times from our home in Saco, Maine - confused and lost, Michael gently and sometimes not so gently steering me back on the path from which I had veered. When I was hired by the Department of Human Services in Maine to direct my very first, totally independent study - on the topic concerning the retention of foster parents - I remember sitting in Michael's office and laying out my planned methods. He stopped me and said, "That's what you're going to do. But, what do you want to know? Good research is always question-driven, not data-driven." Indeed, these are words to live by for any decent researcher and I have repeated this to my own students time and time again.
My life was recently connected back to Michael, as he guided my sister, Jen, through her own dissertation. I was happy to see him, to remember him, and to watch him in action. Intense. Thoughtful. Exact - with laser-like precision.
It's hard to believe that a man like Michael was taken too early because of an accident. He had recently retired and I heard that he was going to return to the study of astrophysics.
Every time I'm on I-95 in my commute to and from work, I see the electronic signs about the new wipers and headlight law, and I think of Michael. Thanks, Michael, for always steering me back.
It's a new law in Massachusetts, but Maine has had this law since 1997. I know, because I did a research project on this law during my first semester of graduate school. That was fall of 1997. I completed an assignment for a research class on this new law. I was interested in how people know if a new law has been passed. This was before widespread use of the Internet and unlike now, there were no electronic signs along the highways. How would people learn about this law?
I conducted a project in which I assessed the extent to which Mainers were compliant with the law. On five or six days when it rained, I parked on several different roads in Saco and Biddeford and among cars with Maine plates, when the wipers were engaged, I recorded whether the drivers had turned on their lights. I also noted the gender of the driver and whether the vehicle was foreign or domestic. I had no hypotheses. This is what is called exploratory research. I actually love exploratory research and this was some of the first that I conducted on my own.
This memory and reflecting on this new law, dovetails with another recent event: the death of Michael Stone. Michael was the professor who taught that research class. He was also the professor who taught the dissertation seminar the year that I took it - spring of 2000. He died in a drowning accident off the coast of Hawaii when he was traveling in March, just a few weeks ago.
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| Michael Stone |
Michael Stone was a brilliant man, a Princeton University-educated astrophysicist, who, in the midst of writing his dissertation discovered social issues. After the completion of his degree, he turned his attention to housing policy and developed the concept of "shelter poverty" - a kind of housing costs-induced poverty. Michael was a precise man, thin, with graying hair and a beard; energetic, intense, and calculated in the classroom. His questions pushed students ahead, but also held them accountable for their work. He was a man with high expectations, but who was also generous with his time. I remember talking to Michael on the phone a number of times from our home in Saco, Maine - confused and lost, Michael gently and sometimes not so gently steering me back on the path from which I had veered. When I was hired by the Department of Human Services in Maine to direct my very first, totally independent study - on the topic concerning the retention of foster parents - I remember sitting in Michael's office and laying out my planned methods. He stopped me and said, "That's what you're going to do. But, what do you want to know? Good research is always question-driven, not data-driven." Indeed, these are words to live by for any decent researcher and I have repeated this to my own students time and time again.
My life was recently connected back to Michael, as he guided my sister, Jen, through her own dissertation. I was happy to see him, to remember him, and to watch him in action. Intense. Thoughtful. Exact - with laser-like precision.
It's hard to believe that a man like Michael was taken too early because of an accident. He had recently retired and I heard that he was going to return to the study of astrophysics.
Every time I'm on I-95 in my commute to and from work, I see the electronic signs about the new wipers and headlight law, and I think of Michael. Thanks, Michael, for always steering me back.
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