Dearth of posts <= not dead, but very busy. Proposalpalooza on top of my teaching overload, a taxing university committee and all the regular demands of running a research group, everything topped off with a hearty helping of mandatory travel for an annual program review for a funding agency in whose good graces I really want to remain. So flipping out a bit.
Random bits:
1) At my apparently advanced age, I can only pull off 2 nights of going to bed at 1 am after working like a dog and getting up at 4 am to catch various planes. On day 3, I get a splitting headache that does not respond to heavy doses of Advil, so I cannot think straight and thus cannot work on my proposal, which defeats the purpose of insane travel schedule that was supposed to leave me this Thursday to work on my proposal. Scheduling fail.
2) I hate feet. Specifically, the feet of all the many barefoot people I happened to run into at airports and on airplanes over the past few days. There was definitely a surplus of bare feet in flip-flops with calluses so thick that they resemble hooves, crumbling pedicures, and uncut toe nails. Feet are like armpits: lots of people don't take very good care of them, they often smell, and they reveal way too much about one's personal grooming habits to be flashed at unsuspecting strangers. Socks and shoes, people!
3) There are no women in my field. At the very large program review, where several multi-university programs were reviewed, I was the only female PI. There were a couple of other women in the audience (2 students and a woman from a national lab) but no PI's. When I mentioned that to my collaborators, they all immediately jumped to point out there really were not zero women, that there were indeed these other 3 female specimens. Like that makes it OK. Of 30+ PI's I am the only woman, that's bad. And I am not even mentioning all the other non-PI guys there (probably another 30 or so). The sad part is that I expected my collaborators not to care. I would not say they are sexist, as they do treat me with respect, but they are certainly not at the forefront of the battle for the equality of sexes.
4) My Sponsored Programs Office (SPO) is not on my side. Again. We have this ridiculous internal deadline, where the proposal is supposed to be submitted to the SPO office a fairly long time before the official deadline. I am not saying 3-4 days before, I am saying two weeks before. This makes sense for complicated multi-university, multi-PI grants with lots of subawards and shit, but not universally. I usually submit all my boilerplate for them to look over weeks in advance, but want to have enough time to work on the technical part. I try to be considerate and ask how long the designated SPO person would allow me to work on my technical part, because I need the time and it's a simple single-PI proposal with no frills and the boilerplate has been in for them to look at for ages... I get an email where I am scolded as a "naughty PI" for asking for the extra time and that perhaps I need a refresher of why the ridiculous lead time is really absolutely necessary for them. Adding insult to injury: not only will you not give me extra time, you will attempt to take time away from me by making me listen to the bureaucratic bullshit again.
5) Chatting candidly with one of my collaborators about the ridiculousness of some of our colleagues' behavior, the trials and tribulations of being a PI, and the awesomeness of being a parent, all while having excellent wine at the hotel bar, is a rare and delightful treat.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Grant Proposals: Love 'Em, Hate 'Em (Repost)
Lots of grant deadlines coming up, so grant writing is all that's on my mind (when I am not shaking fist at the universe over a "convenient" out of town trip for a program review, which I have to take on the two days of this week on which I would have a fighting chance to do some writing during daytime.) Others are in the grant writing mode, too: check out PiT & Prodigal Academic, for instance. So for all us who are immersed in grant writing up to our eyeballs, here's a repost of a (dare I say, uppity?) grant-centric post from a couple of months back.
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When I think about grant proposals, I sometimes think about a very good friend of mine, whose pastime is building custom-configuration computers; he really enjoys it and is very good at it. I asked him why he doesn't try to cash in on it or at least go into some type of consulting, because he seems lukewarm (at best) about his actual job and very passionate about his pastime. He answered along the lines of "It's only fun as long as it's a hobby. It would no longer be fun if I actually had to do it to get paid."
For an academic scientist or engineer, writing grants would be the most enjoyable thing in the world if only it weren't so darn important to actually get the money.
When you think of it, writing a proposal means you get to immerse yourself completely in research, learn a lot of new things, ask exciting and far-reaching questions, brainstorm, dream big, and distill your thoughts and ideas through writing. As an added bonus (in my opinion, at least) writing a proposal gives you an excuse to drop all menial work and cancel unwanted - ahem, unnecessary - meetings without feeling guilty (everyone is very sympathetic when you say "I have a proposal deadline"). For me, writing a grant is a guilt-free exile into what I love best -- research.
But...
One's career and the livelihood of one's students and postdocs hinges on the success in getting grants (Professor in Training has a nice recent post on the challenges of grant writing). Funding rates are depressingly low (in my division at the agency above the funding rate is a tiny bit over 10%). This means an average faculty writes a large number of grants to get one funded; of course, I am not assuming grant awards are completely stochastic -- we all know to correlate merit with fundability --- but the number of grants that are competitive is larger by a factor of 2 or 3 than the number of funded ones; there just aren't enough funds around... Depending on your research area, some agencies do have significantly higher funding rates than the agency mentioned above that all of scientists and engineers apply to, but you have to become part of the in-crowd first.
I remember how helpless one feels on tenure track before getting that first grant. The world of funding agencies seems unpredictable and hostile, and you are wondering how long and how thin you can stretch those start-up funds...
Once you have actually received a few grants, the world of funding agencies still seems unpredictable and hostile, but there is no time to rest. Now that you have received some money, you realize that you are actually constantly running out of it and need to keep writing: there is always some grant expiring, or about to expire next year, and the student supported on it is midway through their PhD... One could say "Well, your students could always TA" but that is not a universal truth, only in departments that teach large service courses. I dread becoming one of the, admittedly very few, faculty in my department who have not had research support (and thus, any summer salary) for a number of years. They once did, but now they don't and likely never will again, because they stopped trying. I am not sure why certain people completely cease to write grants once they are tenured, but I don't think it's because they are not driven. Rather, my guess is that it has to do with disillusionment and hopelessness, as the wells of funding in certain fields dry up.
I think the only way to keep going at it -- writing many, many grants -- is to try to fully savor the pleasant, creative part of grant writing, and try to minimize the damage to your soul by the unpleasant parts (a.k.a. being declined). I believe that if a person finds absolutely no fun and no enjoyment in the grant writing process, then getting a faculty position in science or engineering may not be worthwhile.
Lastly, grant writing with colleagues can be very enjoyable, with lots of exciting brainstorms if the collaboration is a good one. An important added benefit is that you have someone to commiserate with when the grant is declined, and someone to celebrate with when it's finally funded.
*********************************************************
When I think about grant proposals, I sometimes think about a very good friend of mine, whose pastime is building custom-configuration computers; he really enjoys it and is very good at it. I asked him why he doesn't try to cash in on it or at least go into some type of consulting, because he seems lukewarm (at best) about his actual job and very passionate about his pastime. He answered along the lines of "It's only fun as long as it's a hobby. It would no longer be fun if I actually had to do it to get paid."
For an academic scientist or engineer, writing grants would be the most enjoyable thing in the world if only it weren't so darn important to actually get the money.
When you think of it, writing a proposal means you get to immerse yourself completely in research, learn a lot of new things, ask exciting and far-reaching questions, brainstorm, dream big, and distill your thoughts and ideas through writing. As an added bonus (in my opinion, at least) writing a proposal gives you an excuse to drop all menial work and cancel unwanted - ahem, unnecessary - meetings without feeling guilty (everyone is very sympathetic when you say "I have a proposal deadline"). For me, writing a grant is a guilt-free exile into what I love best -- research.
But...
One's career and the livelihood of one's students and postdocs hinges on the success in getting grants (Professor in Training has a nice recent post on the challenges of grant writing). Funding rates are depressingly low (in my division at the agency above the funding rate is a tiny bit over 10%). This means an average faculty writes a large number of grants to get one funded; of course, I am not assuming grant awards are completely stochastic -- we all know to correlate merit with fundability --- but the number of grants that are competitive is larger by a factor of 2 or 3 than the number of funded ones; there just aren't enough funds around... Depending on your research area, some agencies do have significantly higher funding rates than the agency mentioned above that all of scientists and engineers apply to, but you have to become part of the in-crowd first.
I remember how helpless one feels on tenure track before getting that first grant. The world of funding agencies seems unpredictable and hostile, and you are wondering how long and how thin you can stretch those start-up funds...
Once you have actually received a few grants, the world of funding agencies still seems unpredictable and hostile, but there is no time to rest. Now that you have received some money, you realize that you are actually constantly running out of it and need to keep writing: there is always some grant expiring, or about to expire next year, and the student supported on it is midway through their PhD... One could say "Well, your students could always TA" but that is not a universal truth, only in departments that teach large service courses. I dread becoming one of the, admittedly very few, faculty in my department who have not had research support (and thus, any summer salary) for a number of years. They once did, but now they don't and likely never will again, because they stopped trying. I am not sure why certain people completely cease to write grants once they are tenured, but I don't think it's because they are not driven. Rather, my guess is that it has to do with disillusionment and hopelessness, as the wells of funding in certain fields dry up.
I think the only way to keep going at it -- writing many, many grants -- is to try to fully savor the pleasant, creative part of grant writing, and try to minimize the damage to your soul by the unpleasant parts (a.k.a. being declined). I believe that if a person finds absolutely no fun and no enjoyment in the grant writing process, then getting a faculty position in science or engineering may not be worthwhile.
Lastly, grant writing with colleagues can be very enjoyable, with lots of exciting brainstorms if the collaboration is a good one. An important added benefit is that you have someone to commiserate with when the grant is declined, and someone to celebrate with when it's finally funded.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Comment Medley
I am now completely swamped with work, hence the dearth of posts. The posting frequency will likely go down to zero over the next couple of weeks (proposal deadline) and I have multiple trips out of town .
In the meantime, here's a minimal-effort post, complied from my overly wordy comments on other people's blogs.
On how much I prep for stuff and how I teach (from comments to Unbalanced Reactions's post and a related Dr. Pion's post):
[How much time it takes me to prep for a 1-hour lecture?] Depends on the level of the course and if I have taught it before. I should also say that I am the type who does not prepare any materials before the semester starts, plus I am largely a chalk-and-talk teacher.
Undergrad and entry-level grad, taught before: maybe half an hour
Undergrad and entry-level grad, haven't taught it before: about 2 hours, as it inculdes writing lecture notes for the first time, etc.
Upper level grad, taught before: half an hour to an hour
Upper level grad, not taught before: 2-3 hours, as just designing the course is demanding and often there are no textbooks but you have to assemble materials from different journal papers, so this search can take a long time. Plus writing lecture notes.
The first time I teach a class I actually prepare detailed notes that are distribuited to students: so they take much more time than it they were just for me, as I try to make them comprehensive and coherent and with all the needed details. I distribute them at the beginning of the semester for courses I have taught before, and they are somewhere in the 150-page count. They are handwritten, and the students invariably tell me they love them. I include way more details than I would in PPT (I don't like PPT as the students seem not to take notes much) and students still take notes in class, as I derive everything on the board. Occasionally a student will say they prefer PPT's, but overall my evaluations are high and the students seems happy.
Comment left at Prof-like substance's, to his post on whether spousal hires are effective as faculty retention tools. (I wrote on spousal hires here a little while back.)
[if] spousal hires can and should be used to increase faculty retention?
Abso-fucken-lutely. Outside of academia, help with spousal placement is a normal thing. I don’t see why academia can’t do the same.
A colleague of mine has a wife who was not hired when he was hired (both sought TT). Instead, she took a faculty job at a lesser institution 2 hours away and they had a difficult commuting situation for 4 years — at which time the wife, who kicked serious research ass at her place got early tenure. She has now been successfully recruited to join her husband, and I think one would now consider her to be the star of the couple. They endured 4 very difficult years though, I would say needlessly, and some resentment built up there…
I am a beneficiary of a spousal hire, but my husband is not a faculty (he has a Master’s degree). I would not have taken this job if it hadn’t come with a position for my husband.
My husband's job was one of the strongest recruitment tools when I was weighing different offers and is now an incredibly effective retention tool, because I cannot imagine him loving another job more. I have offers to go to more highly ranked schools, but considering how much my husband loves his job here and how well the whole family is settled, it is unlikely I will move soon (if ever).
So yes, a happy spouse means a happy and productive faculty. I know several star faculty who could go anywhere they want, but remain here because of the family’s happiness.
[Dr.O then asked when I brough my hubby up during the interview.]
Dr. O, at every single interview, multiple people asked me about my husband (I wear a wedding ring) which enabled me to mention what he does and what type of job he would want. I think a lot of people were relieved that he was not looking for a TT position, I think non-TT are easier to find. I don’t think you should hide your family situation — it is what it is and the place that wants to hire you will want to make you happy and keep you, and that involves spousal placement. I don’t think a place would not have given me ab offer just because I mentioned my husband (or maybe I am deluded).
[FCS then asked if my kids came up]
FCS, no one actually asked about the kids. However, at the first interview it actually came up in casual conversation and I said that I had a preschooler. My host went “Wow!” and said that having a kid makes my CV even more impressive (apparently, as achieved under the stress of childrearing). My impression is that, if you come to a faculty position with a good research record and a kid (or kids) in tow, it is in fact assurance that you can achieve high performance and have a family. So I in subsequent interviews I did mention my kid and I don’t think it hurt me.
My attitude is: people are curious about your family status, and even if they don’t ask many want to know, if for no other reason but to let you know what a wonderful and family friendly place they have. I think this holds for assistant prof men as well, as they too overwhelmingly have working wives. So I would share the information about my husband and my child as it seemed appropriate, i.e. if asked explicitly or if tt came up in a conversation. I think going out of my way to avoid it would have been much worse. It's a battle not worth fighting.
In the meantime, here's a minimal-effort post, complied from my overly wordy comments on other people's blogs.
On how much I prep for stuff and how I teach (from comments to Unbalanced Reactions's post and a related Dr. Pion's post):
[How much time it takes me to prep for a 1-hour lecture?] Depends on the level of the course and if I have taught it before. I should also say that I am the type who does not prepare any materials before the semester starts, plus I am largely a chalk-and-talk teacher.
Undergrad and entry-level grad, taught before: maybe half an hour
Undergrad and entry-level grad, haven't taught it before: about 2 hours, as it inculdes writing lecture notes for the first time, etc.
Upper level grad, taught before: half an hour to an hour
Upper level grad, not taught before: 2-3 hours, as just designing the course is demanding and often there are no textbooks but you have to assemble materials from different journal papers, so this search can take a long time. Plus writing lecture notes.
The first time I teach a class I actually prepare detailed notes that are distribuited to students: so they take much more time than it they were just for me, as I try to make them comprehensive and coherent and with all the needed details. I distribute them at the beginning of the semester for courses I have taught before, and they are somewhere in the 150-page count. They are handwritten, and the students invariably tell me they love them. I include way more details than I would in PPT (I don't like PPT as the students seem not to take notes much) and students still take notes in class, as I derive everything on the board. Occasionally a student will say they prefer PPT's, but overall my evaluations are high and the students seems happy.
Comment left at Prof-like substance's, to his post on whether spousal hires are effective as faculty retention tools. (I wrote on spousal hires here a little while back.)
[if] spousal hires can and should be used to increase faculty retention?
Abso-fucken-lutely. Outside of academia, help with spousal placement is a normal thing. I don’t see why academia can’t do the same.
A colleague of mine has a wife who was not hired when he was hired (both sought TT). Instead, she took a faculty job at a lesser institution 2 hours away and they had a difficult commuting situation for 4 years — at which time the wife, who kicked serious research ass at her place got early tenure. She has now been successfully recruited to join her husband, and I think one would now consider her to be the star of the couple. They endured 4 very difficult years though, I would say needlessly, and some resentment built up there…
I am a beneficiary of a spousal hire, but my husband is not a faculty (he has a Master’s degree). I would not have taken this job if it hadn’t come with a position for my husband.
My husband's job was one of the strongest recruitment tools when I was weighing different offers and is now an incredibly effective retention tool, because I cannot imagine him loving another job more. I have offers to go to more highly ranked schools, but considering how much my husband loves his job here and how well the whole family is settled, it is unlikely I will move soon (if ever).
So yes, a happy spouse means a happy and productive faculty. I know several star faculty who could go anywhere they want, but remain here because of the family’s happiness.
[Dr.O then asked when I brough my hubby up during the interview.]
Dr. O, at every single interview, multiple people asked me about my husband (I wear a wedding ring) which enabled me to mention what he does and what type of job he would want. I think a lot of people were relieved that he was not looking for a TT position, I think non-TT are easier to find. I don’t think you should hide your family situation — it is what it is and the place that wants to hire you will want to make you happy and keep you, and that involves spousal placement. I don’t think a place would not have given me ab offer just because I mentioned my husband (or maybe I am deluded).
[FCS then asked if my kids came up]
FCS, no one actually asked about the kids. However, at the first interview it actually came up in casual conversation and I said that I had a preschooler. My host went “Wow!” and said that having a kid makes my CV even more impressive (apparently, as achieved under the stress of childrearing). My impression is that, if you come to a faculty position with a good research record and a kid (or kids) in tow, it is in fact assurance that you can achieve high performance and have a family. So I in subsequent interviews I did mention my kid and I don’t think it hurt me.
My attitude is: people are curious about your family status, and even if they don’t ask many want to know, if for no other reason but to let you know what a wonderful and family friendly place they have. I think this holds for assistant prof men as well, as they too overwhelmingly have working wives. So I would share the information about my husband and my child as it seemed appropriate, i.e. if asked explicitly or if tt came up in a conversation. I think going out of my way to avoid it would have been much worse. It's a battle not worth fighting.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Slightly Scary Tenure Stories
Halloween candy, decorations, and costumes are already all over the stores (at least the ones that the glamorous GMP frequents -- grocery stores, Target, Walmart). I don't mind the pumpkinpalooza at all: while I am a person with no holiday spirit whatsoever, I love Halloween. It is my favorite holiday as I get to dress up, give away (and eat!) candy, and occasionally scare little kids.
Speaking of scary things, there are few things scarier to a newly independent academic than the tenure case evaluation. The prospect of a tenure case gone wrong for some perverse and unforeseen reason has been known to wake an assistant professor up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. Or lead to bouts of good, old freaking out. Being nervous (panicked even!) as you are approaching tenure is totally OK; being testy is OK too, just don't call your department chair an asshole or anything else that's hard to take back. And remove sharp objects from your office. And switch to decaf.
Tenure evaluation is on many a science blogger's mind. Prodigal Academic recently wondered if she should go up for promotion early, given she'd had a very good first year on tenure track. Namnezia is going up for tenure and wondering what types of institutions the external evaluation letters will be solicited from. FSP wrote from the standpoint of a senior faculy who often writes letters of evaluation.
I am a relatively recent survivor of the tenure evaluation process, so here is my contribution to the confusion and panic among TT faculty (mwahahahahaaha!) in the form of two true stories that scared the bejeezus out of me in my 4th and 5th year.
Scary story 1:
At my institution, people are strongly discouraged from going up for tenure early, and if you want to go up early you have to be significantly better (after the shorter time) than an average person after 6 years. This actually came up in a bizzare case of a woman who was going up in her 6th year (regular time) but had 2 children during her tenure track and actually had tenure stoppage paperwork in her file (a year for each child). The thing with tenure stoppage is that you can use it if you need to, but you don't actually have to use it if you don't need it. This woman clearly did well enough that she didn't feel she needed the extra years. However, there was a smart-ass on the university level promotion committee who said: well, her tenure clock has been stopped, so she has really been on tenure track for 4 years, so she's in fact going up early now; therefore, she must therefore be much better than an average 6th year candidate! Can you belive that?! Instead of saying "Good job, two kids didn't slow you down at all!" this person said "Aha, the kids didn't slow you down, so instead of evaluating you as a normal 6th-year candidate, we will evaluate you according to even harsher criteria reserved only for Trailblazing Superstars." How's that for a reward?
Luckily, there were several reasonable people on the committee who eventually stopped the idiocy from hurting the candidate's case.
Scary story 2:
My institution is very conservative in the letter writer selection business. The candidate must not supply any information on the desired letter writers (he/she is allowed to give one or two names of whom not to ask, if animosity is involved); the list of letter writers is entirely compiled by a few designated colleagues from the department, and the letter writers should all be members of NAS/NAE, award winners, endowed chairs at very prominent institutions, and so on. Also, the letter writers are not supposed to be asked first if they are available to write or not before the formal requests are sent. Simply, a list of names is compiled, requests for letters are sent out, and then you wait. The departmet will send for many letters, 10-12, as the goal is to have at least 8 come back.
I have seen cases where this selection of letter writers without any input from the candidate results in letter writers poorly chosen (too far from the candidate's area) and too many lukewarm letters ("I've never heard of the guy"), which totally hurts the case. I have also seen one single letter sink the case at the university committee level, where people may not be from your area at all and rely heavily on what Big Wig (even if an ass) says about your work. As an example, I know of a faculty, who brought in a ton of money and had a cover GlamourMag publication, and who was denied tenure because a poor selection of the letter writers resulted in one dismissive and several lukewarm letters. He went up again in his seventh year (by which time he had raised even more money and received some awards) with a completely new dossier and a new set of letters (whose writers were now chosen much more carefully), and he sailed smoothly to tenure.
In my experience, the letter part was extremely scary because it felt completely out of my control, and I knew the university-level committee would put an extraordinary weight on them. On the upside, I do believe that most letter writers really do try to give an honest and objective account of the tenure case at hand. People on the tenure track should definitely do the "tenure tour" near the end of their tenure track appointment: travel as much as possible, meet as many people who have the potential to evaluate you if you haven't already done so, showcase your work in any venue that it may be appropriate for, even if not your favorite conferences. And all the extra invited talks at conferences and seminars at universities look good on the CV. I killed myself traveling in my 5th year, it was grueling but I think it was totally worth it.
Speaking of scary things, there are few things scarier to a newly independent academic than the tenure case evaluation. The prospect of a tenure case gone wrong for some perverse and unforeseen reason has been known to wake an assistant professor up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. Or lead to bouts of good, old freaking out. Being nervous (panicked even!) as you are approaching tenure is totally OK; being testy is OK too, just don't call your department chair an asshole or anything else that's hard to take back. And remove sharp objects from your office. And switch to decaf.
Tenure evaluation is on many a science blogger's mind. Prodigal Academic recently wondered if she should go up for promotion early, given she'd had a very good first year on tenure track. Namnezia is going up for tenure and wondering what types of institutions the external evaluation letters will be solicited from. FSP wrote from the standpoint of a senior faculy who often writes letters of evaluation.
I am a relatively recent survivor of the tenure evaluation process, so here is my contribution to the confusion and panic among TT faculty (mwahahahahaaha!) in the form of two true stories that scared the bejeezus out of me in my 4th and 5th year.
Scary story 1:
At my institution, people are strongly discouraged from going up for tenure early, and if you want to go up early you have to be significantly better (after the shorter time) than an average person after 6 years. This actually came up in a bizzare case of a woman who was going up in her 6th year (regular time) but had 2 children during her tenure track and actually had tenure stoppage paperwork in her file (a year for each child). The thing with tenure stoppage is that you can use it if you need to, but you don't actually have to use it if you don't need it. This woman clearly did well enough that she didn't feel she needed the extra years. However, there was a smart-ass on the university level promotion committee who said: well, her tenure clock has been stopped, so she has really been on tenure track for 4 years, so she's in fact going up early now; therefore, she must therefore be much better than an average 6th year candidate! Can you belive that?! Instead of saying "Good job, two kids didn't slow you down at all!" this person said "Aha, the kids didn't slow you down, so instead of evaluating you as a normal 6th-year candidate, we will evaluate you according to even harsher criteria reserved only for Trailblazing Superstars." How's that for a reward?
Luckily, there were several reasonable people on the committee who eventually stopped the idiocy from hurting the candidate's case.
Scary story 2:
My institution is very conservative in the letter writer selection business. The candidate must not supply any information on the desired letter writers (he/she is allowed to give one or two names of whom not to ask, if animosity is involved); the list of letter writers is entirely compiled by a few designated colleagues from the department, and the letter writers should all be members of NAS/NAE, award winners, endowed chairs at very prominent institutions, and so on. Also, the letter writers are not supposed to be asked first if they are available to write or not before the formal requests are sent. Simply, a list of names is compiled, requests for letters are sent out, and then you wait. The departmet will send for many letters, 10-12, as the goal is to have at least 8 come back.
I have seen cases where this selection of letter writers without any input from the candidate results in letter writers poorly chosen (too far from the candidate's area) and too many lukewarm letters ("I've never heard of the guy"), which totally hurts the case. I have also seen one single letter sink the case at the university committee level, where people may not be from your area at all and rely heavily on what Big Wig (even if an ass) says about your work. As an example, I know of a faculty, who brought in a ton of money and had a cover GlamourMag publication, and who was denied tenure because a poor selection of the letter writers resulted in one dismissive and several lukewarm letters. He went up again in his seventh year (by which time he had raised even more money and received some awards) with a completely new dossier and a new set of letters (whose writers were now chosen much more carefully), and he sailed smoothly to tenure.
In my experience, the letter part was extremely scary because it felt completely out of my control, and I knew the university-level committee would put an extraordinary weight on them. On the upside, I do believe that most letter writers really do try to give an honest and objective account of the tenure case at hand. People on the tenure track should definitely do the "tenure tour" near the end of their tenure track appointment: travel as much as possible, meet as many people who have the potential to evaluate you if you haven't already done so, showcase your work in any venue that it may be appropriate for, even if not your favorite conferences. And all the extra invited talks at conferences and seminars at universities look good on the CV. I killed myself traveling in my 5th year, it was grueling but I think it was totally worth it.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Overloaded
The semester started with a freakin' bang. The students are back with a vengeance. I instantaneously went from having some control over my schedule to being booked solid for weeks. I used to hate the oh-so-busy-and-important obnoxious people who could not find half an hour to meet me for weeks and weeks. I still do, only I am now one of these oh-so-busy-and-important obnoxious people: I will tell you that I cannot meet you for lunch before mid-November, and it's really not that I don't want to have lunch with you. I like you, and I looove lunch, and that's why we are scheduling it only 2 months into the future. Ridiculous, you say?
This semester I have a teaching overload, because I want to be free of teaching next semester in order to do work on some new and complex projects but I don't want to spend money on buy-out,** which is a pretty substantial amount and I'd much rather use it to pay students. At my R1 university (or MRU if you prefer), the so-called research active faculty teach one course per semester; definition of "research active" depends a bit on the department, but it is based on advising and financially supporting a certain number of graduate students, having a certain number of papers per year, and so forth, and is based on the annual reports we submit, well, annually. I think this 1-per-semester teaching load is fairly standard at R1's in the physical sciences, at least near as I can tell. People who don't meet the research activity criteria teach 2 courses per semester.
This is my first time doing the overload. I teach 2 courses instead of 1, so my spring will be free. I am teaching a large junior-level undergrad class and a surprisingly large upper-level grad class. Between classes, office hours, my own group meeting, meetings with other people for the ongoing collaborations, 1-on-1 meetings with each one of my research group members, faculty meetings, committee meetings, and undergrad student advising, there is very little time for the actual technical work, which is starting to freak me out as I have a string of papers that need to go out in the fall and a couple of proposals. A few senior colleagues who did the overload/free semester before say that it does end up being worthwhile, but not by a large margin and it surely does not seem like it when you are in the midst of it.
At the same time, I kind of enjoy having my time jam-packed. Being busy makes me feel useful. Being super busy makes me feel, if not super, then very useful. I get bored very easily and am not very good at just chilling, so a smorgasbord of commitments is strangely comforting. Definitely more like a big comfy blanket than a ball-and-chain. There is a fair bit of laziness in this too, as a lot of busy work is easy, and is a good excuse to not do the really hard stuff.
The students seem pretty cool in both my courses. Even in the the large undergrad one things are going pretty well, although I think they may still be scared shitless of me and/or the material. I will bask in their terror while it lasts. :)
Happy fall!
---------------------
** Buy-out: paying a portion of your academic-year salary from a research grant, which enables you to get some teaching release in order to spend more time on the research project supported by said grant.
This semester I have a teaching overload, because I want to be free of teaching next semester in order to do work on some new and complex projects but I don't want to spend money on buy-out,** which is a pretty substantial amount and I'd much rather use it to pay students. At my R1 university (or MRU if you prefer), the so-called research active faculty teach one course per semester; definition of "research active" depends a bit on the department, but it is based on advising and financially supporting a certain number of graduate students, having a certain number of papers per year, and so forth, and is based on the annual reports we submit, well, annually. I think this 1-per-semester teaching load is fairly standard at R1's in the physical sciences, at least near as I can tell. People who don't meet the research activity criteria teach 2 courses per semester.
This is my first time doing the overload. I teach 2 courses instead of 1, so my spring will be free. I am teaching a large junior-level undergrad class and a surprisingly large upper-level grad class. Between classes, office hours, my own group meeting, meetings with other people for the ongoing collaborations, 1-on-1 meetings with each one of my research group members, faculty meetings, committee meetings, and undergrad student advising, there is very little time for the actual technical work, which is starting to freak me out as I have a string of papers that need to go out in the fall and a couple of proposals. A few senior colleagues who did the overload/free semester before say that it does end up being worthwhile, but not by a large margin and it surely does not seem like it when you are in the midst of it.
At the same time, I kind of enjoy having my time jam-packed. Being busy makes me feel useful. Being super busy makes me feel, if not super, then very useful. I get bored very easily and am not very good at just chilling, so a smorgasbord of commitments is strangely comforting. Definitely more like a big comfy blanket than a ball-and-chain. There is a fair bit of laziness in this too, as a lot of busy work is easy, and is a good excuse to not do the really hard stuff.
The students seem pretty cool in both my courses. Even in the the large undergrad one things are going pretty well, although I think they may still be scared shitless of me and/or the material. I will bask in their terror while it lasts. :)
Happy fall!
---------------------
** Buy-out: paying a portion of your academic-year salary from a research grant, which enables you to get some teaching release in order to spend more time on the research project supported by said grant.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Survival Tips for Young Women in STEM
* Repost of this article from Inside Higher Ed, with slight modifications. *
From an Inside Higher Ed reader: I am an English professor at a Research I university. One of my courses is a Writing Workshop for Thesis and Dissertation Writers Across the Curriculum. Most of my student come from the STEM fields, and a majority are women. From teaching this course over the years, I have learned of the difficulties faced by many women grad students in STEM disciplines, especially in the lab sciences. Practices of favoritism, exclusion of women from team experiences (field research trips, for example), poor/difficult communication, lack of acknowledgment of women’s contributions, and on and on create a hostile environment for many female grad students. I try to give them strategies for dealing, and I talk in the university about the problem every chance I get, but of course I don’t get much credence because I am not a scientist.
If you could blog about survival strategies for women graduate students in the STEM fields, especially in lab cultures, it would be very helpful. In the early days of the writing workshop course, I would suggest the women find a female faculty member to mentor them. To a person, they say, “Our female professors are so overworked. They only have time for their own work and their own students. We can hardly talk to them.
Being a young woman in a field dominated by men is, at the very least, challenging. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are such fields. There are few female role models. There are few female peers, so women feel isolated. Similar to other underrepresented minorities, women face enhanced professional expectations (a woman must do twice as much to get half the recognition) in order to successfully combat the perception of intellectual inferiority. There are many stereotypes about a woman’s priorities or career plans (“Of course you want babies and a family,” even though you say you don’t, or “Since you have children, you are certainly not working as hard as you should,” or “You will certainly follow your husband for his job”). There is a large body of literature about the challenges of women in science and engineering: a quick Google search will reveal a number of articles, blogs, and forums that the reader is encouraged to explore. I will not argue whether or not women face obstacles in STEM careers. They do.
Instead, I am going to try and give some practical tips on how to navigate what I feel is a typical STEM graduate experience for a woman, largely based on my own experiences. As a graduate student in a physical sciences discipline notorious for its low representation of women, I was often the only woman in my graduate classes. Even when I wasn’t alone, women never exceeded 10-15% of the class, and this percentage remains true for most graduate programs in my discipline. What I write here is by all means not exhaustive; it resembles what I would say to a female student who would come to my office for advice. I consider my experiences to be fairly typical but by all means not universal. Luckily, I believe that a typical experience no longer entails sexual harassment (although there are still terribly unfortunate exceptions), but rather a palette of phenomena that stem from the peers’ or PhD advisor’s often unconscious biases. Over time, small obstacles to a young woman’s professional development can accumulate into a marked disadvantage in the job market, not to mention a permanent scar to a woman’s perception of her own worth as a scientist and a person.
Support from female faculty. Young women in STEM are often referred to the few women faculty in their departments for guidance. However, they may find that women faculty have little time to spare and may appear unwilling to engage in a mentoring relationship. It is important not to take rejection personally. For instance, many female professors on the tenure track have small children and a developing research program -- both requiring tremendous energy and time. Also, just because a woman is a professor, that does not mean that she is no longer facing biases in her own career – she too is often isolated from other women, faces enhanced expectations and preconceived notions from peers, and has to work extremely hard to gain adequate recognition. Therefore, if a junior female faculty is not responsive to your inquiries, don’t take it personally, as she is herself likely facing tremendous personal and career challenges.
I find that tenured female faculty are more responsive to inquires by female students for informal or formal mentorship on how academia works. Tenured female professors are more established in their careers and likely have older children, so they are often more willing and able to invest time into helping other women up the academic ladder. But, even so, some tenured women don’t see it as a big priority or may be too busy, so if you are having a hard time finding a female mentor in your department, try not to take it personally and explore other opportunities to find female mentors (below).
Connect with other women in STEM. It may seem impossible to make friends with other female graduate students when there are virtually none around. However, most professional organizations in STEM disciplines have a designated section to help broaden the participation of women and their career advancement.
Two large interdisciplinary organizations, the Association for Women in Science and the Society of Women Engineers, offer excellent opportunities for mentorship and networking. You may also be interested in the National Academy of Engineering's Engineering Girl, which reaches out to women as well as girls.
Some disciplinary links to get you started include:
Association for Women Geoscientists
Earth Science Women's Network
Women in Agronomy, Crops, Soils, and Environmental Sciences
ACS Women Chemists Committee
Women in Biology
Women in Biomedical Careers
Association for Women in Mathematics
ACM's Women in Computing
Women in Physics
AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy
Women in Aerospace
IEEE Women in Engineering
(Additional links are welcome, especially to non-US organizations.)
Consider joining a local chapter of one or more of these organizations and volunteering. Chances are you will meet many young women such as yourself and also some senior, more established ones, who are truly interested in mentoring younger women.
Fight "impostor syndrome". Often, young women in academia feel they don’t belong in their graduate programs. This is a manifestation of the well-known "impostor syndrome," exacerbated in women in STEM because there are so few other women around and so few senior women. The woman can wonder if she really belongs in the lab; these insecurities are often only deepened by the vibes the woman receives from those around her – their biases against, or simple discomfort due to the presence of a woman. The best way to fight the impostor syndrome is to tell youself that everyone – everyone! – feels it, even BigWig famous professors. You are not the only one feeling like a fraud, as you will find out once you establish trust and start talking more openly with the people around you.
So don’t worry if you belong. If you are successful in your coursework, if you enjoy your research (for the most part – science has plenty of frustrating moments!) and
feel that you are good at it, you most certainly belong in science.
Let stupid remarks slide. Often, people say insensitive things not because they mean to belittle, but because they are themselves , indeed, insensitive, ignorant, or socially awkward. It helps if you can learn to let the small stuff, especially blunders, slide off your back. I don’t mean keeping quiet when things are clearly meant to hurt or offend – by all means speak up. But stupid remarks are sometimes just that: stupid. Learning to distinguish between these two types of remarks can save you plenty of annoyance. For instance, if you have a lab mate who is friendly and supportive of you but occasionally says something that stereotypes you or other women, this person is likely talking from his own biases of which he may not even be aware. Call him on his remarks and explain why they bother you or would bother another woman, but don’t give up on your lab mate entirely. Men, especially very young ones, are often unaware of their biases or how some things they say affect women; at the same time, most really don’t want to be or to appear sexist and will likely take your comments to heart. Chances are that your male lab peers will become some of your most fervent supporters throughout your career.
Actions speak louder than words. It is generally a good idea to view a person’s actions together with what comes out of their mouth. For instance, a senior male member of my PhD committee was very supportive of me in all aspects of my professional career. He also happened to have a bit of a potty mouth and enjoyed somewhat inappropriate jokes of all sorts. It took me a while to realize he simply likes to shock people (women and men) and that in reality he was a supportive and caring mentor.
In contrast, there are many people who have mastered the art of political correctness and are very careful about avoiding verbal blunders. However, they still act according to their sexist or otherwise biased convictions (such as look down on female students, oppose the hiring of female faculty or accommodation of family leave policies). These people are who you should be on the lookout for. Just because a prospective PhD advisor is a smooth talker, that does not mean that he or she will be supportive or caring of you (or any other student). Before committing to anyone’s lab, make sure you talk to other students about how they feel, how the professor treats women and people who are underrepresented minorities, and where the professor’s former students are currently employed.
Find support wherever you can. A number of successful women scientists and engineers had supportive male mentors and colleagues. The numbers of men and women in many STEM fields are such that you are exceedingly likely to be advised by a man through much, if not all, of your career. There are many wonderful male professors who are very supportive of women. There are also many wonderful young men, currently your peer graduate students, who will become future professors and will benefit from having smart female peers in graduate school, and from being nudged – gently or a little less so – to grasp what a female scientist’s experience is really like.
Try not to depend on women alone for companionship or support. If we are to make the STEM labs more equitable, both men and women have to realize it isn’t so yet, and both have to work towards removal of bias (to women as well as other underrepresented minorities).
Seek help. In the horribly unfortunate case that you are a young woman facing sexual harassment, please seek external help immediately. If you are feeling very uncomfortable at your place of work or study because of interactions with your peers or your advisor, if anyone is making unwelcome remarks or overtures which you cannot stop, or if someone is making your professional advancement contingent on romantic or sexual involvement, know that these are gross violations of your rights and you ought to talk to someone outside of the lab about the best course of action (such as removing yourself from the situation and penalizing the perpetrator). Many universities have an employment assistance office where you can see a counselor; alternatively you can contact your department administration or the college or university human resources, who will point you to the channels for filing complaints and getting counseling. Getting help and feeling safe again are much more important than any immediate career concerns you may have.
Be a mentor yourself. As you advance through your graduate program (hopefully never knowing harassment) you will become more confident in your command of "how things work in graduate school" and in your technical specialty. But don’t forget the feelings of isolation and doubt, and reach out to new students – of both genders and any ethnicity, ability, or sexual orientation – to help them feel welcome and appreciated in the lab. Also, as you progress through your career, many of the issues may resurface, as you have to prove yourself all over again to new colleagues. Staying connected to your professional association, nurturing a network of supportive peers and professional elders, and helping develop a new cohort of enthusiastic scientists are the best ways to ensure long term satisfaction with your career.
From an Inside Higher Ed reader: I am an English professor at a Research I university. One of my courses is a Writing Workshop for Thesis and Dissertation Writers Across the Curriculum. Most of my student come from the STEM fields, and a majority are women. From teaching this course over the years, I have learned of the difficulties faced by many women grad students in STEM disciplines, especially in the lab sciences. Practices of favoritism, exclusion of women from team experiences (field research trips, for example), poor/difficult communication, lack of acknowledgment of women’s contributions, and on and on create a hostile environment for many female grad students. I try to give them strategies for dealing, and I talk in the university about the problem every chance I get, but of course I don’t get much credence because I am not a scientist.
If you could blog about survival strategies for women graduate students in the STEM fields, especially in lab cultures, it would be very helpful. In the early days of the writing workshop course, I would suggest the women find a female faculty member to mentor them. To a person, they say, “Our female professors are so overworked. They only have time for their own work and their own students. We can hardly talk to them.
Being a young woman in a field dominated by men is, at the very least, challenging. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are such fields. There are few female role models. There are few female peers, so women feel isolated. Similar to other underrepresented minorities, women face enhanced professional expectations (a woman must do twice as much to get half the recognition) in order to successfully combat the perception of intellectual inferiority. There are many stereotypes about a woman’s priorities or career plans (“Of course you want babies and a family,” even though you say you don’t, or “Since you have children, you are certainly not working as hard as you should,” or “You will certainly follow your husband for his job”). There is a large body of literature about the challenges of women in science and engineering: a quick Google search will reveal a number of articles, blogs, and forums that the reader is encouraged to explore. I will not argue whether or not women face obstacles in STEM careers. They do.
Instead, I am going to try and give some practical tips on how to navigate what I feel is a typical STEM graduate experience for a woman, largely based on my own experiences. As a graduate student in a physical sciences discipline notorious for its low representation of women, I was often the only woman in my graduate classes. Even when I wasn’t alone, women never exceeded 10-15% of the class, and this percentage remains true for most graduate programs in my discipline. What I write here is by all means not exhaustive; it resembles what I would say to a female student who would come to my office for advice. I consider my experiences to be fairly typical but by all means not universal. Luckily, I believe that a typical experience no longer entails sexual harassment (although there are still terribly unfortunate exceptions), but rather a palette of phenomena that stem from the peers’ or PhD advisor’s often unconscious biases. Over time, small obstacles to a young woman’s professional development can accumulate into a marked disadvantage in the job market, not to mention a permanent scar to a woman’s perception of her own worth as a scientist and a person.
Support from female faculty. Young women in STEM are often referred to the few women faculty in their departments for guidance. However, they may find that women faculty have little time to spare and may appear unwilling to engage in a mentoring relationship. It is important not to take rejection personally. For instance, many female professors on the tenure track have small children and a developing research program -- both requiring tremendous energy and time. Also, just because a woman is a professor, that does not mean that she is no longer facing biases in her own career – she too is often isolated from other women, faces enhanced expectations and preconceived notions from peers, and has to work extremely hard to gain adequate recognition. Therefore, if a junior female faculty is not responsive to your inquiries, don’t take it personally, as she is herself likely facing tremendous personal and career challenges.
I find that tenured female faculty are more responsive to inquires by female students for informal or formal mentorship on how academia works. Tenured female professors are more established in their careers and likely have older children, so they are often more willing and able to invest time into helping other women up the academic ladder. But, even so, some tenured women don’t see it as a big priority or may be too busy, so if you are having a hard time finding a female mentor in your department, try not to take it personally and explore other opportunities to find female mentors (below).
Connect with other women in STEM. It may seem impossible to make friends with other female graduate students when there are virtually none around. However, most professional organizations in STEM disciplines have a designated section to help broaden the participation of women and their career advancement.
Two large interdisciplinary organizations, the Association for Women in Science and the Society of Women Engineers, offer excellent opportunities for mentorship and networking. You may also be interested in the National Academy of Engineering's Engineering Girl, which reaches out to women as well as girls.
Some disciplinary links to get you started include:
Association for Women Geoscientists
Earth Science Women's Network
Women in Agronomy, Crops, Soils, and Environmental Sciences
ACS Women Chemists Committee
Women in Biology
Women in Biomedical Careers
Association for Women in Mathematics
ACM's Women in Computing
Women in Physics
AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy
Women in Aerospace
IEEE Women in Engineering
(Additional links are welcome, especially to non-US organizations.)
Consider joining a local chapter of one or more of these organizations and volunteering. Chances are you will meet many young women such as yourself and also some senior, more established ones, who are truly interested in mentoring younger women.
Fight "impostor syndrome". Often, young women in academia feel they don’t belong in their graduate programs. This is a manifestation of the well-known "impostor syndrome," exacerbated in women in STEM because there are so few other women around and so few senior women. The woman can wonder if she really belongs in the lab; these insecurities are often only deepened by the vibes the woman receives from those around her – their biases against, or simple discomfort due to the presence of a woman. The best way to fight the impostor syndrome is to tell youself that everyone – everyone! – feels it, even BigWig famous professors. You are not the only one feeling like a fraud, as you will find out once you establish trust and start talking more openly with the people around you.
So don’t worry if you belong. If you are successful in your coursework, if you enjoy your research (for the most part – science has plenty of frustrating moments!) and
feel that you are good at it, you most certainly belong in science.
Let stupid remarks slide. Often, people say insensitive things not because they mean to belittle, but because they are themselves , indeed, insensitive, ignorant, or socially awkward. It helps if you can learn to let the small stuff, especially blunders, slide off your back. I don’t mean keeping quiet when things are clearly meant to hurt or offend – by all means speak up. But stupid remarks are sometimes just that: stupid. Learning to distinguish between these two types of remarks can save you plenty of annoyance. For instance, if you have a lab mate who is friendly and supportive of you but occasionally says something that stereotypes you or other women, this person is likely talking from his own biases of which he may not even be aware. Call him on his remarks and explain why they bother you or would bother another woman, but don’t give up on your lab mate entirely. Men, especially very young ones, are often unaware of their biases or how some things they say affect women; at the same time, most really don’t want to be or to appear sexist and will likely take your comments to heart. Chances are that your male lab peers will become some of your most fervent supporters throughout your career.
Actions speak louder than words. It is generally a good idea to view a person’s actions together with what comes out of their mouth. For instance, a senior male member of my PhD committee was very supportive of me in all aspects of my professional career. He also happened to have a bit of a potty mouth and enjoyed somewhat inappropriate jokes of all sorts. It took me a while to realize he simply likes to shock people (women and men) and that in reality he was a supportive and caring mentor.
In contrast, there are many people who have mastered the art of political correctness and are very careful about avoiding verbal blunders. However, they still act according to their sexist or otherwise biased convictions (such as look down on female students, oppose the hiring of female faculty or accommodation of family leave policies). These people are who you should be on the lookout for. Just because a prospective PhD advisor is a smooth talker, that does not mean that he or she will be supportive or caring of you (or any other student). Before committing to anyone’s lab, make sure you talk to other students about how they feel, how the professor treats women and people who are underrepresented minorities, and where the professor’s former students are currently employed.
Find support wherever you can. A number of successful women scientists and engineers had supportive male mentors and colleagues. The numbers of men and women in many STEM fields are such that you are exceedingly likely to be advised by a man through much, if not all, of your career. There are many wonderful male professors who are very supportive of women. There are also many wonderful young men, currently your peer graduate students, who will become future professors and will benefit from having smart female peers in graduate school, and from being nudged – gently or a little less so – to grasp what a female scientist’s experience is really like.
Try not to depend on women alone for companionship or support. If we are to make the STEM labs more equitable, both men and women have to realize it isn’t so yet, and both have to work towards removal of bias (to women as well as other underrepresented minorities).
Seek help. In the horribly unfortunate case that you are a young woman facing sexual harassment, please seek external help immediately. If you are feeling very uncomfortable at your place of work or study because of interactions with your peers or your advisor, if anyone is making unwelcome remarks or overtures which you cannot stop, or if someone is making your professional advancement contingent on romantic or sexual involvement, know that these are gross violations of your rights and you ought to talk to someone outside of the lab about the best course of action (such as removing yourself from the situation and penalizing the perpetrator). Many universities have an employment assistance office where you can see a counselor; alternatively you can contact your department administration or the college or university human resources, who will point you to the channels for filing complaints and getting counseling. Getting help and feeling safe again are much more important than any immediate career concerns you may have.
Be a mentor yourself. As you advance through your graduate program (hopefully never knowing harassment) you will become more confident in your command of "how things work in graduate school" and in your technical specialty. But don’t forget the feelings of isolation and doubt, and reach out to new students – of both genders and any ethnicity, ability, or sexual orientation – to help them feel welcome and appreciated in the lab. Also, as you progress through your career, many of the issues may resurface, as you have to prove yourself all over again to new colleagues. Staying connected to your professional association, nurturing a network of supportive peers and professional elders, and helping develop a new cohort of enthusiastic scientists are the best ways to ensure long term satisfaction with your career.
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