Average Professor

As if I have SO MUCH MONEY

2009-05-06T16:12:00.004-05:00

Around the end of every accounting year for each of my various funded projects, I stress out over how much $ did I this or that, and how much $ will next year's this and that, and what $ can or cannot be charged to this account or that account, and so on.

Since my funding comes from a variety of sources with a variety of accounting year timings, increasingly I feel like I am having this stress all year long, rather than just once. So I recently decided that I really needed to do a better job of keeping track of my project budgets. The university sends statements but they are often cryptic, and the amount of information contained in the statement varies depending on the funding source. I have never found them very helpful even for figuring out where the money went, let alone in projecting how the money is going to go out.

Some years ago, a senior colleague/mentor showed me a complicated spreadsheet she used for keeping track of things, and it (both the spreadsheet and the concept of keeping track of big complex budgets) intimidated me so much that I never followed up by asking for a template or tutorial session or anything. But that was back when I had very little money and very minimal and simple expenditures so managing it all was easier. Now, I need something to manage the stress of managing the funds, because it's starting to keep me up at nights (sad but true).

In the last few weeks I've been nosing around friends and colleagues to see what systems or tools they are using for tracking project budgets, and the consensus seems to be:

nothing.

On the one hand, this makes me feel better, that it's not as if everybody lit on to some genius strategy of which I am lamely ignorant. On the other hand, really? That's weird. The people that gave me that answer range from very well funded to moderately funded, and one of them I know has very complicated budget situations. But it seems like most folks just assume everything will work out, and they wait for somebody to yell at them if and when it isn't working out.

I know some people that have had some kind of budget catastrophe this way, with money accidentally mismanaged and in one case, even disappearing (which I still don't understand) but that doesn't happen to most people, I guess. Still, I downloaded an open-source Quicken-ish account tracking software and am using it until I can find something even better (without having to build it myself).

Bah, budget management. Yet another thing they don't teach you in grad school.

Poster child

2009-04-06T21:45:00.003-05:00

My university has a program to study and promote university-level activities relating to recruiting and retaining female faculty members in disciplines where they are in the minority at the faculty level. It's a fine little program, full of useful networking opportunities and interesting guest speakers.

They recently launched some kind of branding activity where they came up with a specific font and some slogans and graphics for all their flyers and so forth, and the header image for all their materials is a row of little photos of academic women doing professory things. They emailed me to ask if they could use a photo of me, since the university has some laying around from previous photo-worthy events. I don't mind. But when I eventually looked at the promotional materials I noticed that two of the six photos were of me, I'm just wearing a different shirt in each.

Now, really, are we so hard up for women faculty? Maybe it's supposed to be a hidden statement about why we need these programs ("Look, there are so few women faculty members we couldn't even find 6 different people that had been photographed.")

(It's not any kind of statement, though. When I pointed out to them that I'd been twice included, they were like, "Oh. I guess none of us really noticed when we were putting that together.")

Still, aren't they lucky that I was recently approved for promotion & tenure? How ironic would it have been if 2/3 of the women in the promotional photos had in fact not been retained?

Cultured.

2009-03-10T08:31:00.004-05:00

The other day I ran across a recent journal article that was relevant to one of my grad students, so I forwarded it to her in case she had not seen it already.

Several days later she came by my office to discuss a few points in the paper, and she began by saying, "This paper was a disappointment . . . the objectives were fairly routine, and only a small part of the paper is what I would consider any kind of real contribution to the literature, and in that part, I think their methodology was somewhat flawed. They could have done a lot better with the data they had."

I nearly cried, I was so proud of her. Even a year ago, she would never have considered voicing criticism of published work. She has long had sort of a confidence problem with her own work, in terms of being able to stand up for her decisions under constructive criticism, and she had kind of an expert-complex where she assumed everybody else knew more than she did about her research, and about everything else. (Once, very early in her research career with me, I mentioned something about reviewing a manuscript for a particular journal and she was stunned . . . she said, "I assumed that manuscript reviewers were all crusty old men who have been doing these research things for a long, long time.")

Some of her hangup has been just her personality, but I don't doubt that a lot of it is her particular religious and cultural background. She's from a certain foreign country and religious minority where acknowledging your expertise, especially if you are a woman, and criticizing another's work, even constructively and with sound science/engineering reasoning, is inappropriate behavior. A couple of years ago we had a very frank conversation about my concern that she was holding herself back from doing her best work, and she described to me the culture clash that had been going on in her head over how to reconcile her view of her role and appropriate behavior in society with her role as an expert in her research career.

I have never had this specific struggle, but I do understand the struggle to find an internal consistency in your attitudes and philosophy on life. Particularly as a very new assistant professor, I felt some of this type of friction, and so she and I talked about trying to develop a sense of self that didn't make you feel like you were abandoning your values and background, but still meant that you could use your talents and education to have a positive impact on the world through your work.

In general I find advising grad students really challenging, and not something that I am good at. But when you get to see an individual's growth as a person and as a researcher and you feel like maybe you contributed to that in even a small way, it's very satisfying.

Letters of reference

2009-02-24T15:52:00.002-06:00

Two undergraduates have asked me to write letters of reference for them for the same scholarship program, and I said yes to both, and now I feel weird about it. One of them is a undergrad research assistant working on a project with me as part of a program I direct, and the other is an undergrad RA working on a project as part of the same program, but with a different research advisor (who is also writing a letter for the student). For the first student, writing a letter of recommendation for him was a breeze (well, relatively speaking, anyway - I find writing solid, helpful letters of reference really difficult, and this one was less difficult than most).

For the second student, my interactions with him have been limited to our weekly program meetings where he's one of 10 students. I like him, he participates fully, he has a good sense of humor and he's very punctual. But . . . I don't know, if I were a scholarship committee member I would probably not find punctuality and niceness all that compelling. I am struggling with how to write an appropriate letter of reference for him.

It's tough to be an undergrad trying to drum up letters of reference, I'm sure. Your interactions with potential letter writers are often quite limited and you probably have no idea what a person would or could or should write about you in a letter.

And it's hard to write letters of reference. I think other people must struggle with this as much as I do (or, maybe they don't but they should?) because I have read some really sucky letters, mostly in grad school applications. By sucky, I mean, they have next to no value in helping the reader make a decision about the relative potential of this student to do whatever it is they're applying to do. For instance, I once read a letter of reference for a student applying to a very technical graduate program that was written by this student's former jazz flute teacher, who talked about what a good understanding of jazz this student had. I understand that perhaps out of all the professor types this student had encountered during undergrad (which was not in music, by the way) the jazz professor was the one with whom the student had the longest and most in-depth relationship, but . . . really, this letter was not that helpful to me in assessing the student's potential for research. Although I did appreciate that the student had a wide range of interests and I suppose (though it was not mentioned in the reference letter) that the student probably has some good experience combining theory with creativity.

I have also followed the lead of some senior colleagues who, when asked by a student to write a reference letter, have asked the student to either write a draft of the letter first, and email it to the professor (which I think would so horrify me if I were a student that I would probably just ask somebody else) or provide a bulleted list of things they think the professor could or should discuss or note in the letter.

I did the latter with these two students, and both of them returned basically a list of some key elements of their resume: leadership experience, club activities and so on, none of which I have any direct knowledge of. So, clearly I need to refine how I explain to askers what kind of list would be helpful to me.

Bah.

Last Straw

2008-12-12T09:25:00.006-06:00

I have this colleague.

This project that we're working on is cool, which is why I continue to work with him. But really, the parts that I am working on are easily decoupled from the other parts of the project, and I don't need him or his work in order for my project(s) to be viable. He might need me a little bit more than I need him, but he can find another person who provides similar benefits to his project as my work does. Conveniently, the current funding is drawing to a close and our next series of discussions are focused on securing the next phase of funds.

I have decided I am done with this colleague. The last straw for me was very minor, just another example of his strange behavior.

A blurb writer for my college alumni magazine (that is, the alumni magazine for the college whence my appointment comes) contacted me and another colleague from a different project about writing up a little five or six hundred word story about our work, and inquired about the project with Dr. Micromanager and whether or not the two projects have enough overlap that they could be promo'd in the same blurb. The overlap is mostly that both projects contain a significant element on my particular little research area, which is why I'm a co-PI on both projects.

(Although, have I mentioned that I am not technically a co-PI on the project with Dr. M? I helped to write the proposal and have been actively engaged since it was funded, but according to Dr. M there was "not rooom to include" my name in the proposal, which I have a hard time believing - but didn't find out until after the proposal was actually submitted right at the deadline, so what could I do?)

So I said to the writer, there's a good bit of overlap, both have a part that deal with [my research], just with slightly different [nuance].

The writer did up a nice schmoozy little blurb. Both projects have had formal news releases so there was a lot of written material already. Everybody mentioned in the blurb said it was fine - except Dr. M.

Dr. M. felt that combining the two projects in one blurb minimized his project. He told the writer that if they were going to give it such an unsophistocated treatment then they should not mention it at all, but that really they should write a separate blurb about his project.

The writer pointed out to him that was not likely, since space was very limited, and since he is in a different college so the primary connection of his project to the college with the alumni pub in question is . . . not him.

He sent me a message telling me that he did not like the writer's attitude that they were somehow doing us a favor by including mention of this project, and that I needed to avoid people like that.

This is very good advice. I should avoid people who act like they are doing me a big favor by using me or causing me trouble at every possible turn, for instance by having me write sections of a proposal and then not putting my name on it, or by not writing anything for a proposal I am leading and then demanding to be the primary, or by insisting that my student have another project participant as a formal co-advisor, or by sort of disallowing me from discussing my research with a lay audience my field when the opportunity arises.

Things I wish you never need to be prepared for.

2008-12-02T22:02:00.008-06:00

It turns out that there are a number of unexpected (well, I did not expect them, anyway) things that an advisor may experience or be called upon to do in the event of the death of a graduate student. I hope you never have cause to learn what they all are for yourself, but I will tell you some.

* You may end up planning a memorial service because many people (yourself included) wanted there to be one but not being family, none of you felt like you had the authority, and under the circumstances, you are the closest thing to authority that there is. You may feel completely inappropriate for the task but you will do your best anyway because you would want somebody to do that if it had been you.

* You may wonder what kind of bizarro memorial service there would have been for you if you had died unexpectedly as a graduate student and your advisor were to plan a service. This may provide a moment of amusement in an otherwise emotionally taxing day.

* You may recieve an automated email from somebody in university records administration requesting that you mark all of the graduate student's files with
DECEASED.

* You may have to ask the professors of the students current courses if they would prefer to assign a grade for the semester or to mark the student as having withdrawn. You might hope and then be glad that they agree to assign a grade because even though it makes next to no difference, it seems unnecessary to blemish the student's otherwise completely spotless academic record. You may also wonder why it is even an issue, and why that portion of the transcript is not simply marked DECEASED.

* Your other graduate students may stop by your office together, and you might close your office door and the little group of you may simply have a quiet moment together shedding tears.

* You may be contacted by the student health insurance office requesting a mailing address for the forms involved in the Accidental Death Benefits. You may find it weird that this task landed on your desk but you don't want to complain about it even though you probably rightfully could. You may have to call the graduate student's father to ask about whether or not her body had already flown home and if not, did they also need the forms for the Transport of Remains Benefits because those forms are time-sensitive.

* You may have to run interference for one of your other graduate students when a micromanaging project leader requests that he present his research for scrutiny the next day (since the deceased graduate student would surely want all the good work to continue), but you know the would-be presenter absolutely does not feel like dealing with being picked at right now.

* You may get a phone call from the graduate student's former supervisor from when she worked at a major lab before coming back to grad school, whom you contacted with information of the tragedy because he'd written a glowing letter of recommendation which you had in your file, and you and the other nerdy researcher may trade sniffles and acknowledgements, and you may feel a little bond even though you have never met the other guy in your life.

* You might circulate an announcement about planning the student's memorial service and then be so relieved when within minutes one of the other grad students emails back to volunteer to do an trumpet solo, because you'd had this fear that no one would step forward to have a role in the service and the whole thing would become the Average Professor Emotional Breakdown Hour, which you are certain the former student would neither want nor appreciate. You may feel even better about that when her family emails you her obituary to run in the local paper and you learn that she was also a trumpet player.

Thanksgiving and taking

2008-12-02T13:03:00.004-06:00

One of my outstanding, vivacious, kind, and promising graduate students was killed in a car accident on Wednesday as she was traveling to visit friends for the Thanksgiving holiday.

It's hard to wrap my mind around it. One moment she is very much there, with her energy and presence filling a room, and the next moment she is completely and forever absent.

I am deeply saddened by her loss. I'm close to all my grad students, and I also considered her to be a friend. Also, being a graduate student's advisor is a sort of unique relationship and a little bit like being a parent; you invest a lot of time preparing them for a bright future. When that future evaporates in a split second, you feel a loss that is not only personal and professional but also, you feel a void that will exist in society for all the advances that person would have made, but won't. In addition, I know she looked forward to marrying and having children some day, and she would have been an excellent partner and mother.

When I was a child, my younger sister and my younger brother passed away, one suddenly and one after a long illness. My grief for them was for the future that might have been. My grief now is slightly different, because I feel like I'm grieving the future that would have been and now will not.

Schroedinger's Baby

2008-09-08T13:30:00.006-05:00

Average Baby started at her new day care two weeks ago, and she seems to love it. As soon as we arrive, she just wants to play and zoom around the room and see what the other kids are doing.

As we reasoned when we were making the decision to move her, the new day care has a number of advantages, but so far the feature we have enjoyed the most is that one of the walls of the room is a one-way mirror so that over lunch, my husband and I can stroll over to the day care and totally spy on the bebe. In the old day care, we had no idea what she did all day, or what sort of temperement she had when we were not around. Obviously at home we don't know what she's like without us, either.

At home, Average Baby is usually very cognizant of our whereabouts, and if it's not sufficiently close to her, she gets irritable.

At day care, she is among the most independent of all the babies & toddlers, and is perfectly happy to amuse herself with this toy or that, or will crawl over to one of the other kids to show them what she is doing, or to take a closer look at what they are doing. When one of the other kids starts to cry, she regards them for a few seconds and then looks around the room for one of the providers to see if there's going to be a resolution.

We could watch this all day long, because it's so fascinating for us to observe her when she doesn't know we're there. I know that last time I said I tend not to think of her as a research project, but . . . maybe I kind of do.

Things to climb on

2008-08-14T08:46:00.006-05:00

In the sweet little town where we live and work, day care for infants is at a premium. There are very few providers, and thus not many options for finding one that is just so. It's more a matter of just finding one.

So when we found this nice in-home Day Care Provider with an opening, like, two weeks before I was scheduled to return to the office (despite months of prior searching), we were very happy.

And she is very nice. And she has a grade school aged daughter that Average Baby is totally enamored of; every day when we drop her off she looks all around for the little girl and will be sort of whiny and agitated until the girl makes herself available to be played with a little bit. Overall it's a good scene.

BUT, the DCP finishes her D of P-ing C at 4:30 pm. Ooosh, four-thirty is a real challenge when you're two working folks. Fortunately, my husband's boss let him do year-round "summer hours" of 7:30-4, and my schedule is flexible enough that unless I have to teach until 5 (which last semester I did, 2 days a week) I can leave at 4 also. So, we alternate pick-up and drop-off and on the day one is not picking her up, one can go to the gym or stay late at work. Still, there have been times when it's been an issue.

ALSO, on days when the DCP is unavailable (once she was stuck in a snowstorm out of town, once she had to have a little outpatient surgery, etc.) we are completely without care.

AND, there are times when the DCP herself is evidently unavailable for some reason, and when we go to pick up the bebe we'll find the kiddos under the care of somebody else - one of the DCP's high school or college aged daughters, or her husband. Fortunately they are all trustworthy and good people so this is a problem only in principle and not in practice (or, really, it's not a big enough problem in practice that we would care to speak up about it, considering the scarcity of other care options).

Sooo, several months ago when we were notified that Average Baby's name was drawn in the lottery for infant openings at the lab school on campus (pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity if we wanted her to go there), we immediately saw the opportunity to eliminate the above-mentioned problems in our day care situation (albeit at twice the cost). Plus, there was the notable advantage of being able to return to our former life of not driving every day, since we live within walking distance of campus and since Average Baby is always up for a nice stroll, weather permitting. It was more of an agonizing decision than I'm making it sound here, because the great advantage in our minds of the in-home DCP is that her place is so very homey. And she kisses Average Baby on the cheek when we drop her off. And that sort of thing.

The lab school, on the other hand, appeals to me from a research standpoint but as I tend not to think of Average Baby as a research project, I sort of prefer the kisses over the lit review provided by the lab school.

But we decided to take the opening, and Baby will start there later this month. Last night we had "parent orientation" and had another look at the room where Average Baby and her cohort will be, and it had all kinds of colorful things and foamy mats to climb on, which we think Average Baby will LOVE because at the moment she is all about climbing on things. She will also probably love that one entire wall is a giant mirror (it's for the one-way observation booth) because she also finds herself pretty interesting these days. So hopefully we'll all get used to it and she will find all kinds of fun there.

When we were in the midst of trying to make the decision to move her, I asked a number of friends who have kids in day care to chime in with their thoughts about their own and/or our situation. One of my friends said, "Don't discount the value of the educational emphasis in those highly structured programs. You know, the amount of stuff a kid is supposed to know and be able to do by the time they get to kindergarten is kind of intense."

Working with college students as I do, and knowing the extent to which many of them are NOT prepared for college in terms of stuff they should know and be able to do, this made me wonder if as a society we might have things a little bit backwards. Shouldn't we have sort of minimal expectations of kids entering kindergarten, and maybe not as minimal expectations of our high school graduates?

Maybe I'm bitchier than I thought.

2008-08-07T12:48:00.003-05:00

Today the department Organizer of Everything (she has an administrative title that I don't know, but she pretty much runs all the everything in the department) came by my office. She said one of the offices down the hallw was being cleared out, and would I like to move?

That office is infinitesimally larger than mine. You wouldn't necessarily know it was larger by actually being in it, but you would see it was if you looked at the floor plan conveniently hanging in the hallway with the fire exit route marked on it.

I said yes, of course I will take the new digs.

I would not really like to move. Like I said, I don't actually care about office space.

But, you know, positioning and so on . . . I sort of felt like I SHOULD move, just because I had the opportunity, and because the office is technically larger than the one I'm in. (And maybe two people could meet with me and we'd all be able to see each other.)

Office Space

2008-08-06T08:09:00.006-05:00

As a graduation gift when I finished my Ph.D. my awesome husband bought me a 10-inch tall replica of my favorite piece of art.

I keep it on a shelf next to my desk in my office. Twice in the first year that I was here, some student that was in my office to discuss homework or advising or whatever, looked at my little statue and asked me if I broke it.

(I tried to hide my surprise - the first time, anyway, since the second time I was actually not surprised. Not every STEM undergrad had some extra space in the schedule during their senior year of high school and were able to take an 8 am art history class. In terms of courses that were really valuable to me from high school, that class and the typing class I took sophomore year have proven to be at the top of the list. The other things - calculus, say - were also very important in the long run, but were things that my college curriculum would have filled in for me had I not had them already.) (Although my high school calculus class was far superior to most college calculus courses at the kind of university I went to for my undergrad.)

The little statue is one of the only personalized elements of my office. I also have a couple of framed art posters. I had brought them in after some of my colleagues commented on the starkness of my office walls, and I'd intended to hang them but I never got around to it, so for about 4 years they've just been sitting on the floor, leaned up against the wall as if I am just moving in.

And of course I have the obligatory framed photos on my desk of my cute husband and my cute baby, and also one of me and my three awesome and loyal girlfriends from high school.

But for the most part, my office is just a desk and some cabinets and some bookshelves and I kind of hate it but not enough to try to spruce it up. Also, it's just sort of an ugly space, so any sprucing would probably have limited impact anyway.

It's also small. My office has room for me to work without problem, and it has room for exactly ONE person to come to my office to discuss something. There is theoretically space for a second person, since I have two extra chairs besides my own, but the second person would end up kind of wedged in an awkward space from which they could not really see me. But, whatever. If I have to meet with more than one person, we just go someplace else, like the coffee room, or my lab, which has a nice conference table. So, no big deal.

HOWEVER. It is becoming increasingly apparent that colleagues don't all have the same laissez faire attitude about their own offices, because there's recently been a lot of jockeying and moving around within the building, which has resulted in a number of inequalities and screwball situations, most notably the number of essentially non-productive faculty members who have two offices. I guess my department head wanted to believe them when they said that what they really needed in order to get their programs moving was a bigger office, and not instead of but in addition to the one they already have.

I don't actually care about the office space situation. But I do care about the idea that I perhaps should be bitchier than I actually am just in order to make sure I am not shafted all the time, or that I am not giving the appearance to outsiders that my contributions to the department/university/world only rate one tiny office while other colleagues have multiple sizeable ones. You know? LAME.

But maybe it would me more in keeping with my personal and professional ethic to trick out my existing tiny office, to instead give the impression that I believe in doing fantastic things with a small but excellent footprint. You know, like I could hang my posters or something.

In which I am almost one of those academics.

2008-07-22T07:57:00.005-05:00

So, I went to this meeting. Dr. Collaborator and a small team of faculty and grad students from his university were there, and Dr. Collaborator presented their grand vision for the new endeavour.

When Dr. C and I had chatted about the project, he gave me a quick and vague overview, so I was surprised to learn that their grand vision was to do all the things that I am already doing. A grossly oversimplified version of that part of the meeting is as follows:

Dr. C & Team: This and that problems are critically important.
Avg Prof in her head: Oh man, I totally agree! So important.
C & T: At our university, we have the critical mass of people working in all the right areas to address these problems.
AP: I am interested in who those people are and what kinds of things they are doing in this area!
C & T: Here is the approach we plan to take.
AP: HUH! That is exactly the approach that I take! . . . But I didn't know there were people at that university who do that approach . . . I have never seen any publications by this group on said approach . . .
Company Guy: Are you guys using this approach in your current research?
C & T: . . . uh, there are people at our university who have used this approach, yes.
AP: Wait, that's not really the same thing.
C & T: ANYWAY, using this approach, there are several really interesting things we can do. Like, this.
AP: I have done that! I have a slide on it in my little presentation.
C & T: Or this.
AP: I have done that too! I also have a slide on that.
C & T: Or this.
AP: Oh. No, you can't do that. I have a slide on that too, along with my alternative approach.

At that point I started to have the smallest inner conflict. In the past (i.e. when I was a particularly green assistant professor riddled with insecurity) I would have panicked and wondered if these guys knew something I didn't, such as: all about my previous/exisiting research and why it was totally flawed and thus needed to be done over, and also about how I am so dense that I didn't see how you could use that approach to do that last thing.

For a brief moment, I regressed to my former shadow-self. But then the more normal me re-emerged, and I thought, more likely: this team has never used this approach, and so they are not as familiar as I am with what can and can't be (or has and hasn't been) done with it. And that this was a nice opportunity for me to express myself on an issue about which I am a relative expert.

And then, a surprise: a little seed of "egomaniacal academic" germinated in my brain and I thought, this is a nice chance for me to stick it to Dr. Collaborator AND position myself as THE authority on this subject. (But my normal self pretty quickly eradicated this weed of an idea, because it's not consistent with my general attitude and behavior.)

Thus, when it came my time to present, I was (hopefully) balanced and matter-of-fact. As in, Dr. C and his team have nicely explained the problems that the research community is positioned to address on this topic, and now I will show you results from some of my work on the questions he raised, as well as point out some of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach he introduced.

Still a little bit of scooping, and yet, not jerky. (And, I might add: very well received.)

A bridge I wanted to burn but wisely did not.

2008-07-16T10:41:00.005-05:00

I have an upcoming meeting to attend with a company with whom I have some collaborative research, though this meeting is related to some new endeavour rather than one of the projects I'm already working on with them. At the lead of this new endeavour is another collaborator, from the institution where I recieved my PhD. This collaborator was also, back in the day, a collaborator with my research supervisor and so I am well acquainted with him.

In advance of the upcoming meeting, Dr. Collaborator called me to chat about the project, having seen my name on the list of attendees and not being sure what my role was in the new endeavour (I am not sure either, actually. One of the company guys that I work with just said to the company people planning the new endeavour, "Hey, I work with this woman at this other institution who does those same things. She should come to the meeting.").

Dr. Collaborator said, "Nice to meet you." I said, "Actually, we've met before. I got my PhD five years ago at Your Institution under Dr. Research Supervisor." He said, "Aha! I thought your name sounded really familiar but I wasn't sure why I'd heard it before."

What I sort of wanted to say then, but didn't, was this: "You'll probably recognize my face, when you see it, too, because one time you spent about 45 minutes yelling and swearing right into it."

One day while I was in grad school, I was working with Research Supervisor, another of his students, and one of Dr. Collaborator's students. We were out in the "field" collecting some data using a piece of equipment that Research Supervisor and Dr. Collaborator shared, when the marine battery we used to keep the equipment powered conked out. Research Supervisor suggested we hook the equipment up to our vehicle battery for the remainder of the data collection, which we did. At the end of the day's successful work, I jauntily skipped over to Dr. Collaborator's lab to return the equipment to storage (as much as one could jauntily skip carrying a marine battery). I found Dr. Collaborator to tell him about the battery problem, and when he asked how we were able to collect the rest of the data and I explained we'd hooked the power cables to the vehicle battery instead, he flipped out, calling me several unflattering things and greatly disparaging my judgement skills while making some un-nice predictions about my academic and scientific career. For an extended period of time.

I calmly said, "I will certainly relay your concerns to Dr. Research Supervisor." And then I ran back to my office and cried white hot tears of anger and embarrassment. (Incidentally, I did relay his concerns to Research Supervisor, who several days later had a very boring conversation with Dr. Collaborator about the relative interchangeability of the two batteries for that purpose, and that was the end of that. I did not relay to Research Supervisor that the concerns had come with the free bonus of a long and passionate berating.)

Anywhoo, what I learned was: some professionals are prone to episodes of unprofessional behavior, and Dr. Collaborator is one of those people. I am glad I did not snap back at him even though I had really wanted to, but I am also glad that I already know this about him, and learned it in the relatively safety of my position as a grad student who was just caught in his crosshairs. Should the opportunity arise through this new endeavour to share any equipment or data or anything with Dr. Collaborator, I will not be all that excited about it.

Tilting in one direction.

2008-07-07T09:46:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a conference I have attended annually for the last 7 or 8 years. Since I started going to this conference, I have noticed more and more attendees bringing along their families. I think this is not because there have actually been MORE attendees bringing along their families, but rather (1) I have been paying this kind of thing more notice in the last few years, and (2) the demographics of attendees have been shifting as some of the old guard retire and the conference gets a little younger on average, and there are thus more spouses and younger children as opposed to just spouses and the occassional teenager.

The conference tries to cater to the guests as much as possible, but they're evidently more used to the old demographics because the planned "spouse/guest" activities are things like shopping trips and a crafting and needlework show-and-tell session. (My husband was not as amused as I was when I asked him if he was sure he didn't want to attend, since I know he likes to show off his cross-stitching.)

So most of the families of the younger attendees don't do any of those events, and make their own schedules entirely.

I noticed something for the first time this year, though. Three different times, I was heading over to this or that technical session, and came across a (different) little kid, 8 or 10 years old or so, sitting on a chair in the hallway outside the conference rooms, watching a movie on a personal DVD player.

I realize that we all struggle to get keep that notorious work/life balance, but that seems weird to me. I can't quite put my finger on what bothered me about it.

Is it that I felt bad for the kids? I sort of did, but then I thought that was pretty narrow-minded of me, because if it was just one afternoon or so of movie-watching in a week of otherwise fun stuff, then likely going along with mom or dad on work-travel is cool for the kids. And the kids probably get to see and do lots of different things in much of the rest of their time. And of course, it's not like I expect that when the kids are at home, they are being actively engaged/edified/entertained by one or more parents. I watched a lot of movies and tv as a kid, travel or no.

Is it that the kids were out in the hallway essentially unsupervised? Possibly. I mean, that does bother me, but I don't know if that's over-protective or not, and I'm not sure that's the only thing that bothered me.

Is it that the conference seems not to notice the trend and keeps offering these antiquated (not to mention mildly or strongly gender-biased) guest programs? That does irritate me.

I'm so tenurific.

2008-06-17T12:57:00.000-05:00

In mid-August I'm supposed to submit a draft of my dossier to my departmental promotion & tenure committee (they'll not only evaluate but also give some feedback to improve it before finalizing).

My CV is in fine shape, since I'm a little obsessive about keeping it up to date, and even using it as a decision support tool when trying to decide whether to do this or that (which use of my time will have a more significant impact in a weak area on my CV?). But the materials I submit also need to contain a hefty document wherein I reflect on my excellence and tenure-worthiness and explain all about what a rising star I am and how I am poised to have such great importance to the profession & community, etc., etc.

I realize this needs to get done. And I would like to get tenure, so I want to do a good job.

But I'm having a hard time getting up the activation energy to start writing such a document. It's because things I do NOT enjoy include the following:

Trying to convince people I am awesome.
Doing fluffy stuff.
Camoflauging weaknesses (I prefer to just call them what they are).

Don't come a-knockin'.

2008-05-21T20:20:00.000-05:00

So, as I am still more or less breastfeeding my ~7 month old kiddo, I pump a couple of times during the day while I'm at work. This is no problem, as I have a private office and I can just shut the door and go about my business (several years ago a staff member, who did not have a private office, had a baby and also pumped during the day, and did it in the bathroom; I feel comparatively quite comfortable with my own arrangement).

The only thing I feel weird about is when somebody knocks on the door. Because my office door is sort of flimsy (the old-timey kind, with the large window of clouded glass on the top half, rather than the solid kind) the sound of the pump is audible from just outside the door. So I think sometimes people know I'm in there, just not answering.

Whatever. They knock; I don't respond; they maybe come back later.

But three times during the last month, somebody has knocked, I don't respond, and they jiggle the doorknob.

Fortunately, all of those times, the door has been locked, so the handle jiggling comes to nothing. But I find this very weird. Why jiggle? If I don't respond, it probably means I don't want to be disturbed. Does this person think maybe I just didn't HEAR the knock (or see their shadowy figure through the glass) and that if they just pop their head in I'll be all pleasantly surprised? Or, can they not BELIEVE that I'm really not in there or really not interested in talking to them?

But really: HOW AWKWARD would it be if the door were not locked?

Answer: Extremely awkward.

Dr. M, again.

2008-05-20T10:41:00.000-05:00

So, this guy? He is requesting (demanding? instructing?) that our colleague "Kenneth" be added as a co-advisor to my graduate student who is working on this project. I get the sense that Dr. M feels that Kenneth needs some "incentive" to become more engaged in this research, but, both Kenneth and I agree that adding him as a co-advisor, when I am already totally in charge of the student, will have no effect, and Kenneth's lack of 24/7 participation is due mostly to the other pressing demands on his schedule and not in any way due to how he is officially listed in this grad student's academic committee.

I feel very pushed around. Selection of an advisor should be between student and advisor, and not be demanded by a third party. Right? The departmental graduate program committee chair advised me that if it's not going to pose any clear advantage to the grad student, then, we should not play games with his committee, and should leave things as they are.

At the same time, if it makes no functional difference, then we could acquiesce just for the sake of collegiality. Also, Dr. M controls the first batch of funding for this project.

Kenneth votes for appeasement. I'm torn. I'm sure the student won't care one way or the other, since it's just a matter of paperwork (and principle).

C is for Confrontation

2008-02-26T11:07:00.001-06:00

Last week, one of the staff members in the department, a woman about my age with whom I've had a friendly relationship, sent an email around to the other women staff members plus me, inviting us all to participate in a "Women of XYZ Department" bake sale to raise money for a doodleybob for the department.

Ignoring the complexities of fundraising in this way (like, where will the money actually GO? I suspect it will have to route through the fundraising arm of the university as a donation, and from whom, and how would we ensure it actually was used for a doodleybob, and who made the decision that we needed a doodleybob, etc. etc.) the idea of "Women of XYZ" + bake sale was mildly unsettling to me, because it sort of perpetuates certain gender stereotypes (namely: it's a woman's role to bake things for the benefit of others) that I normally try to eschew.

So I mulled this over for a while, and finally decided to diplomatically reply to the email with my concern.

Largely unbeknownst to me, there was some backstory involved that made her already defensive about said bake sale. The woman responded to my email to note that I was not really included in Women of XYZ, it was just certain undergraduate students that she'd been talking to, that she wasn't forcing me to participate, and that I must be some kind of sexist to think there are any gender stereotypes in that activity since after all plenty of women enjoy baking and there is nothing wrong with that.

I should have just left it there, but I was so rattled by her response that I reworded my concern in a reply, you know, just in case it was a misunderstanding (which I should have known it wasn't). The situation quickly devolved: me trying to reroute the discussion to explain my viewpoint while letting her know I wasn't attacking her or the doodleybob or the general concept of a bake sale, and her telling me it was none of my business and I shouldn't pick apart somebody else's idea and by the way if I'm so smart why don't I take on some projects of my own and not waste her time with my narrow-minded issues.

Huh.

I do have to have a functioning working relationship with this woman, so I'd like some resolution towards that, and while I think that we can't resolve the situation just the two of us (certainly not via email and probably not face-t0-face either) I'd be willing to engage the university ombusdman to meet with us and help us put this behind us. But that seems like a lot of effort to go through over some brownies and whatnot. Yes? No?

People who are not my problem.

2008-02-13T13:32:00.000-06:00

A senior member of my department is keen on bringing in students and postdocs from developing countries and the like. He's passionate about international development issues in our discipline, and he's really supportive of nondomestic students and scientists. At any time, he has a LOT of students and visiting researchers in his group, many of them through collaborative programs designed to provide educational and training opportunities to scientists/technologists from certain countries.

But he's also reeeeeeeeally busy with some administrative responsibilities and other work things. I get the vibe that he doesn't really have as much time to devote to these students and guest researchers as he thinks he does.

He has a particular postdoc that he brought in on some semi-open funding (that is, the funding was for the person and not for a particular research project) where they then had to brainstorm a research project for the postdoc to work on. The project they came up with requires using some complex software that I use in some of my research - software that, in order to figure out, I attended an 80-hour short course on AND spent many hours fiddling with myself, and still I am not completely fluent in it.

Last semester the postdoc asked if he could borrow my copy of the software. I immediately worried that I was going to get sucked into teaching him how to use it, which I don't have the time (or expertise, really) to do. But I loaned him my software to try out, and then the Sr. guy bought him a copy to use himself once they decided to go forward.

The other day the postdoc sent me an email saying he was "having some problems with the software" and could we meet to discuss. Again . . . I think the guy is kind of in over his head and I don't want him to think I can (or should) teach him to use it, but, I'm a nice person and I like to help people out when I can, so I said sure, let's talk about it.

He came by my office. This is what he said, "I need to know how to make it go."

:(

So, I said, "Your installation CD came with the instruction manual, have you looked at that?"

He said, "What? Oh. No. I haven't looked at it."

:(

So, I said, "Ah, you should probably look at it. It gives you some details on how to run the software. Also, last time, I gave you some of the exercises that we went through in the training session I attended. Did you try any of them?"

He said, "What? Oh. No. I haven't looked at them."

:(

Okay, look. I would like to be helpful. I don't want to be that person, who won't help out a fellow researcher because they're too busy or think too highly of themselves or anything, and I certainly don't want to annoy the senior researcher.

But, this guy is not my postdoc and so I don't want to invest a huge amount of time giving him the background, to be able to do a project that, given his current LACK of background on this particular point, I would have advised against, if anybody had asked me. And I don't get the sense that I can be all that helpful by investing a small amount of time.

Blah. :(

I . . . but . . .

2008-02-08T15:08:00.000-06:00

A recent survey by the NIH paints a pretty bleak picture for women in academia. Among my numerous responses to that article was a great feeling of relief that my disciplinary research and the NIH don't really have any common ground.

But this was disturbing:

"Women are going to have a harder time than men succeeding" at every stage of the tenure-track academic career [according to Phoebe Leboy, president-elect of the Association of Women in Science]. Leboy points to data made available by the NIH that showed women lagging behind men in terms of grants per investigator, dollars per grant, success in getting grants renewed, and responsibility for big budget center grants. And because success is so closely tied to funding, particularly in academic health centers, says Leboy, all of these things mean that women are having a harder time achieving tenure than men.

Hrm.

Let me first say that from my limited knowledge of my colleagues' work (from their vitae and from personal communication), my own stats are very much in line with my guy counterparts ( . . . well, now I think they are. . . I know two years ago I wouldn't have said that, but it was because two years ago I was still deep in the midst of assistant professor angst).

I don't think this makes me unusual in any way. I also don't actually personally know ANY women who haven't gotten tenure, though I know some men that haven't (but of course I know way more men that have gotten tenure than women that have, because I just know more men in the first place). So even though I keep seeing reports like these, I've never seen it or felt it in my own life so it always seems really bizarre.

Am I blind?

Is my own (average) success with papers and grants and dollars actually extraordinary?

OR:

Is there something wrong with NIH-related disciplines that isn't wrong with mine?

Oink.

2008-01-25T09:09:00.001-06:00

My university employs a lobbyist. One of the jobs of the lobbyist is to pitch alluring high-dollar research projects to congress and try to snag some earmarks and whatnot.

Several projects I've been involved in have been included, at one time or another, in the bunch of projects the lobbyist shops around, with varying degrees of success.

On the one hand, I like to get funding for cool projects. And if somebody's going to get funding for cool projects, why not me?

On the other hand, I have a strong philosophical objection to congressional pork projects.

What's a girl to do?

Am I really necessary?

2008-01-15T14:38:00.000-06:00

So. I am back from my maternity leave. Something that strikes me as weird is how little work I did while I was off, and how smoothly my career continued to move forward while I was not working. I realize this is due to a few factors: judicious selection of excellent and independent graduate students, the fact that most projects unfold over a long time period, and the fact that I have enough written products (papers, proposals, etc.) that there's an element of fast cut/paste to subsequent similar efforts.

But in my absence: my class continued through the end of the semester with grading assistance from a TA, one of my grad students wrote a successful proposal for his next year of funding, I was a co-I on two large proposals, and two papers were accepted after just some minor revision.

If you had asked me, had I not been going on maternity leave (which was more or less mandatory, and so I didn't ask myself too many questions about it), if I could take 2+ months off work and not have everything fall apart, I would have said absolutely no. I can't even take a 2 week vacation without feeling hopelessly behind when I get back. But I don't feel hopelessly behind at all. If anything, I feel a little bit ahead, in the sense that I'm not behind, and I sort of thought I would be.

(An obvious difference is that when you're on vacation people still ask you to do things, and when you're on maternity leave, they don't. But still.)

Do a little prep work first.

2007-08-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

Today I was leaving my building on my way to a meeting, and a student stopped me and said, "Excuse me, where are the stairs? I need to get downstairs to 100-something."

I said, ". . . there's no basement in this building, so you're already as far downstairs as you can go! What room are you looking for again?"

She: "101. Or 124. Or . . . I don't know."
Me: "Um. Is it for a class? Which one?"
She: "I don't remember."
Me: "Do you remember the subject?"
She: "No."
Me: "Good luck."

Honestly . . . knowing neither the room number nor the course number and not even what the general gist of the class you're looking for? Why?

Buh?

2007-08-03T07:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a little meeting with a student who is exploring potential members of his PhD committee and wanted to know my interest and if I'd be a good fit and all that. He seems interesting and motivated and whatever, and the conversation was cool. (He's 36, so he asked better questions than most students who are right out of undergrad.)

And then, towards the end, he said, "I just have one more question for you, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way. Do you have children? Are you planning to someday?"

And I was like, "Buh?" But then said, well, my husband and I are expecting a kid in October . . .um, but what difference does it make?

He kind of hinted that he really wanted people on his committee who were going to have the right level of focus, and then he mentioned something about having had knee surgery . . . I wasn't sure what any of that meant and decided not to probe any further; maybe he'd had a bad experience at some point, or something . . . I later mentioned that I've worked hard with my grad students this summer to make sure they were all on really solid ground before the fall begins, so that when I am out of the office towards the end of the semester it won't inhibit their progress in any way, and he said that he found that attitude "really encouraging."

I had no idea what he was really getting at. Nobody has ever asked me anything like that in one of those conversations about committee interest.

And for a while after he left, I felt vaguely unsettled by the conversation but couldn't figure out what exactly it was that was bothering me, aside from it's general inappropriateness. But eventually I put my finger on it.

He was either trying to ascertain (a) something about my value system and whether or not I have a life outside of work, or, (b) whether or not I would take my role seriously if I were on his committee, or if I'm just here for jollies and all my focus is someplace else.

I resent the implication that what he actually asked would address either one of those questions. I also suspect he would not ask the same question of a male professor.

What if I had a very rich and active social life? What if I did a lot of volunteer work? What if I had no kids or plans for kids but I was caring for an elderly parent, or a disabled spouse? Or I was planning to go on sabbatical next year? Or I was in the middle of a horrible divorce? Or any other thing, among the million things that can mess with a person's schedule or plans or can impact whether or not they work 70 hours a week. Surely at his age he would realize that every life comes with some surprises and disruptions, and you just deal with them as they come.

If he's concerned that I'm a woman and so probably my career is just something I am taking seriously temporarily, then, that would really make me angry. I have of course encountered this attitude more than once, but it still shocks me, especially when it's coming from men of more or less my same generation (which, interestingly, it was in every case).

Flashback.

2007-07-27T15:32:00.000-05:00

Because I'll be going on maternity leave halfway through the fall semester, my department and I hatched this plan wherein I am filming all the course "lectures" through our distance ed office this summer, and then we're creating a distance learning version of the course for the fall. You know, with moderated discussion boards, and online quizzes and all that. And for the first half of the semester I'll be around for the students to come to office hours and such.

Don't ask me too many questions about how that's going to go, because I'm really not sure myself.

Anyway. Filming the classes is a very weird experience, because my normal teaching style is pretty interactive, but this series is just me, a tablet pc, a videocamera for my face, and an empty room. It's kind of unnerving, so I decided I needed a role model to keep in mind while doing this, so that I don't freeze up or fall apart.

I chose Alton Brown. He's nerdy, like me, but informative, and also entertaining to watch, so that it doesn't turn into a complete snooze-fest.

But today, I was going over some material in the middle of the lecture, and as I drew something on the pc I made a little noise, following along with the pen.

And then it occured to me, that really the class is way more like THIS than like Alton Brown (except, the homework is slightly more complex):

Signs you spend too much time working.

2007-07-10T14:27:00.000-05:00

You repeatedly try to open your front door at home with your office key.
You try to open your office door with your USB stick.

Among my fears.

2007-07-02T09:00:00.001-05:00

What if I send out a manuscript, and the reviewers HATE it and talk about how stupid I am behind my back? Generally, reviewers in my field are really helpful, I think, and so this is probably a mostly irrational worry. All of the reviews I've ever gotten back on my own work have been really constructive, even if they're critical, and even if the first response is "reject." But still, are they saying things I don't see?

I'm an underling editor for one of the main journals in my discipline, so these days I get to see a lot more of the review process. Today I recieved a review from one person, who wrote some constructive (albeit terse) comments in the part of the review form the authors get to see, and then also added a comment in the part that only the editors get to see. It said,

This manuscript demonstrates profound ineptitude on the part of the authors.

Yowch.

But that answers the question. Yes, they very well may think I'm an idiot without explicitly saying so to me. (I should add that none of my papers thus far have ever not gotten published, even if it took a few revisions or a few different journals. So objectively I should believe I am not viewed as a complete moron.)

Goodbye, old friend.

2007-06-28T08:30:00.000-05:00

My beloved TI-85 calculator, which I got as a high school graduation present from my parents some 14 years ago, needs to be put down. The keypad no longer works - or rather, it's fritzy, sometimes certain buttons work, and sometimes certain buttons don't.

So for the couple of weeks, I've had to be pretty creative with even simple math. Like, I needed to multipy something by eight. But that day my multiply and 8 buttons were both dead. So I had to divide by 2^(-3) instead. That kind of thing.

At first I thought, I should get it fixed! That seems like a straightforward connection problem! Maybe I could even fix it myself if I could get in there with a little soldering iron or who knows what!

But then I thought, let's be practical. I have $X left to expend by the end of this week from one of my pretty flexible accounts, and that would easily cover the costs of a shiny new TI-89 TITANIUM. That seemed more sensible. So that is what I did.

But, I love my old calculator. We've been through so much together - good times (Honors Calc II my freshman year in college) and bad times (Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations during grad school), and everything in between. It saw me through 4 years of college, 6 years of grad school, and 4 years as an asst prof, and I'm having a hard time letting go.

My wedding dress is probably still sitting in a folded up pile at the back of my little sister's closet in her old room at my parents' house. But a calculator is getting me all misty.

When I opened the TITANIUM package last night to start playing with the new calculator (which immediately repulsed me with its fancy features I'll never use and its oh-so-smart way of telling me sin(pi/4) is the square root of two over two - my old calculator would just tell me it was 0.707... and then leave it to me to figure out what that was, if it was important to me) I felt like a cheating spouse.

I'm sorry, TI-85, I really am. You're just not working for me any more, and I need to move on.

System, failure.

2007-06-26T21:04:00.000-05:00

So, you know how in academia, especially in the major research universities, there are all these things you're supposed to do if you want to be successful? And how you're supposed to do a lot of them? Almost a ridiculous superhuman amount?

This internal conflict arises in me.

Many of those things, those hallmarks of success, are not fundamentally all that important to me - at least not in the volumes I am supposed to be doing them. For example -

Let's say that to support a nice PhD student for a year (stipend, tuition, conference travel, supplies, publication costs, etc.) I need 30,000 clams. There are a variety of sources for this kind of clammage, and I don't particularly care which source I ultimately get it from. Because really what matters to me is that we get to do the research and share the results, and I get to participate in the development of the next set of researchers.

But, the system will tell me that some clams are really worth more than others, because they are more competitive or higher profile or pay more overhead. And the system is not at all impressed by the low value clams.

And so forth.

And, you know, I could work maybe 50-75% more than I do, and maybe rack up some more of those awesome things. But I would do so at the expense of my private life, which is more important to me, in the end, than my work life - even though I definitely value my work life.

So, this conflict. Do I

do all the things that are important to the system, as if they are important to me too, and really try to conform myself to the system's definition of success?

maintain my own definition of success, and do all the things that are important to me as a person and a researcher and an educator, and in the right balance for me, and hope that enough people in my position do the same, so that in time they system becomes more like us?

I lean towards the latter - at least, I live that way, so I suppose it probably is what I really believe. I think if I did the former, I might grow to hate my job, and leave. Or, imagine how irate I would be if I did the former and it still lead to, you know, unsuccess. Either outcome seems like it would mean I'd wasted a LOT of time and energy and joy.

Or, maybe the people that are successful are the ones that just naturally have EXACTLY the same definition of success as the system, and so they don't ever experience this conflict. Maybe I'm naive; I find this pretty unlikely.

Although, I suppose a lot of faculty types are internally motivated by external recognition of their awesomeness - so, maybe it's really that successful people are that way because the thing that is fundamentally important to them is just the success, however that happens to be measured or judged in their chosen field. I'm sure there are some people that are this way.

(And then I guess some people are just supergenius and savvy and lucky. But, I'm not those things, just a normal kid! So that can't be my strategy anyway!)

Trying to be somebody useful.

2007-06-08T14:24:00.000-05:00

That's what I've been up to lately.

Aspect 1: Be a mentor to my junior colleagues

Now that I have a full contingent of graduate students (well, as many as I feel I could reasonably handle at this stage of my career) I have realized I need to develop some kind of core of mentorship with my graduate students. Up until now I have pretty much just been getting by - answering questions as they come up, being more or less completely reactive, and not really helping them develop in their career.

I have only the vaguest ideas of how to do this, but making up my mind in a concrete way that I have this goal has led to some positive forward motion. Yay for that!

Aspect 2: Be a source of preparation for my undergraduates.

Instead of just teaching them. These people are, in some sense, the product of a goodly portion of my work - they are what I produce. And so I really want them to be as awesome as they want to be.

Aspect 3: Be a contributing member of my scientific field.

Now that I feel like I am rolling steadily towards tenure, I don't feel like I need to be quite as me-oriented. Which is good, because "me" doesn't end up being a very strong motivator for me. Now that I'm not so frazzled, I think I am regaining my passion for the social value of the work that I do, which makes the work a lot more enjoyable and satisfying.

Aspect 4: Be a contributing member of my family.

This one will be reaching a critical point later this fall, since my husband and I are expecting our first kid. I am, honestly, trying not to think about it too much, because I know I'll just worry about it (balance, tenure, blahblahblah), and that's really not productive.

You know, in the back of my mind one of the things I'm not looking forward to is that my homelife will no longer be mostly about me. Is it weird that in my professional life, I'm relieved that it's no longer mostly about me, but am dreading this at home?

Hm. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised to find some satisfaction in giving up my generally selfish ways?

Dr. Micromanagement strikes again

2007-04-18T12:25:00.000-05:00

You may remember him from a previous post.

We're doing another round of proposals, and on one of them, a revision came back from Dr. M with a certain catch phrase (not really related to the work we're doing) inserted in the title. That was news to me and to my colleague Kenneth, the original author of this proposal.

So, I sent an email to Dr. M and Kenneth asking about this new addition and noting how I didn't see anything about said catch phrase mentioned in the proposal, so it seemed kind of out of place to me.

Dr. M responded, "I was a little unclear on this connection myself. See what you and Kenneth can come up with to make the proposal more balanced in this regard."

Huh.

The thing is, as I said in the previous post, it's not a big deal. And actually, I'm trying to learn a few appropriate lessons from Dr. M about how to sell things and get the right buzz for projects (but am trying to not absorb his strategy of treating colleagues like students).

But, you know, at the same time . . . in light of this week's events at VT, I am not in the mood for his hijinks right now.

Turns out, neither is Kenneth. As I composed my diplomatic email reverting the change while he sat in my office after our discussion about it, he said,

"Also say, PS. Kenneth says 'buzz off'".

(I did not.)

Difference of opinion.

2007-02-14T11:47:00.000-06:00

One of my former students came to me to complain about an exam he'd had in another class, that has some overlapping material with a class the student had taken from me.

He read me one of the exam questions, and outlined the solution that the other professor had been looking for. In my opinion, the question and the solution were such an oversimplification of the real problem that the "solution" was actually incorrect. The student, having discussed this topic in greater detail in my class, knew there was a problem with it also, but wasn't sure if maybe he was missing some big idea.

I encouraged him to go talk to the other professor, and see what the prof was thinking, and explain what he (the student) was thinking, etc. Just to see where the disconnect was. So, he did. The professor agreed that his solution was "not technically correct", but said, "I was just looking for a quick answer, and for back-of-the-envelope purposes, my way is fine."

Okay, maybe. (Having seen the actual question, I feel like his approach was still no good, even for rough estimates, because it was all based on some very sketchy relationships). But, it rankles me that the students were asked to come up with a ridiculous and inappropriate answer, and then penalized for trying to go about it in a better way.

But, that's the weird thing about grading. There's no recourse when the professor is wrong, or wrong-ish, and doesn't care.

This has come up once before; a student came to me in deep confusion over a subject in another class, and since I'm very familiar with that subject matter he wanted me to try to explain it to him. When I looked at the problem, I saw that the prof was using the wrong approach for that type of situation - and then I wondered what my responsibility was towards the student. I decided to explain how *I* would do it, and gave him some references, but pointed out that I wasn't teaching the class, and so it would be worth his while to know the other guy's approach (but, it bothered me a lot, because out in the real world, that approach wouldn't be right). I even, very gently, asked that prof, if he didn't mind, to explain to me why he was using that approach, and his explanation didn't make sense to me either. But I left it there because I wasn't sure if it was any of my business.

Management of senior colleagues

2007-02-12T11:23:00.000-06:00

I'm working on a project with a group of faculty from across a few disciplines. While I like them all as people, one of them is a real challenge for me. He's the PI for the project that originated the group, and is an extreme micromanager. He's in a discipline fairly distant from mine, and so while understands the premise of my work and how it connects with the project, he understands none of the technical details - and yet, he questions my every move on said details. I don't take this personally, because he does it to everyone else in the group as well - so I know this isn't an issue of rank or gender, it's just his style.

We're working on another proposal related to this project, but with the focus of this one squarely in my area of expertise.

Dr. Micromanagement is again making me crazy by:
1. Demanding that he be listed as the responsible party for all objectives in the proposal, despite the fact that most of them are way, way outside his area of expertise, and despite the fact that I am the PI on this proposal,
and
2. Not submitting any verbiage for the proposal for the pieces he actually IS responsible.

My husband, listening to me vent, wonders why I just don't kick the guy off this proposal, and find people who are easier to work with. It's not really in my best interest to do so, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I am just an assistant professor and he's a full professor well respected and rewarded for his research.

And also, I am developing a thick and diplomatic skin about issues like this, so, I can deal. (But still!)

Maybe we're just TOO nice.

2007-02-06T08:40:00.000-06:00

So, I had this student last semester. This semester he enrolled in another class of mine, which I co-teach with another faculty member (one of the ones from this episode), and it's pretty much the same story: nice kid, NOT up to graduate level work.

My colleague, having felt burned by our struggle last semester with the grad student thesis issue, wants to do something or say something to somebody - and I can't say I totally disagree. On the one hand, graduate school is this student's responsibility. On the other hand, we accepted him, and we're paying him to be here.

But, what would we say, and to whom? Perhaps the major professor? But in many ways, it's also a college and departmental issue. I'm starting to think that problems like these - students kind of languishing in a program that's maybe not a great fit for their skills or aptitudes - are more widespread than just one or two students here and there. A friend of mine in another department relayed to me that he'd recently been on a master's committee for a student in my department that he felt was clearly not up to the task, and whose thesis he thought was a total joke (but as the most junior member on the committee, and as somebody outside the department, he felt hamstrung, and ultimately went along with the rest of the committee, and just decided never to serve on any committees in my department again).

Other faculty members in my department, when I was consulting with more senior folks than I during my struggle with that grad student of mine last year, have pretty much told me the same thing, that there are some problems with quality control, but there's not really any mechanism to catch that and act on it early. (I think that was something at the root of my problem with that grad student - if there had been a way to reroute her to a more appropriate program, perhaps a non-thesis option, I might have done it. But, having already invested a year of money in her that would go wasted if she left or went non-thesis, I decided to take my chances that we could squeeze her into a more researchy mold, which was only marginally successful).

Maybe it's no different when this is not the case, but the fact that all these students are funded on grant money, where you are on the hook for delivering some results, creates a weird dynamic when things go wrong, because as a faculty member you absolutely NEED your grad students to be successful, and you can't really afford to have ones that aren't. So maybe we sometimes push or coddle students that we really shouldn't be pushing.

My department is nationally ranked, in the low single digits. So we ought to be attracting and recruiting high-quality students (of course, there's another issue of it being difficult to know the quality of a potential graduate student just based on their undergraduate academic performance, and it's even more of a struggle when the applicant is from a foreign university - which most of them are). And we ought to be fair to the students that do come here, and not let them slip by when there's palpable trouble.

Desire.

2007-01-31T13:56:00.000-06:00

So, I am working on this collaboration with some industry folks, and they recently decided to toss some dollars at one of our projects, enough for me to bring on an MS student to work on it.

I have had an undergrad working on this project for the last 8 months or so, and would love to have him continue, but he's not leaning towards graduate school. Also, though energetic, he is not particularly detail oriented.

So I have been considering this, how shall I recruit, etc., and one of my former students comes by to ask if he could put me down as a reference on his resume, and also he's having some career questions, and should he be considering graduate school, and that sort of thing.

If I were a cartoon character, my eyes would have turned to dollar signs or hearts at that moment. I really like this student - he's a good guy, very scholarly, diligent, thoughtful, critical, etc. OF COURSE HE SHOULD CONSIDER GRADUATE SCHOOL.

And, he should - but, I find myself a little bit blinded by my desire to have him as MY graduate student.

Out of the toolshed.

2007-01-22T13:21:00.000-06:00

Remember when I mentioned about how weird it is to run into complete tools around campus? Several weeks ago, I was at some university event, and ran into the woman that had set up that particular meeting. She said, "Oh, and by the way, I want to apologize for that meeting you attended. Somebody there was a real problem. We had to have [somebody in a position of authority] have a talk with that person, and let them know that sort of behavior was not appropriate in that kind of meeting."

Huh. Well, then it wasn't just me, with my cloistered little rose-hued view on academia. That person really WAS a tool.

Look here.

2007-01-21T12:05:00.000-06:00

I am on my department's faculty bowling league. I do this because I enjoy the other bowlers, and I like the opportunity to get out of the house/office and do something different every now and then. (I do not do it because I enjoy bowling or am any good at it - actually, I am the worst bowler in the league, a fact I know because everybody's scores are posted on the internet for the hard-core bowlers - or people who wonder, "Am I indeed the worst bowler in the league?" - to scrutinize.)

So, the other day, a member of another team struck up a conversation with me, and then asked what team I was on, and I said, "_____ [name of my department]". He said, "That's funny! You don't look like a ____ist!"

My internal response: "Wake up, dude."
My external response: "Ha, right, well, they clearly asked me to be on the team because of my excellent bowling skills, haha."

Several days later, my husband and I went to a concert of a group we'd seen before. I thought about that time; we'd bought a CD and gotten it autographed. When I approached one of the group members, he signed my CD and said, "Are you a violinist? You look like a violinist." (In case you were wondering: I am not a violinist.)

Personally, I think I look like exactly what I am. Nothing surprising or anything.

Have you ever seen that program where the contestant has to guess which person in this group in front of them is the EMT, CPA, kidney donor, or whatever? I think this show is not interesting. Aside from the one or two "gimme" matches, like the guy in the giant buffalo hide, horns and all, when one of the list members is "Medicine Man," there's no reason to suspect that you'd be able to identify a kidney donor or a knitting expert just by looking at them.

But sometimes you can't even get students to come to class when they are PAYING for it.

2007-01-05T12:21:00.000-06:00

I think this is interesting. I also do not have enough confidence in my teaching to say that I think this would encourage anybody to attend my university if we did the same thing. I suspect the reaction would be more like, "Zzzzzzzzzzz."

I wish we had 4 weeks between semesters.

2007-01-02T08:48:00.000-06:00

But we have 3. It's not enough. The week immediately after finals, you're kind of doing cleanup from the carnage of the weeks before, including attending all the meetings scheduled for after finals because everybody was too busy prior to that. Then if you're me, you travel to family for 5 or 6 days over Christmas. Then you really only have one week before the circus rolls into town again.

I'm too sexy for your meeting.

2006-12-12T11:59:00.000-06:00

From time to time I get a call or an email from somebody in the college or university development office, alerting me that BigShinyCompany will be on campus and that I'm to meet with them for 10 minutes, wedged in between several other faculty members' 10 minutes.

I used to refer to this as trotting out "my dog & pony show". You know, amuse them and show them something cool and maybe catch their attention in some way. But, the other day a colleague told me on the sly that he has been formulating a new mental image of what these quick promotional presentations really are.

A pole dance.

Give them just enough to make them want more of you. Stimulate them in some way, so that they leave with the impression that, maybe they're not sure why, but they need to have you. Give them the impression - but don't ever SAY it - that they could have you, under the right circumstances. Give them no real content, but mostly the illusion of content. Leave most of it to their imagination, because if you go to far, it could be a turnoff.

I think when my colleague called it this, he was doing so with some level of disgust with the system. But he's in a secure and generally successfully-funded position, from which he can happily say no to this seamy business.

Me, on the other hand . . . well, I actually find the term appropriately instructive.

You lose some.

2006-11-13T14:10:00.000-06:00

I have a very nice, bright graduate student who has a lot of trouble trying to do "research". The student has a number of strengths that are quite suitable and valuable for this student's chosen profession, but the student also has some weaknesses that make traditional graduate study difficult, particularly when it comes to some of the details of pulling together a masters thesis.

I am gridlocked with the rest of the student's graduate thesis committee. I won't go in to details about all the points of disagreement, but . . . they're significant.

AND I AM BEYOND STRESSED. While I know I should not feel like this student is my personal responsibility or completely a reflection of my research skills and my mentoring skills . . . I feel that way anyway. And, I feel bad for the student because I know the student feels somewhat brutalized by this whole process.

I am trying to remain positive, and do my best to ensure an equitable outcome for all parties. But it's not easy! Perhaps I should just have a good long cry and then force myself to snap into detached problem-solver mode, right? Or something. :(

Stylish shoes or cowbell?

2006-11-09T11:23:00.000-06:00

A while ago, at the behest of my husband, I decided to start trying to dress a little nicer for work. I'm not sure why, because my department is really casual, and it's not like I have people to impress. What can I say? My husband has a lot of influence over me.

Part of this effort involved an investment of two new pairs of shoes, one black and one brown, both with heels. I admit they are nice looking, but, compared to my loafers or sneakers, they are really LOUD when I walk. And, as I am the only woman on my floor, everybody knows where I am going any time I am going anywhere. Colleagues shout hello at me before I walk by their door. Students prepare themselves for my arrival before I get to the classroom. And I get teased a lot - at first for just the loud shoes, and now for both the loud shoes AND, on days when I regress and wear loafers, for "trying to sneak up on everybody."

Such is the price of fashion, maybe?

Spoiled.

2006-10-31T17:15:00.000-06:00

My department, honestly, is full of the nicest people you will ever meet. I mean that. I really enjoy coming to work every day partly because everybody from the most jaded old professor to the undergrads to the janitor are just really nice to be around. So often, when I am hanging out in my office or collaborating with others in my department, or profs from other departments that naturally gravitate towards mine because we are so cool, I am blissfully ignorant of what lies outside in the cold hard world of the rest of the university.

I was at a meeting today with some faculty from around campus, and . . . gees. There are some real tools out there.

I sometimes wonder if academics are, in general and my department aside because I suspect it is atypical, more likely to be difficult people. You know, something about this profession appeals to people who are kind of lone wolf types that don't work well with others, and/or who think they are the smartest people ever. But then, every job has its asses. So maybe there are no more here than elsewhere, and I just am inclined to attribute it to the sickness of the institution of academia because that's an easy target?

Illicit schwag

2006-10-31T09:49:00.000-06:00

The university has a rule about not accepting gifts; the maximum dollar value for a gift that I can accept is $3. I'm not sure what this would be, exactly, this <$3 gift. A cup of coffee, maybe? A box of paperclips?

I recently came into posession of not one, but TWO, stylish ball caps sporting the logo of a company with close ties to my research. One ended up in my car at the end of a long collaborative workday, the other appeared in my office one day that a honcho of said company was visiting the department (he was like a corporate Santa, in a way, out in the hallway with his booming voice and hardy laugh . . . it left me with the impression that had I left my shoes outside my door he might have also filled them with candy).

Don't rat me out, 'kay? If anybody asks, a ballcap goes for about $2.98.

Stress for success?

2006-10-06T13:34:00.000-05:00

The assistant professor gig is not known for being a particularly leisurely, relaxing, or calm job. Rather, it is known for being kind of stressful and frantic. There's a lot of uncertainty to the job, and when the pool of people in the job are self-selected for their general risk-aversion - well, you can see how it makes people edgy and nervous.

Some time ago I mentioned that I seemed to have crossed some line, and now I am not really that nervous anymore, despite the fact that I am still not confident that I will be successful at this particular pursuit.

Several people have subsequently remarked that I seem awfully relaxed for an assistant professor . . . now it has me wondering if I should seem LESS relaxed so that people don't get the impression that I am not appropriately freaked out by the tenure monkey.

It must be because I'm so pretty.

2006-09-29T11:45:00.000-05:00

There is a student in the department that for some reason, calls me by my first name even though he calls all the other professors Dr. ____. At first I assumed it's because I'm young and cool and whatever, but, today I learned differently.

Our freshman orientation classes are doing a video scavenger hunt. One of the questions is to tape a professor introducing themselves. This student (not a freshman, but one of the "student mentors" assigned to a group of several first-year students) was leading his group of freshmen past my office, and I overheard the following conversation:

Student: Can we ask her?
Mentor: The scavenger hunt sheet says FACULTY MEMBER.
Student: Isn't she a faculty member?
Mentor: You have to be a Doctor. She's not a Doctor. Let's ask Dr. _____.

Hm.

Some years ago, I saw a portrait of Avogadro. It made me think about how so many geniuses are kind of hard to look at . . . and so many beautiful people - well, you know, maybe they don't have to learn to use their brain. Anyway, sometimes when I do something particularly stupid, I joke to myself, "I must be really pretty today."

But, seriously, I do wonder why that student made the assumption that I am not a faculty member. I have my own office. I teach classes. I advise graduate students. But I don't look quite as old and nerdy as some of the other faculty members. Or is it something else?

Nice kid. Problem student.

2006-09-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

There's a student in my class this semester who is a really nice guy, but clearly underprepared for grad school. Actually, I'm surprised the student was accepted (not that I have seen his transcripts or other application materials, but I did receive several introductory emails from him when he was looking for an advisor/major professor before he was eventually admitted, and it was clear from every email that he had poor communication skills and not a particularly strong grasp of some of the major issues in the discipline) but he is a member of a particular underrepresented group within our department - so I kind of suspect that this played a role in how he ended up here.

He has a really hard time grasping even the basic material in my class. I really try my best to help him out when he comes to my office hours, but . . . 1) I don't think I should have to be spending EVERY office hour with him (why is it my problem - or the other students' problem - that he didn't come in with an appropriate level of preparation and skill from his previous background?), and 2) I have a hard time answering all his questions without spoon-feeding him (normally this line is one I am comfortable walking, but in this case it's quite a challenge).

It kind of makes me a little angry on the student's behalf. It makes me a little angry on my behalf, too. :(

On manuscript revision.

2006-09-21T13:09:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what it says about me that one of the things I have really come to enjoy is submitting manuscripts for publication and then responding to the reviewers with remarks and revision.

It's like a game, somehow. The manuscript revision process is very tactical and strategic and I like that (as opposed to the proposal review process, which still seems capricious and wholely un-strategic). I make a move, the reviewers make a move, I make a countermove in response. Sometimes when a paper goes through the review process relatively unscathed, a feel a little guilty or let down, as if I have won the game because my partner/opponent was incapacitated somehow (um, but I still celebrate the win, and it still goes right into my career stats).

Don't tell anybody I said so.

2006-09-19T14:15:00.000-05:00

I treat all my students with equal respect.

But some of them are really, really HOT.

Sometimes it's the little things

2006-09-14T12:53:00.000-05:00

All week long I have been wanting to snag some Twizzlers from the vending machine. But, the front-most package of Twizzlers was resting at a weird angle in the auger thing. I have been burned by this in the past: you put in your 75 cents, you push the buttons, the auger turns, and a corner of your package of Twizzlers gets caught up on the candy next to it, or something, and you get NOTHING.

So as I am standing there, pondering this situation and lamenting my several days of Twizzlerlessness, the vending maching guy wheels up to the machine with his restocking cart, and I buy some Twizzlers directly from him as soon as he opens the vending machine.

Yay.

Playing the game

2006-08-08T12:22:00.000-05:00

Remember when I said this? Well, at the end of the fiscal year our actual raise data came out. The average faculty raise was slightly, but not much, higher than that prediction. But, mine . . . was a lot higher.

It was because of this. I had thought it the courteous thing to do to alert my department chair that I was going on this interview, and it sort of snowballed into a retention extravaganza that I had not intended.

I am not, by nature, a game-player. It really was not my evil master plan to squeeze more money out of the university for myself so I feel kind of guilty, because they really needn't have worked to hard to retain me - I like my job a lot, but I was intrigued that there were opportunities out there that I had not considered. But, eh . . . sometimes you play the game, because that's just how it goes.

And then, sometimes the game plays you. For example, I was recently offered an underling editor position for the main journal in my field. The person that invited me to take on this position explicity stated it was because of the relative rarity of my gender within this discipline. Blah. So, I accepted because it's good for my professional development, even though I really didn't like the reason for the opportunity. (FYI I like to think I have more to offer my profession than just my second X chromosome.) But that's just the how it goes.

I force my grad student to be a polluter.

2006-06-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

I have a great little PhD student working on some data we're gathering at a site off-campus, which requires somebody to actually go to the site. In the past, I have hired an undergrad to do this, and I supported and supervised and went out there myself when the situation warranted it.

But as I get more and more involved in more research, my schedule becomes more crowded, and now that there's a full-time PhD student on this project, I need her to take over the management.

She doesn't drive. There's no way for her to get to the site, since public transportation runs around town but not to isolated areas like this one, even though it's only about 2 miles from campus.

I told her that she needs to get a drivers license and I'll rent a motor pool car for relevant periods of time so that she can get there and back, but that will take several months to accomplish since she has never, ever driven a car before.

In the meantime, I have to act as her car service to take her out there and bring her back, and it annoys me and complicates my summer schedule more than I want. It's also a true problem during periods (for example, nearly all of July) when I am out of town and need her to be overseeing things. Phoo.

You win some.

2006-06-12T10:51:00.000-05:00

Last summer an undergraduate advisee was kicked out of school for failure to achieve the required GPA for several semesters in a row. After talking to me and evaluating his options, he petitioned to be let back in on a probationary basis, and was granted the petition, under the additional caveat that he meet with his advisor on a weekly basis.

I was kind of annoyed at first because I thought this placed an undue burden on me, rather than him. But, fine, it's part of my job I guess, so meet we did. It was mostly just a check-in kind of thing, so he'd have somebody besides himself to be accountable to, so I played Mother Hen and asked him if he had turned in all his homework and studied for his exams.

I started off thinking thought this was sort of a waste, but somewhere in the semester our conversations became more about people skills and general professional management (example: when you did poorer than you expected on an exam, and you want to talk to the professor about it, DO NOT say, "Is there any way you would raise my grade?" Instead try something like, "Could you give me some advice on where I went wrong, so that I can improve my studying and do better next time?" Remember that you are the only person really responsible for your performance). At the end of the fall semester, he had received his highest GPA ever, but was still under the cumulative GPA to graduate as planned in the spring.

So, spring semester we continued to meet and he continued to work hard, and at the end of the academic year raised his GPA to 0.01 above the minimum level, and graduated. He stopped by my office to give me a victorious thank-you speech, and to tell me he'd be more than happy to talk to any of my students in the future about why you should work hard and take college seriously right from the beginning of your career, rather than blowing everything off and assuming that it'll work out.

So, yay!

D! D! D! De-fense!

2006-05-09T15:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my first ever grad student defense for my own student, a masters student that I have really enjoyed working with. It went really well, and after it was over and he gave me a big hug I almost cried because I am a complete softy and so proud of him.

And today, my other masters student sent me a file with some weird data, saying that there was some sort of problem that she absolutely could not find, and I took one look at the data and saw the problem right away . . . I sent her an email saying, "Here is the problem. I'm a little concerned that you had not noticed this yourself," and then she sent me a really apologetic, self-deprecating response and I almost cried because I am completely confused about how to help her figure out how to figure these things out herself. She needs to go on the offense on her data, rather than being wholly reactionary.

The relationship between advisor and grad student is a weird one. Collegial, parental, friendly . . . different for every student, too. Does it get easier? Or like everything else in this job, does it stay the same or get harder but I just get less anxious about it?

Final exams.

2006-05-01T08:31:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned that I pretty much hate written exams? Another prof in my department did some surveying of his students regarding exams, and the responses indicated that the majority of the studying was in the form night-before cramming. This is not a surprise, of course, but it makes me hate the exams even more, because I am not trying to gauge how well the students can cram the night before. It was partly this uncertainty about what I was really measuring with a written exam that led me to try the oral exams (which I repeated this semester also), and one of the pieces of feedback that I've gotten from the students is that one thing they don't like about the orals is that "they take too long to study for." This is another indicator to me that the students are generally studying for the writtens the wrong way. The oral questions I use, which I give to the students in advance (and then when they arrive for the oral, one question is selected at random), cover the fundamental material - how well do they understand and can they explain the basic relationships between different elements of the system, how well do they understand and can they explain the basic causes and effects in the system, etc. In my mind, knowing that stuff cold would be part and parcel to studying for ANY exam in the class. That the students do not study that way already indicates that they do not have the same mindset that I do about how and when and what to study for a written exam. (I am not saying oral exams are an antidote to poor study habits, just pointing out what I have observed.)

Also, this semester has been really brutal, for some reason. A lot of funding surprisingly came through, which makes me feel better overall than the times when a lot of funding does NOT come through, but of course it's more work. And the sorts of assignments I've been giving have taken a lot of work to grade, partly because I purposely make the problems open-ended and partly because I am rubricly challenged and have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to grade the submissions. Plus my class was recently converted (at my request) from two credits to three, so all the assignments are new, because the class now has a "lab" component. You know, and then there are just lots of other things going on professionally and personally.

So I don't like written exams and I'm tired and busy.

About a month ago, I proposed to the students that I don't feel like giving a final. I don't feel like writing it, I don't feel like grading it, and I'm not convinced that any of us would actually learn anything from it so I just don't want to do it. But because I think of the syllabus as a contract, we had to come to some kind of unanimous agreement about how to reallocate percentages, etc., so we did. And no final.

Who is the sucker? The students think I am being a softy, and I feel like I have tricked them into working harder at the end, because of the way we distributed the points. I guess everyone's a winner.

Multiculturalism.

2006-04-28T15:49:00.000-05:00

The Indian restaurant I sometimes go to for lunch put up some new wall decorations; it used to be bare but brightly colored paint, and today I saw it's now adorned with a few big black and white posters of . . . Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra . . ? But the soothing sitar music in the background and the gracious Indian hostess are the same.

Most unwonderful time of the year

2006-04-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

The stretch of time between spring break and May final grade submission is the worst period of the entire year, in my opinion. Not only are you trying to finish up all the normal end-of-the-semester things, but you're also trying to finish up all the end-of-the-academic-year things, and seniors are trying to graduate, and graduate students are trying to defend & submit, AND you're trying to gear up for the summer's round of research projects and conferences.

And on top of that, we also have my Least Favorite Emails Ever. These are the emails wherein the students complain about me not rounding their grade from a C to a B-. I politely point out that they had all semester long, full of numerous opportunities, to earn a better grade, and that as stated on my syllabus, which we all agreed upon at the beginning of the semester, "I round strictly to the tenths place."

This semester, the first student to whine at me about this will risk my stony silence and bitchy demeanor. Seriously, I gave opportunities to resubmit assignments. To petition for exam score revisions if their reasoning was sound. To complete some extra credit. If a student did not take advantage of any of these opportunities, it galls me when they ask me to bump their grade out of the goodness of my heart.

We all know academia is very lucrative.

2006-04-08T13:59:00.000-05:00

This year's raises? Word on the streets is they'll be 0.4%. Rock on.

Psychological milestone for green assistant prof

2006-03-07T17:07:00.000-06:00

Two of my papers have been cited by people I don't even know. (Previous citations were from people who were somehow involved in the research. So they don't count.)

HA.

Readin'. Writin'.

2006-03-01T12:32:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about the reading and writing skills of my students - and how said skills are generally lacking.

My assessment of their reading is probably not so much "they aren't good at it" but rather "they never do it, for neither pleasure nor education nor work." Obviously this is a generalization. Every semester I get at least one good writer, and at least one student that I know reads things from time to time, either the newspaper or some science fiction novels or perhaps even some classic literature.

My assessment of their poor writing comes almost exclusively from looking at the technical memos that I insist accompany all of their computational assignments. The technical memos are supposed to explain the premise, methods, assumptions, and results of their calculations, as well as giving recommended practical solutions to the problem in question. The students' memos are largely terrible, and not just in a way that I think I could train out of them (discipline-specific conventions that just take time to learn) but in a way that should have been trained out of them already (how to recognize and avoid sentence fragments, etc.).

Let's assume these issues are partly related. I will lump them into the same category and say the students are generally opposed to the written word - theirs or someone else's.

I was discussing this with a colleague of mine in the education college, and she pointed out that perhaps some of the reading-aversion is because my students are primarily male, and that she recently read a book which posits that when we teach kids to read, and to analyze writing, it's usually in a way that implies they need to have some kind of emotional connection to the writing, and that's a big turnoff to the typical young man. I can see this. It's why I hated reading things for English classes in high school and college myself. It didn't seem to have any practical value to me to discuss how I FELT about a book/poem/story. My husband, by the way, thought this was crap, though he himself does not like to read (but because he thinks he is too slow at it).

I once was at a meeting with some other faculty in my discipline and we were talking about some really interactive teaching, and one of the profs said, "In my course we have great discussions, but we're able to do that because the students read the material before they get to class." I asked her how she was able to get them to read, and she said, "I just expect them to." I am pretty sure my expectations would have no such magic effect on my students, and actually I kind of thought her response was code for "Because I am a GREAT teacher and you are not, duh." Also, my students are generally very, VERY bristley about the money it is costing them to attend college, and so a large number of them refuse to buy textbooks, even when it puts them at a significant disadvantage in terms of getting required work done.

And the writing . . . cripes. Yesterday as I was grading another stack of mediocrity, I was wondering why I don't feel like they're improving in quality at all, even after five technical memo assignments returned to them with comments and grades. For some of them, maybe most of them, I suspect they just don't care. In which case, should I feel free to just slap a number grade on there and not spend the time to give constructive feedback? As it is I tend to focus on just a few key things or else I would be writing all over the paper, but even that sucks up time.

I also am not sure if they don't care because (a) they think I am just a bit of a nutcase in making them WRITE in a technical class, and they just want to pass and graduate and they don't care to put any time into improvement, and/or (b) they do not believe me when I say that being able to communicate technical material in written form is something that most people have to do on the job, in one way or another. Or maybe it's something else.

But, WOW, does it make me not want to ask for the memos anymore.

Olympic dreams

2006-02-17T14:21:00.000-06:00

If I were an Olympic gold medalist, no doubt I would tear up on the podium as they played my national anthem, and I would be full of both pride and humility . . . but I would also be a little pissed that my medal looked like a CD.

On an education-related note, I appreciate this quote from US Education Secretary Margaret Spellings: "Our students cannot 'cram' overnight for success any more than a skier or figure skater can sit on the couch for four years and then hope to compete in the Winter Olympics."

Graduate Students

2006-02-08T11:08:00.000-06:00

Grad students are critical to my research success. But they really stress me out. It's not just the students themselves, it's the whole system:

When you have a project ($), you have to scrounge around for a student, and you may not find one that you like that's a good match.
When you find one you like that's a good match, you may not have the money.
When you have the money and a student, the timing may be weird. Like the money runs from March to March, but the student runs on the academic year. Etc.

THEN, should all the planets align and you can get the administrative details to work out, you have to figure out how to get their best work out of them. Some students need a lot of direction, some students hardly need any (and you maybe it's a struggle to squeeze info out of them), some students need moral support so you have to be a cheerleader for them, some blah blah blah. I find this a tremendous stressor and challenge. It literally keeps me up at night.

I wonder about my own advisors from grad school. Did I keep them up at night? Did they agonize over how to mentor me? Did they ever think about it? Was I a challenge? Did I stress them out?

Metrosexuality.

2006-01-26T16:52:00.000-06:00

I went to one of the campus cafes for lunch, and a group of four guy students were sitting at the next table, talking about video games and beer and which bars have the hottest chicks. And then:

Guy 1: Dude, did you straighten your hair? It looks good.
Guy 2: Yeah, with a straight iron this morning. Thanks.
Guy 3: Isn't it weird how you can perm your hair, and the curls last for months, but straightening just lasts for like, a day?
Guy 1: No, dude, if you get it chemically straightened it's like a perm but straight.
Guy 4: But that costs a sh**load.
Guy 3: Like, how much?
Guy 4: I don't know, like 50 bucks or something. It's way cheaper to just borrow your girlfriend's flatiron.
Guy 3: I'm thinking about just shaving my head, because I'm tired of fussing with my hair, anyway.

I haven't heard any squeaking (yet)

2006-01-26T08:35:00.000-06:00

Remember when I was worried about that one student that has a reputation for being disruptive and hostile? I had a conversation with a couple of the professors who've had him in class, and they both said that his deal is that if he is not convinced of the practical value of the subject matter, he gets angry about spending all this money on useless stuff. Etc.

Philosphical differences aside, I can in good conscious play along with this to some degree, because I believe in clueing the students in to why we're learning this subject matter. I started this thing in a class I was teaching 5 weeks of last semester, an 8 AM numerical methods type of class. It's really easy to lose contact with the students with that material at that hour. So I decided I'd begin every class with the same two questions: 1. WHO CARES? and 2. How do we do it? By the end of the second week, I was amused that when I start off saying, "Whenever we hit new material, we must ask ourselves two questions. The first is . . . " I'd get a whole chorus back of "WHO CARES?". But, more valuably, I'd ask the class to do a couple minutes of brainstorming trying to think up who does care, and why. And then we'd move on to question 2 and discuss all the relevant nuts and bolts.

I liked so much the vibe that generated right at the beginning that I decided to continue the practice in my current class. I think the students are more willing to get their minds into the material if they're sold at the beginning on the idea that it's useful or valuable in some way. It also seems to have, for the time being, placated the squeaky student, because I have had zero problems with him so far. In fact, he contributes to the discussions, and jokes around with me during labs, and has so far not scared me much. So yay for that.

Annual Reviews

2006-01-23T10:50:00.000-06:00

I don't enjoy compiling my information for my annual review. But, I do like the satisfaction of looking at it when I am finished and thinking, "Ha! What do you know! I actually DID accomplish some things."

Do I like this job?

2006-01-18T08:41:00.000-06:00

Do I? Better than other jobs I could have?

I am asking myself this because there's a possibility I could have a different job. Partly on a whim, and partly as part of a larger conversation I was having with some friends, I applied for a job at a medium-sized think tank. Yesterday I had a phone interview. Now they would like me to come out for an on-site interview.

I casually but confidentially mentioned this to two of my closest colleagues here, and they both pointed out that only academia has the tenure system and that at other places, there is no such job security. This may be true, but I, currently on the underside of the tenure issue, don't see what's so great about it (and let's be honest, it's kind of a weird system. You know that university that did away with it for certain faculty? I understand the theory behind that move. Also, in my technical discipline, "academic freedom" isn't really that compelling, as we rarely run up against anything truly controversial.).

It seems like the think tank environment would have a lot of the things I enjoy that I don't really get in this environment (the opportunity for wide-ranging discourse, the ability to be a generalist), a lot of the things I enjoy that I do get in this environment (self-direction, the theoretical opportunity to "make a difference"), and not so many of the things I don't like about this environment (the focus on self-branding and the scramble to be the most important on a project/paper/whatever).

I would miss the students.

And it would close doors that I'm not sure I want to shut permanently.

And I'd have to move.

My husband, dear man, is remaining mum on the issue, insisting that he will go wherever, whenever, if it means that I'll have a career I'm happy with. *heart*

Appreciate me silently.

2006-01-12T11:02:00.000-06:00

I have a long-harbored suspicion of complements. I almost always interpret them as a request for something, or as banking good vibes for when I am asked for a favor later. Back in the day when I was in the dating world, I considered complements a big turn-off. I invariably saw them as a gentle form of attempted mind-control.

In the job setting, it turns out I never believe them either. For example, in the last week I interpreted

"Congratulations on that paper I saw you got published" as "It's certainly not a given that you will publish, since you're subpar and kind of a disappointment. Thanks for contributing something."
"I'm impressed with your writing" as "When I talked to you in person, you pretty much came across as a full-out airhead, but it turns out you can string a few sentences together. That was a nice surprise."
"We'd like to set up a phone interview" as "Nobody else applied for this position."

So, despite a year of therapy to work on this appreciation problem, I still have it. I like to think that it just keeps me from getting a swelled head.

Squeaky Wheels

2006-01-10T16:19:00.000-06:00

I happened upon a review of me on ratemyprofessor.com, and all it said was "unprofessional." I am curious what this means. If I had to guess, I would say it is because I tend to think of and treat my students as junior colleagues, so we usually have a pretty shallow power structure in the class. OR, maybe it's because I sometimes sit on one of the desks to talk with the students, rather than standing at the blackboard to talk TO them. OR, maybe it's because I joke with students that joke with me. OR, maybe it's because I still sometimes dress like a grad student. OR, maybe it's something sinister and terrible that I am not even aware of.

Or the student simply didn't get the grade they wanted.

Also, there's a student in one of my classes this semester who has a reputation for being pretty disruptive, and I'm nervous about this because I am not particularly hard core. I usually get dinged on my course evals for "not keeping everybody under control". Obviously it now occurs to me that it's because I'm totally unprofessional.

But, then, today in class the students asked great questions and we had some good discussion, and somebody stayed after class to tell me about something related he'd recently seen on TV, and I came away feeling upbeat.

It's kind of a shame that so much of teaching seems to come down to personality. I just don't have a discliplinarian's personality. I'm not scary, and I'm overly casual with my students. Is that just the way it is, or should I try to change to satisfy what may be just a vocal angry minority?

Turning a corner

2006-01-06T16:08:00.000-06:00

More than one person told me the third year of the tenure-track assistant professor gig was when things started to feel okay. Year one, you are just trying to survive, year 2, you are stressed all the time that you will not be able to be successful, and then some time in year 3, you realize the ball is rolling, people know who you are, you're less bewildered than you used to be, and that maybe you CAN do the job.

I was pretty sure, at the beginning of last semester, that this would not apply to me. That people who felt this third-year unclenching were people who were just altogether more successful than I, and all that.

But . . . then, over the last couple of months, I am feeling myself unclench. What's different? Nothing. Have I gotten more grants? Not really. Published more papers? Nothing I hadn't expected 6 months ago. More accolades coming my way? People knocking on my door to ping my expertise? What? Meh. I don't know. But I welcome the difference. One's quality of life goes way up.

The job would be a lot easier with no students or other professors

2005-12-30T14:27:00.000-06:00

Last week, I made it a goal to clear my task list of everything but the long-term items so that I could leave for the holidays with no workish stress items floating around the back of my mind.

I have goals like this a lot. They never work out.

But last week, aaaaaahhhh. No classes, no students, few people on campus - I got through the whole list with a few hours to spare Friday afternoon. It was brilliant.

Love and Hate

2005-12-02T17:29:00.000-06:00

A brief list of things I lovelovelove about my life:

I have the best, cutest husband in the whole world. I won't lie: when we very first got married, we were both pretty miserable for about 6 months. My friend N called it growing pains, and I think it was. Since we grew into being married, it just gets better and more satisfying every day. *heart*
We have nice friends. When I consider the possibility of leaving this job, one part that makes me not want to consider it any more is that we have a nice little social network here, and they make everything more fun (also, some of them have pretty much the same or similar job frustrations, so . . . that helps).
I have nice coworkers. They really are great people, and I enjoy coming to work every day and hanging out with them, to the extent that we have time to talk to each other (about work or anything else!). My department is really supportive, so there are always compliments on a job well done, and helpful criticisms on jobs that could be better next time.
I have great students. Seriously, I enjoy them a good deal. I get the sense that they enjoy me, also, for the most part, even when I accidentally write bitchy tests or that kind of thing. (Don't imagine, however, that all my students like me all the time; I have a collection of snitty emails from angry students which I keep around to humble and amuse me).

A brief list of things I don't love so much about my life:

All those things I've already said.

The Other Woman

2005-11-08T23:29:00.000-06:00

There's this woman that I run into maybe once a year, because we have sort of overlapping research areas, so we often end up at the same kinds of meetings and attending the same kinds of sessions. She is one of several recurring characters in my cast of work-related semi-acquaintances.

She really, really rubs me the wrong way.

She is extremely predictable in the following way: she will always sit at the front of the room during oral presentations; she will always look bored and contemptuous; she will always ask a question, and it will always be negative and accusatory. UNLESS the speaker is one of the "big guns", in which case: her expression will be one of enlightenment and interest, and if she has a question, it is more likely simply a veiled complement.

No joke. She could be a drinking game (take a drink every time she lets out a big sigh, take a drink every time she starts a question with "did you just ignore . . . ", etc.).

I don't understand her at all. Is she very, very insecure? Or just a really angry person? To tell the truth, I don't really try to understand her either, because it's simpler just to dislike and avoid her (because I have, honestly, on occasion seen her in a room and decided to find another session to attend).

Conferences

2005-11-07T22:32:00.000-06:00

I like work travel for several reasons:

I enjoy hotel rooms. Especially Marriotts, because they now have these AWESOME beds. And often, free internet.
I always get a lot of good ideas at conferences. I take lots of notes.
Sometimes, when the technical sessions are boring, I take this as a personal complement. I like to interpret my boredom as superiority. ;)

Greener Grass

2005-10-13T12:34:00.000-05:00

I was at a meeting the other day with a bunch of other professors in my sort of work, and they were all very convicted about the value of what they are doing. I wish I shared this conviction; I don't know why this work depresses me so much. I feel like if I described to a lay person the sort of work I do, and why, they might say, "Hey, that's really important." I feel like if I agreed, it would make the frustrations much more tolerable. I don't know why it is that for example, in a proposal, I can describe all the reasons it's important, but that on an everyday level I allow my insecurity to tempt me into thinking that I invent these justifications, that they're part of the big picture of my failures or lack of great success. I allow the insecurity to taint my passion for the work, and that makes my insecurity worse.

On a flight on the way back from the meeting, I was seated next to a pediatrician. We talked about a lot of work-related things, even though I don't know anything about pediatrics. It was funny where the similarities are. For example, he talked for a while about all the paperwork, that for every 15 minutes he spends with a patient, he has to fill out 3 or 4 or 5 pages of paperwork, and that this takes up a lot of his time. He talked about how the measures of success seem arbitrary, for example, that if you take two diabetic children, one from a well-off household and a healthy background, and the other from a poor household with a lot of health problems, you can't compare their quality measures, like how many times your diabetic patient goes to the eye doctor or how many follow up calls you have. Maybe the poor diabetic child doesn't have a reliable phone number and moves around a lot, and probably rarely ever goes to the eye doctor - but this doesn't mean that your care of that child has been a failure. More important than how far you are is how far you've come.

I asked him how easy it was for him to become disenchanted by the whole thing: the paperwork, the irritating metrics, etc. He said, "Oh, I guess it happens sometimes. But usually I just figure it's the price of doing the job, and kids need doctors."

I was thinking, "But hey, pediatrics, that's really important."

Faculty Wives

2005-10-09T17:11:00.000-05:00

My department, being somewhat old-school, relies a lot on the "faculty wives" to coordinate the more social events associated with normal department function. They do things like arrange tables for dinner meetings, bake things for events, etc. I find this reliance very weird, though I understand how this worked, a million years ago. These "faculty wives" belong to the oldest members of the department, and to an almost bygone era.

It recently came to my attention that some of the "faculty wives" have been pointing out that it's time for some of the younger wives to get involved, and I find this both sad and funny. Certainly the services these women have provided to the department have been valuable and much appreciated, but it's just not realistic in today's world to expect the same level of participation or co-dependency. Wives have their own jobs, events, etc. to try to coordinate. PLUS, allow me to point out the obvious: not all the faculty are men. Ain't no way my husband is baking some fancy breads for my departmental meeting, nor getting together with all the ladies to discuss whether we should have off-white napkins or gold ones at the upcoming breakfast.

I'm sure we can do without the niceties once all those ladies are gone. At the same time, it does make the job just a little colder. It's been pleasant with somebody thinking about the napkins.

Shock and awe

2005-10-06T13:04:00.000-05:00

A few nights ago my husband and I met some distant acquaintances for dinner, the wife is a woman that I sort of know, but have never met, and I didn't know the husband at all.

With in minutes of introductions, and what-do-you-do? sort of chit-chat, he more or less came right out with some very nonchalant statements about his political leanings, to the right.

I was oddly taken aback. I lean to the right myself, but in academia, nobody would ever admit to such a thing, certainly not on a "first date". But he was so casual about it, AS IF IT WERE TOTALLY NORMAL.

So I am forced to admit that my perspective is skewed. If I had ever really thought about it, I could have come to this conclusion, but before this evening I never really thought about it. There have been a lot of discussions on my campus and others recently (and certainly before recently) about the general political leanings of college faculty, but I didn't realize how much I had assimilated this microcosmic attitude as reality everywhere.

And.

I'm a little disappointed in myself that this took me by surprise. Fffft.

Why doesn't my office look like the ones in those TIAA-CREF commercials?

2005-10-05T09:17:00.000-05:00

You know those commercials? I *heart* the ones about professors because they make my job seem so noble. That's nice. But, those commercial professors have the nice wood-paneled academic-looking offices, with lots of space and books and scholarliness. My office, which is, from what I have observed, more common especially at the big state schools, is cement block, flourescent lighting, and not a speck of wood paneling.

I'm not going to lie to you. It's ugly. It doesn't help that it's kind of a mess. (In my department, if you are gone for a few days, you will come back and somebody has moved a pile of stuff into your office . . . we've had a lot of turnover recently, and nobody feels empowered to throw out files from somebody that's moved on, so they just get shuffled into the next logical person's office.)

The other day, the building custodian came into my office and asked me if it ever annoyed me that my tall filing cabinet was grey while my desk, lateral file, and bookcase were beige. It had not, up until this moment, annoyed me, but now that he mentioned it . . . So he volunteered to swap out my grey filing cabinet with an empty beige one across the hall. This encouraged me to throw out most of the contents of the grey one, which were not mine to begin with.

Through the looking glass.

2005-10-04T10:38:00.000-05:00

So, on Friday, I went home and had a little breakdown. Possibly a little breakdown every once in a while is a good thing, except I still feel like crap. Oh, well.

Yesterday I got an email from my friend R, to whom I had recently written a sort of self-pitying note about how icky I feel about my work. He said,

You seem to be harbouring a touch of uncertainty in your accomplishments.

Which made me laugh right away. Seem! A touch! Hahaha! He then proceeded to try to convince me that I am successful and awesome, which I appreciate but don't believe. But everybody needs people like this, who tell them nice things. My husband would do this for me, except that he's been overloaded with my insecurities the last several years and has now moved on to the "tough love" approach wherein he does not permit me to wallow in, or express in any major way, these fears. I guess everybody needs people like this, too.

Lest you think I am all negative all the time, I do have some accomplishments, I just don't think they're important or valuable. I have two papers coming out this fall, which is positive, but doesn't seem like a lot of forward motion to me. I have a couple more currently in the review process and one about to be submitted. I have two grant proposals currently in the pipeline, though I don't expect them to go anywhere because they never do.

See? That's about as positive as I get about my accomplishments. This attitude also depresses me, because prior to this job, I considered myself a pretty upbeat, confident person. I am really hoping that this new anxious, insecure me is only temporary.

There's no crying in baseball.

2005-09-30T19:13:00.000-05:00

Oh, but there are days when I want to cry.

Like today. And many other Fridays. I think this is because Fridays are a big disappointment; I look back on the week and try to determine what I have accomplished, and invariably it's not as much as I wanted, and sometimes it seems like I have hardly accomplished anything. Research progress is tricky that way, because it's so slow. It's hard to see the forward motion except looking back across a big distance. (Or, maybe I am doing it all wrong? Maybe other people make all kinds of progress day in & day out.)

Plus, my Fridays are usually full of meetings, so it's easy to feel like the whole day is just floating from one bit of (nonsense) to another. When you only have 15 minutes between one meeting and the next, you have just enough time to run back to your office and respond to emails, and then as you're walking to your next meeting you wonder what on earth you are doing with your life that you can spend a whole day this way. :(

But it's not just Fridays, it's just more frequently Fridays. The truth is, I spend a lot of days this way, not getting as much done as I want, and then also tossing in a little bit of "bad news" such as a rejected proposal or journal article, or a petulant undergrad, or a depressed grad student. I was thinking the other day that the one upside of this is that I'm in pretty good shape these days because I'm so frustrated. Usually, by 3 pm I'm feeling really agitated, and use this to power through the rest of the afternoon against the agitation, and by 5:30 or 6 I'm just good and pissed. So I let this all out at the gym, and my workouts are better on days that I've had a lot of negativity.

But, then, there are days like today, where instead of getting angry-frustrated, I get depressed-frustrated, and prefer to crawl under my desk as opposed to hitting the gym.

(I wish I were I were just using a figure of speech. There are days when I crawl under my desk. Sometimes I just need to spread out somewhere, close my eyes, take some deep breaths, and be still for a few minutes.)

Hey ladies.

2005-09-29T17:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had a meeting for the women undergrad students in my department, of which there are only a handful (about 6% of our undergraduate majors). I did this because as THE female faculty member, there is an unspoken, and sometimes spoken, expectation that I will somehow be the cheerleader for all the women students.

If they needed this, I would oblige. But they don't need it, and yesterday they told me so - THAT made me want to cheer. But they did say that since there are so few of them, they don't necessarily run into each other in classes etc., so they would appreciate if I could facilitate a few social events. This is very much my speed. I am terrible at making an issue of women in science/engineering/technology, but I'm good at socializing. :)

Exams. What are they good for. Huh?

2005-09-28T12:19:00.000-05:00

I gave an exam yesterday in one of my classes; since it's a small class (16 students) I decided to try an oral question component. I gave them all the questions in advance, but not my rubric for what constituted a good answer. But it's funny the wide range of answers I got in response, and interesting which students a) had clearly prepared thoroughly versus not, and b) were very nervous about the oral portion.

The written portion, which during my making of the solution key I completed in 15 minutes while watching The Apprentice on TV, was clearly too long - I had to kick students out after two hours, despite telling them I really didn't think anybody would need longer than an hour and a half. Well, live & learn. This is my first time teaching this class or in this major (there are several programs in my department) so I wasn't sure what to expect, even though it's my own degree program, so theoretically I should have a good handle on where these students are.

Today I asked for a little feedback from them regarding the exam. The only surprise was the number of students who, in retrospect, decided that the oral component was "unfair". And not because each student could get a different question, but because all I did was ask them the question and make them give me less than 5 minutes of answer. What was evidently unfair was that I didn't prod them for more information, that they were not given sufficient time to reflect upon and then change their answer, and that I made them nervous by recording it.

That last part I can understand, and if I do this again I won't spring it on them. But the other parts . . . sorry folks, in the real world when somebody asks you a direct question, you answer, and that's the end. If you're sitting in a meeting, the person that asked you the question will not then ask you a series of leading questions so that you can ultimately retract something stupid you may have said. My least favorite things about exams in technical coursework is that it's such a bad model for what actually happens in a job setting. It's unfortunate that this unrealistic situation is the sort of "spot" that we train the students to be the most comfortable "on".

Introduction

2005-09-26T19:30:00.000-05:00

I am an average professor. Correction: I am an average assistant professor, which is the lowest rung on the tenure-track ladder, if you don't count the bad assistant professor, of which there are not many because they don't last very long. Average assistant professors last only about 6 years, until the tenure committee asks them to leave.

I work at an average state university (ASU), and I have a half-n-half appointment, which means my duties are nominally 50% teaching and 50% research. What this actually means is that my time should be divided into 100% research, and teaching is considered sort of like a compulsory hobby: something with no professional value but that you do anyway, solely for your own satisfaction. In this, the teaching, I am actually above average, but because it has relatively little to do with my professional success, I can't count that into the figuring of my prospects. Ironically, I believe I got this job primarily because of my teaching skills. My teaching seminar during my interview has subsequently been a little bit legendary; it raised the bar for faculty candidates that came after me. I must admit, I was really good that day. Some days I am really good in the classroom; other days I am just okay, but as far as I can tell I am never truly bad (except on the days I hand back exams, when I get a lot of attitude from petulant students).

So, the teaching got me this job - the teaching plus my pedigree, really, since I would not even have been considered except that I went to a well-known university for my graduate degrees.

And now here I am. What makes me average is that I am not a superstar researcher, I don't bring in millions or even hundreds of thousands of research dollars, and I publish an average amount of journal articles. In fact, to date, I myself have earned a measly $8K in grant money, and even that was from university internal funds, though they were competitive. To be fair, I am a co-investigator on a million-dollar grant, but this matters little as I am not the top dog on the project. There's no glory in being a team player.

Why not be better than average, and thus insure my career success? There are two reasons. One, and most importantly, it's not as though I'm not trying. But what I have observed so far, after two years of the assistant professor gig, is that it's not enough to be bright and hard-working, you also have to be very savvy and not just a little bit lucky. So far I have not proven to be particularly savvy (knowing what the hot topics will be so that I can come up with some fabulous, imaginative, yet un-risky grant proposal) nor particularly lucky (being the right person in the right place at the right time). The second reason is that I'm just not in love with this job enough to pimp out the rest of my life. I value my limited free time. I used to think, for example when I was an undergrad and later a PhD student, that I was simply an efficient worker. During my PhD, I never worked in the evenings unless I had some menial task like a little grading or a little reference-checking that I could do in front of the TV, and yet I was successful. However, I have come to realize that efficiency was not really the issue, it's just that there was a single, well-defined expectation of me, and that is the situation to which I am best suited. I know how to do what is asked of me, and how to do it well. The problem with the faculty job is that there are no concrete expectations of you, except to be super. Literally, my job description is "develop a world-class teaching and research program." (So, imagine how much guidance this provides one in terms of what to do with one's time at work.) I am my own boss in many respects except one: I have a series of actual bosses who assess my performance despite not telling me what I'm supposed to be doing.

There are a lot of things that are nice about this - I don't have to work on things I'm not interested in (except that the funding agencies have things that THEY are interested in, and it's in a professors best interest to be interested in THOSE things), I can set my own schedule (except that really, I ought to be working all the time), and I make my own decisions about how to manage my research group (except that I'd prefer not to have to manage them at all, since I don't feel like I'm any good at it; feel free to pity my graduate students).

Or, why not find an alternate career? I've considered this, except that I'm not sure there's a lot of demand for the types of things I do, at least at my educational level. Having a PhD has severely limited my career options. Fortunately, I am confident that if the faculty thing tanks, I would probably be able to find SOMETHING, as unlike with many academics, there is an industry in my field (an obscure-sounding technical discipline; you have undoubtedly heard about the sorts of things people do in my line of work, it just probably never occurred to you that there was an entire profession devoted to those things). I just don't think any of those jobs would be better than this one, both in actual work, and just as importantly, in where they might be (probably not anyplace I'd really want to live).

There you have the basics of my conundrum, and the focus of my very own blog. Perhaps you are wondering if I'm worried about the repercussions of publicising my concerns, since they are work-related, but I am hoping that academic ideologies and the value my business places on freedom of speech will be kind to me in this regard.

(And, I'm thinking, what does it matter? I don't think I'm going to get tenure anyway!)