are there any mathy types about? I'm trying to figure out the percentage change from 253 to 494. The context:

In the first eight years of the program’s existence, the number of women college presidents increased from 154 to 253, a 65% increase. Of the 2,148 colleges surveyed by the ACE in 2006, over 20 years later, only 23% had women presidents, about 494, a xx% increase over 1985's total of 253.

God, I'm stupid. I know this is very basic but I don't know it.

494 is 195% of 253, so that's a 95% increase.

Thank you! Man, I am so useless at this stuff. I'm going to go back over it and make it make sense to me so I remember for the next time.

To get percent increase, first subtract the old value from the new value, to get how much the increase was. Then divide that by the old value -- that'll tell you how many units of increase there were per every one unit of original. Then multiply by 100 to get percent (since what you get from the division is per 1, and per cent is per 100.)

Awesome! How sad is it that I'm kind of proud of myself for at least getting the first step right? Then I was like, um.

I really appreciate the explanation, that makes total sense in my non-numerically inclined brain.

Well, that's what Hil does, don't you know?

Congrats on the candidacy, Hil!

I definitely do know, and damn, it rocks.

Hil does indeed rock a lot.

Hi all! It's a gorgeous day here: 88 degress and sunny. A bit warmer than my ideal temperature, but certainly nothing to complain about. ND and I just got back from "breakfast" (okay, so we ate at 1:30...but we did eat breakfast food!). Tonight we're going over to the Miracleborns to say goodbye since I won't be here when they actually leave next week. I'm really trying not to think about that. Tomorrow I have to figure out what I need for the camping/rafting trip and get packed. I have almost everything I'll need due to the canoeing trip last year, but I think I may need to pick up a couple other odds and ends at REI.

This newsy post brought to you by the letter P and the number 4. No reason.

Thanks, guys.

I'm a bit freaked out about looking for a job. All of my friends who are graduating this year applied to about 40 each, and none of them ended up where they wanted to be, geographically. (Though one who'd wanted to be in a city ended up accepting a job at LSU-Lafayette, and is all excited about living near alligators.) And, I just have no idea how the whole academic job search thing really works. Though I just remembered that the math department is having a seminar on that next week, so I'm feeling slightly calmer now.

Hey, Hil, I don't know if you can access the Chronicle of Higher Education, but they have pretty decent job listings. [link]

I think you might be able to get in through your school's network, I just plug in my grad school login name and password when I'm at home. When I'm at work, just being on an academic network gets me in without any login shenanigans whatsoever.

Also, they have a lot of articles on job hunting and related forums and stuff too.

You may know all this already, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case you hadn't!