David J. Helfand is a U.S.

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

who served as president of Quest University Canada from 2008 to 2015. Prior to his presidency at Quest, he was a Visiting Tutor at Quest. He has also served as chair of the Department of Astronomy at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and co-director of the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory. He was also part of the university's Physics Department. His stated research interests include radio surveys, the origin and evolution of neutron stars and supernova remnants, and active galactic nuclei. Helfand has been instrumental in the creation of general education classes oriented around the sciences, developing a course, Frontiers of Science, that has subsequently become part of the

Core Curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view ...

of Columbia College, the university's undergraduate liberal arts and sciences division. He holds a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

from Amherst College and a Ph.D. from the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

At Columbia University

David Helfand has been affiliated with

since 1977. Immediately after obtaining his PhD from the

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medical ...

, he joined Columbia as a

research associate Research associates are researchers (scholars and professionals) that usually have an advanced degree beyond a Master's degree. In some universities/research institutes, such as Harvard/Harvard Medical School/Harvard School of Public Health, th ...

for two years before obtaining a

tenure Tenure is a category of academic appointment existing in some countries. A tenured post is an indefinite academic appointment that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances, such as financial exigency or program disco ...

track position. He has, at times, been part of both the department of

Astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, g ...

and the

Department of Physics Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

. As part of the department of

he served as chair from 1986 until 1992, and again from 2002 until the present. During his time at Columbia he has mentored 22 PhD students, although he tends to focus more on undergraduate education. As part of Columbia University, he along with Darcy Kelley, a professor of biological sciences, pushed for and succeeded in creating a new science core curriculum class called ''Frontiers of Science'', which is claimed to "make (students) aware that they can think about problems the way scientists think about problems". Rather than being taught by a single professor on a single topic, "four scientists in different disciplines deliver a series of three lectures each describing the background, context, and current state of an area of research". He was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.

Quest University Canada

Helfand joined Quest University Canada in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada, as a Visiting Tutor in 2007. In July 2011, Helfand took a long-term leave of absence from Columbia and assumed the presidency of

Quest University Quest University (officially Quest University Canada) is a private, not-for-profit, secular liberal arts and sciences university. The university opened in September 2007 with an inaugural class of 73. The university has an enrolment of around ...

. This private university embodies many of his views, by having "no faculty ranks, no

and no departments", and he claims that this approach by

"fosters academic freedom, minimizes bureaucracy, and places the university's focus on teaching and scholarship." This unusual educational approach at

has attracted media attention. Additionally, as part of Quest, he started a course called "Global Warming: What We Know and What We Don't Know" focusing on a "dispassionate" approach to the subject. Helfand was motivated to develop the course because of what he believed to be "a large amount of misinformation" in the climate change debate.

Viewpoints on tenure

Helfand notably declined an offer of

from Columbia in the early 1980s due to his belief that the

system does more to deny academic freedom to those who do not have tenure than it does to protect the freedom of those who do have

. He believes that it also selects the wrong fraction of smart people in society to play the important role of advancing knowledge and passing it on to the next generation. He advocates a system in which each senior professor's job performance is reviewed every six years by a five-member ''ad hoc'' faculty committee, which would then recommend whether the professor should be retained or dismissed. In such a system, each professor would serve on one such ad hoc committee per year, except for the year in which he or she is being reviewed. Although his proposed system is unorthodox, Columbia agreed to implement it in Helfand's case.

Skepticism

David Helfand is a fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and, in addition to starting the course on global warming at

, he has often expressed views in line with the

skeptical movement Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism), sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence. In practice, the term most commonly refe ...

. In 2006, he signed a document written by the Washington DC office of the Center for Inquiry called the "Declaration in Defense of Science and Secularism". This document expressed worry about the "disdain for science" expressed by many Americans, and "the persistence of paranormal and occult beliefs". Furthermore, in 2011 he wrote an opinion piece in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' criticizing

ESP ESP most commonly refers to: * Extrasensory perception, a paranormal ability ESP may also refer to: Arts, entertainment Music * ESP Guitars, a manufacturer of electric guitars * E.S. Posthumus, an independent music group formed in 2000, ...

research by

Daryl Bem Daryl J. Bem (born June 10, 1938) is a social psychologist and professor emeritus at Cornell University. He is the originator of the self-perception theory of attitude formation and change. He has also researched psi phenomena, group decision ...

, stating that "I have little doubt that Professor Bem's experiments will fail (to be replicated)".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Helfand, David J Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Amherst College alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni Columbia University faculty American skeptics Canadian university and college chief executives Fellows of the American Astronomical Society