Searching

Does your department have a particular philosophy or practice regarding the make-up of search (hiring) committees for tenure-track faculty positions? And if so:

• Is the committee chair the person most closely related to the subfield of the search, or is it someone from a bit outside this subfield (but experts are included on the committee)?

• Are people from outside your department (or program or whatever the relevant unit it) typically included?

• Are any of those people ever non-academics?

• Are students part of the committee? Postdocs?

• If students are on the committee, do they have access to all application materials, or only some? (for example, CVs but not letters of reference) 

• Is there always at least one assistant professor on the committee (because they possibly represent the future of the department and have a good view of what is current in particular fields) or not (because serving on such a committee is a huge amount of work and assistant professors shouldn't spend so much time on service activities and/or your department doesn't want to give this responsibility to the untenured)? (or other reasons of philosophy, beyond just 'There are 3 of us in the department and one is an assistant professor' type reasons.)

• Other? 

Those questions are designed to get a view of how search committees are constituted at different places (answers may vary depending on type/size of institution), but I am also wondering if you personally disagree with any of these or other aspects in your department?

Too Much To Expect

Imagine that a certain professor is involved in two particular "service" activities that are rather time-consuming. We will call them Activity 1 (A1) and Activity 2 (A2). It doesn't matter what they are or whether they involve institutional service (to the department, college, university etc.) or professional service (to the wider community of people involved in a discipline). And let's ignore for now the fact that many of us are involved in more than 2 "service" activities in any given year.

As happens from time to time, people on committees or boards or other service groupings need to find other people to join them in these activities. Maybe someone left, maybe there is a regular cycling of people through these service organizations or units, maybe it's just time to invite someone new. So the people currently involved in this service activity (in this case, A1) come up with a list of names of others to approach about joining them, offering a wonderful new opportunity to do even more service and spend all that excess leisure time.

Now there is a list of names that needs discussing: who would be good to work with, etc.? It emerges that one criterion for eliminating people from consideration is the fact that some are also committed to spending time on A2, so it is unlikely that they can be involved in A1 and A2.

But.. wait a minute.. you are involved in A1 and A2! Why was this not an issue when you were invited to be involved in A1?

You have a hypothesis.

Does anyone want to guess what this is, or at least propose their own?

To Administrate: The Poll

Most of the comments on yesterday's post about whether someone should take on a temporary and challenging administrative position advised that the person in question not take the position, if offered.

There weren't a huge number of comments, however, and I am wondering what the results of a poll would show -- the same tilt towards don't do it, or a hint (or more) of go for it.

Based on the information provided in yesterday's post: Should this person pursue the opportunity (if so, vote yes) or run screaming from it (if so, vote no)?

Yes, I know that some of you would like to vote it depends; e.g., it depends on whether the individual is offered a million dollar increase in base salary to do this job for 6 months in a corner office with a great view, a deluxe espresso machine, and a highly competent administrative assistant. Etc.

Even so, just based on the information provided, you can probably decide whether you are leaning towards a yes or no vote.

Should this person take the administrative position?
	Yes
	No
pollcode.com free polls

What Did You Get?

A question for department chairs, past and present:

If you are or have ever been a department chair, what did you get from the Dean or other relevant administrator to compensate for your chairly time and efforts? Or, even if you are not and have never been a department chair but have authoritative knowledge of the resources with which chairs in your department have been provided, please provide some data. What did you/they get?

__ A reduction in number of courses taught?
__ A postdoc (or two), fully or partially funded?
__ Grad RA money?
__ Some nifty things for your department (faculty hires, technical support, renovations)?
__ Some summer salary?
__ A big/modest/miniscule raise?
__ Snazzy new office furniture?
__ Nothing but the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from doing administrative tasks?
__ Other?

And how does what you got relate to what you asked for? A "friend" of mine needs to know.

On Reluctance

An oft-repeated opinion in academic departments is that the person you don't want as department chair is the one who wants to be department chair. According to this philosophy, it is the deeply reluctant who are the more desirable candidates.

But is that true? Why shouldn't those who are willing (if able) to do the job be the ones who do the job? Why do some think it is better to have as chair someone who is reluctant to take on major administrative work?

In some departments, the chair position rotates (swivels?) among the tenured professors every few years and everyone is expected to take a turn at this job. In large departments, however, there is a selection process by which a new chair is designated from among the tenured professors (typically the full professors). It is in these cases that the significance of enthusiasm vs. reluctance is relevant.

I am skeptical that reluctance can be used as a reliable indicator of whether someone will be a good department chair.

I agree that someone who wants to assume the all-powerful position of chair in order to hoard resources for their own purposes, reward friends, enact vengeance on enemies, and schedule weekly faculty meetings at 7 AM on Mondays might be a bad choice. However, in the more normal situation in which some faculty are interested in serving as department chair and others would rather focus on research and teaching, why not choose a professor who is willing?

If someone sees being department chair as a good use of their time, and possibly even interesting, and has the necessary vision and organizational skills to do a good job, I think they would be a better choice than someone who would rather have an invasive medical procedure than spend more quality time with the Dean.

Get It In Writing

As we progress through our academic careers, there are various documents and other items that need saving and organizing. Back in the Paper Epoch, my organization method typically involved sticking all important or potentially important documents into a single file drawer, to be further organized if the need arose. This was not a great system.

Now I do the electronic equivalent and put assorted important documents in a folder or three. This is not a great system either, but it is better than the method of one of my colleagues (says me) -- he keeps everything on his desktop until his desktop his full of overlapping icons, then he makes a folder called "Desktop DATE" and puts it somewhere (probably on his desktop), and then hopes that he can find what he needs by searching on key words.

I suppose we each find a method that balances our like/dislike of the effort of organization with the inconvenience of not being organized.

Nevertheless, there are essential documents that need to be located when needed. For example, early- to mid-career faculty need to keep track of any documents that might one day be included in a tenure or promotion dossier. It is good to find out in advance what those documents might be and whether you or your department are responsible for these documents.

That sounds like an obvious statement, and I can't believe I am even writing about this, but I am writing about this because of an egregious example of disorganization by a certain academic department (not mine), with negative consequences for a tenure-track faculty member. Here's a cautionary tale:

In some departments, every faculty member teaches the same number of courses every year -- in theory. In reality, faculty may be given "course releases", reducing the number of courses taught. Course releases can be given for a variety of reasons, including the need for faculty to have sufficient time for:

- course development or curriculum revision if these activities require a substantial amount of time (i.e., more than could normally be considered an acceptable level of department service);

- administrative duties: some administrators are part-time administrators, part-time faculty;

- research: for example, early-career faculty may teach less so that they have time to establish their research program, or faculty with a grant may "buy out" a course (or two) if time is needed for research activities (including supervising students, writing papers, traveling to conferences or research labs/sites etc.).

My department doesn't do course buy-outs, but faculty may be granted a term leave or some other decrease in teaching for a specific purpose. When this happens, the chair writes a short letter outlining the purpose and timing of the leave. The professor gets a copy, and a copy goes in a file somewhere. (note: I am not talking about sabbaticals, which involve a different level of administrative involvement and paperwork.)

An early-career professor in a different department was given a number of "course releases" during the probationary (pre-tenure) period. Most of these were for curriculum development and other teaching/service activities. The timing and purpose of the course releases were worked out informally with the department chair.

Fast forward a few years: The tenure-track professor (TTP) is criticized by some colleagues for not getting more research done despite having some course releases. TTP replied that most of these course releases were for the specific purpose of curriculum redesign or for organization of a new cross-disciplinary teaching initiative etc. There was a clear record of accomplishment of these things.

Hmm, maybe, but where is the documentation of the purpose of the course releases? Without that, who knows how the time was supposed to have been spent? Maybe this professor volunteered to do all this extra service in an effort to avoid doing more research? Without a letter, we just have the word of the TTP. Apparently, for some people, that was not enough.

Surely the chair hastened to step in an clarify the situation? No, not in this case. The chair said "I don't know" when asked to explain the purposes of the course releases. Perhaps they were for the specific purpose of research? Yes, probably, one could assume that.

This is corrupt. This is what Bad Academics do when they want to blame someone else for their incompetence (in the case of the chair) or find a reason to criticize someone (in the case of the zealous colleagues).

It would never have occurred to me, as a TTP, to ask for documentation of the purpose of a decrease in the number of courses I taught in a particular term. I was lucky to be in departments that routinely provided this documentation or that would not have used the lack of such as a criticism of me. Unfortunately, the TTP in question is in the worst of all departmental worlds -- one without course release agreements, but one with colleagues who place the burden of proof on the TTP, not the department chair.

How many of you faculty out there reading this have a formal vs. informal arrangement for course releases, term leaves, and such? (again -- not talking about sabbaticals).

In this case, I would define a "formal" arrangement as one accompanied by documentation of the timing and purpose of the course releases, and "informal" as one without documentation, perhaps worked out in a conversation with the chair. Documentation need not be an actual letter on letterhead. Even an e-mail from the chair would suffice (especially if you save the e-mail).

If I Have to Stare at One More CV This Year..

This year I somehow I ended up on four (4) committees that review Other Faculty and their research ideas, accomplishments, and/or productivity. This seems excessive to me, but there are at least 2 explanations for this turn of events:

1. The usual reason for senior FSPs: There are so few female full professors in the physical sciences-engineering-math that we get called on quite a lot to serve on certain committees. Sometimes I just say no because I don't have the time (or interest), but sometimes I feel that it is important to say yes. This accounts for one of the committees this year.

2. There is a very nice, competent, hard-working, smart, and generally awesome staff person in charge of organizing some of these committees, and whenever she asks me to serve on a committee, I find that I can't say no. This accounts for 2 of the committees this year.

I have no explanation for the 4th committee, other than I felt that I should do it so that I had a voice in some things about which I would probably otherwise have complained.

I sort of followed my "conservation of committee mass" rule of quitting a committee if I add a new committee. The only one I added without quitting another was the least time-consuming of the four.

In none of these cases, when asked to be on one of these committees (or when I agreed to be nominated for an elected position), did I think "OK, but I really don't want to be on that awful time-wasting committee". I was lucky in that, I guess. I felt that all these committees were in some way worthwhile.

I am pretty sure that I would have said nyet if asked to be a committee that I felt a great reluctance to join because I thought it would be even more boring than most committee assignments or because I didn't think it was a good use of my time. I suppose that is a selfish, but any guilt I might feel is completely assuaged by my awareness of how much time I devote to institutional service.

When asked to be on a committee, do your criteria for accepting vs. declining to be on the committee depend on your prediction of whether you would find the committee interesting and/or a good use of your time, or does your sense of duty and academic citizenship triumph over such selfish concerns?

Always On My Mind

In the old days, when everything was made of paper, certain tasks involved reading file after file after file of documents. Who remembers the old days of submitting NSF proposals on paper, by mail, in quintillioniplicit? Some of us are even (barely) old enough to remember the days before the 15 page limit on the project description.. And if you were on a panel in those days, you no doubt also remember getting boxes filled with proposals (with everyone's Social Security number on the front page!), and then lugging them all back to NSF for the panel meetings.

In addition, in the old days, any committee work that involved the reviewing of files (for admission to an academic program, for hiring, for promotion, for awards) involved spending much time poring over many documents organized in files and binders of various sorts. My file-gazing typically occurred on nights and weekends, when I could have uninterrupted time and access to the files I needed. In some cases, the files could not be removed from a certain room, adding to the logistical complexity of the file-evaluation process and typically decreasing the likelihood of reviewing the files in a comfortable or pleasant setting.

And what if the time you set aside for reviewing documents coincided with the time when your most obnoxious colleague also chose to review documents? I shudder at those memories that I have not yet successfully repressed.

Some of my more senior colleagues tell tales of having to review files late at night in a certain room in an administrative building whose lights all went out at midnight. My colleagues brought flashlights so they could keep reading and, later, find their way out of the darkened building. I rather like the image of professors wearing headlamps, wandering around empty, silent, cavernous buildings in the dark of night, but I'm glad I never had to do that myself.

I know there are some committees that still do things with endless files of paper, but for some committees, everything is online or, at the very least, available in some sort of electronic format that can be accessed via personal computer. I am very happy about this because I like the convenience and the flexibility of being able to examine the relevant documents when I want and where I want. There can be security issues involved with transferring and storing files, but there are ways to deal with that in a reasonably effective way.

The convenience aspects are excellent, but there is a downside to having all the files available all the time: they are always there for you to read. You can never say "Well, here I am at home relaxing on the couch knitting my graph paper patterned sweater. I guess I won't be able to read those files since they are across town and my car is at the mechanics and there is an extremely large cat sleeping on my legs." That excuse is gone. The files are always with you. You don't even have to move the cat.

Not long ago during a committee meeting involving the evaluation of many files consisting of many documents, all of which were available online, one of my fellow committee members pointed to his zippy little laptop and said "You know what's great about this? It's a lot better than larger laptops for working while you're lying in bed."* Some, but not all, members of the committee stared at him, incredulous.

But he kind of had a point. We had an insane number of documents to read in a short amount of time, all the documents were online, and we had 24/7 access to them from our laptops. So why not read them in a comfortable place?

Well, I can think of a few reasons why not, but every day I read files in all sorts of places. The files were always with me, and that turned out to be a good thing. If I had been restricted to reading physical files in a designated secure location, perhaps even in a building across campus from my office, I would have been spending nights and weekends in a dark empty building reading these files. Instead, I read files at home (sitting on a couch), in cafes, in a comfy chair in my office, at my daughter's piano lesson, on airplanes, while driving, and at the dentist's office.**

Despite the potential for feeling oppressed by the ever-present files, for me: convenience rules. I strongly prefer having the relevant documents always with me and available for viewing compared to the old days of complex logistics and piles of files. And I get far fewer paper cuts these days.

* I briefly considered but then rejected a title for this post based on this anecdote; I bet you can guess what it was.

** I made one of these up.

45 : 45 : 10

A visiting colleague and I recently discussed a perennial topic of obsession among some academics: how our departments/universities assign teaching loads.

Some departments (either by choice or by requirement from an external source) have rigid teaching loads that are the same for all faculty. Some departments assign different teaching loads to different faculty as a function of seniority; in recent years, I have seen some departments assign less teaching to assistant professors and more to associate and full professors, but in days of yore, it was the other way around (and may still be in some departments). Some departments assign different teaching loads to different faculty as a function of faculty research activity.

Even if the ratio of research : teaching : service (for example: 45 : 45 : 10) is specified, there is still quite a lot of room for variability in the required or expected teaching load, and there is variability in how courses are counted, as not all courses require the same number of student contact hours.

Both types of system, rigid and flexible, seem to result in resentment about how teaching loads are apportioned.

I've touched on this topic before and am not going to repeat previous posts, but I will give an updated view of my opinion of teaching load distribution methods at universities and colleges that have both research and teaching expectations of faculty.

It was interesting talking to my colleague because his department has recently evolved from a rigid system in which everyone taught the same amount to a more flexible system in which teaching load varies with research activity level. In the past, faculty with grants and grad students taught the same number and level of courses as faculty with no activity other than teaching and service, resulting in some resentment among colleagues. More recently, my colleague's department, in response to both internal and external forces, has moved to a system in which those with active research programs teach 1-2 courses less each year than those who don't have active research programs. This system can also result in resentment depending on how research "activity" is quantified and what the consequences are for low research activity.

If the research-active faculty teach less, the question is whether the research-inactive faculty will teach more or whether new faculty/instructors are hired to teach the courses that were formerly taught by the research active-faculty. I suppose the best answer to this question for each department is related to the expectations of the department/university for the ratio of research : teaching : service .

If there has been a research expectation all along and it was not being met by some faculty, I think is fair to expect them to teach more than faculty who are fulfilling the research expectation. Furthermore, graduate advising is a hybrid teaching/research activity, and should be considered in the research : teaching equation for those who advise grad students.

If the focus is on teaching, however, then it is not fair to add to the work load of those who are already fulfilling their job expectations with their present teaching load.

I have always preferred a flexible system because it gives faculty the option of negotiating the best arrangement of teaching : research : service for any particular academic year. For me, each year is a bit different in terms of number of graduate students, how many are new vs. more senior, whether I will teach a graduate seminar in addition to my undergraduate courses, whether I am writing an unusual number of proposals or need to do an unusual amount of travel (e.g., as a traveling lecturer), and many other factors. I would rather teach more in a non-insane term or year and less in an insane term or year, and a flexible system at least allows this as an option.

It is not always possible to work out an optimal arrangement because of course each individual professor is one of many faculty, each of whom may have complicated professional lives and urgent deadlines. It works out often enough, however, that averaged over time, my research : teaching : service load balances out to what it is supposed to be.

In a typical academic year, the optimal teaching load that best allows me to focus on teaching my classes well; to have sufficient time to advise my grad students, postdocs, and undergrad research students; to do a decent level of research and writing (papers, proposals); to participate in a moderate/high level of department, university, and professional service; and of course to spend some time with my family is: 2 regular undergraduate courses per year + 1 graduate seminar or other specialized course.

Ideally, one or two of those classes will be team-taught, and I will teach 2.5 courses in an academic year.

Some years I teach more than that, some years I teach less than that, but an average of 2.5 courses in a year -- including a mix of big/small and non-majors/majors/grad courses -- allows me to do as well as I can with my various responsibilities.

Conservation of Committee Mass

Lately I have adopted a new practice when it comes to being asked to serve on a committee or do some other service task: I only agree to add a new service responsibility if I can also subtract one.

Of course it is hard to balance things exactly, so there are hazards in this seemingly simple approach. For example, the added committee might be a lot more work than the subtracted one. In some cases it can be difficult to know in advance what the time commitment and degree of satisfaction with a service responsibility will be. So you might actually be dropping a committee that didn't take much time and adding a committee that will consume your life. It's quite possible.

It can also be difficult to balance the administrative species (for lack of a better term) of committees. For example, it might be possible to subtract a department committee if asked to serve on a university committee, but the reverse would be more awkward unless the department committee is really important (e.g., a hiring committee, when there were such things).

And then there are professional service obligations that might be important to continue, even if you get loaded up with service work in your department/university.

But sometimes this system works. I was recently on a committee that wasn't a huge amount of time, but I really didn't like the committee dynamics and some of the things we had to deal with, so that was the one I dropped (with great glee) when asked to be on a different one at the same administrative level of the university.

You don't need an excuse to quit a committee that you find boring, useless, or otherwise abhorrent, but a handy one is that you are taking on another committee responsibility and will no longer have time for the Time-Sucking Boring Committee.

Meeting of the Minds

One of the university committees to which I devote some of my time involves discussion and voting via email. Thus far this year, the committee had not met in person in a real room with chairs and a table and a carafe of ice water and such. In fact, one of the enticements the Dean used when he called me last year to convince me to be on this committee was the fact that this committee "never" meets except by email.

This has been fortunate, because the committee involves a fair amount of time reviewing documents and summarizing things and making decisions. The time commitment would be oppressive if we had actual meetings.

One member of the committee, however, has been longing for us to meet. He has made passionate pleas for an actual meeting because he thinks that the back-and-forth element of discussion in real-time with real people is an invaluable aspect of the decision-making process.

He is right of course, and the committee chair finally acceded to these pleas. We recently provided our schedules for the near future (a sobering thing, seeing one's essentially full schedule typed out for the purposes of filling in one of the few 'open' time slots in it), and a time was found for us to meet.

Regarding scheduling, appearances are deceiving. It's true that I didn't have a class or other meeting at the chosen time and chosen day, but I don't really have time. I had agreed to substitute-teach for another professor later that same day of the meeting, and I had 57 million other extra things to do on top of the usual things during a week when my husband is traveling and my daughter has a disrupted school schedule and so on and so on.

But meet we must, I suppose, so I went to the meeting and tried not to resent the committee member who wanted us to get together. I did not make passive-aggressive pseudo-sarcastic comments to him such as "So, you're having a relatively easy term?" or "I'm really inspired by your dedication to this committee".

I don't know whether I'm glad we met or not. The positive aspects were some of the discussions and the random chit-chatting with professors from other departments.

The negative aspects were the time and the fact that I didn't feel entirely comfortable during some of the more contentious discussions. I have felt quite comfortable contributing my opinions by email, but it is an entirely different experience to sit around a table and argue.

My semi-discomfort stemmed in part from the specific composition of this committee. I am by far the youngest person on the committee, I am the only woman, and I am the only physical scientist -- the others are all older male engineers and mathematicians. It would not be unrealistic to suppose that my presence on this committee is owing entirely to the fact that they needed to have at least one woman member, and, because of the nature of the committee, the woman needs to be a full professor. That decreases the pool of candidates to a very small, sad number.

[Some commenters yesterday were right that being a full professor makes you eligible for all sorts of additional fun professional service opportunities, though I haven't seen any decrease in the number of these opportunities from when I was an associate professor. The committee types change, but not the committee numbers.]

In any case, I've spent enough time on committees as The Woman Committee Member to not obsess so much about having TOKEN stamped on my forehead. Mostly I just focus on the tasks at hand and make whatever contribution I have to make.

So I argued with the engineers and the math guys because they were using very rigid quantitative measures to assess things and I was using a more synoptic approach, and I was out-voted on almost everything and that was how I spent most of a morning earlier this week. I don't think I will be inspired anytime soon to plead for an actual meeting of this committee and will try to content myself with sending impersonal email votes.

Overcommitteed

August is typically a bit of a feeding frenzy for the forming and filling of committees with participants. I've received numerous requests in the couple of weeks from committee chairs with invitations to spend various amounts of time doing university or professional service work.

I said yes to two. I am cycling off some other committees, so I felt I could take on some new ones. I said no to the rest.

I have a pretty good sense for what I can take on and what would be too much, though sometimes it's hard to tell just how much time a particular committee or other service activity can take. And of course some service activities can fill all the time you have if you let them. Deciding what is worthwhile and learning how to balance time spent on service vs. research vs. teaching are things you figure out with experience (and/or good mentoring early on if you're lucky).

One positive aspect of being such a popular target for committee membership is that I have options. I can pick the ones that look like they might be interesting and a potential good use of my time. And, since I am doing a fair amount of service work, I don't feel (too) bad about saying no to the others, though I sympathize with the committee chairs who are trying to round up volunteers.

In the past 10 years or so, I have been on at least 6 university-level committees, some for 3-year terms, and I just got invited to be on two more; I said yes to one and no to the other. My husband has never been asked to be on any committee above the department level.

Of course there are many Male Science Professors who do a lot of committee work; I have never been on a committee with more women than men. Even so, that's what he gets for being a dime-a-dozen MSP -- he is much more likely to be a committee wallflower, uninvited and uncommitteed.

Science Performance

Last year, I wrote about a team of Chemistry professors and students who did a show at my daughter's school. This year it was a group of Physicists, and they did a similarly spectacular job of entertaining and teaching.

Just when I think I can no longer be entertained by seeing a banana or a balloon immersed in liquid nitrogen, I see one of these shows and am amazed. I am not amazed by the experiment itself (though fortunately the kids are), but by the energy and charisma of the scientists and the way that they explain things in a simple, clear, interesting, and fun way. The outreach work that these scientists do is extremely important.

I have the greatest respect and admiration for scientists who 'perform' for school kids and others, spreading the word that science is fun and interesting and blasting apart the stereotype that all scientists are quiet, strange men who never leave their labs.

The chemist who did the show last year is a woman (though not a full-time professor). This year, the lead scientist was a male associate professor, but he brought a group of students, including one female student. I am glad that the kids who saw both shows will have seen both men and women being Scientists, and, with all due respect to the women who do this important work, I am glad that elementary school outreach programs are not entirely the domain of part-time female adjuncts. My cynical bias, which arises in part because I happen to have my GENDER LENSES on (again), is that this type of activity will only be valued if Male Science Professors are active participants as well.

The essential element of putting on a successful science show for kids (or anyone) is to have the right personality and the ability to explain the science clearly. I do not have the personality or voice volume for this kind of high-energy science outreach. I have on occasion given short talks or told a story to an elementary school class, but these tend to be low-key events involving discussion, conversation, and only occasional goofiness.

I don't do these school visits to get outreach points on my annual report -- talking to kids about science has its own rewards, and I of course especially like visiting my daughter's class and school. It's a good thing that I don't need the 'credit', though, because volunteering at a school is something that moms are just expected to do. When my husband visits the school, he is treated like a celebrity who is doing something very special -- taking time out from his busy day of important work.

Even so, whether the scientist is low-key me, an exotic dad, or a charismatic physicist playing with dry ice in the gym, I think kids should see and get to know scientists and Science.

Newsletters

Upon returning from my Winter Vacation, I waded through the usual stack of holiday newsletters, in which I read with great fascination the names of my nephews' elementary school teachers and the names of distant long-dead relatives unearthed by my geneology-obsessed relative (living relatives were dispensed with much more efficiently), and gazed at collages comprised of hundreds of tiny photos that might contain images of people (or their pets?).

In December 2006 in this blog, I wrote an attempt-at-humor parody of such newsletters and said that that would likely be my first and last newsletter. I am going to stick by my campaign promise, although the statement was slightly inaccurate in that both last year and this year I am in charge of my department's annual newsletter.

Putting together the department newsletter used to be the job of a staff member who only managed to come up with a boring and ugly newsletter-like thing every few years. Last year, the new department chair decided that someone else should be in charge of the newsletter and appointed a faculty member who is not very active in research. This faculty member was offended to be asked to do a task formerly done by a staff person, and did not work on the newsletter.

Question 1: Who should put together the department newsletter?

I don't know, but I volunteered to do the newsletter because I think it is important that the department have a newsletter and I like to write and maybe I have a masochistic tendency to take on ever yet more service activities. Whatever the reason, I don't really know who should be responsible for producing the department newsletter. Some departments hire a technical writer with experience producing media-savvy brochures, some departments have a staff member who puts together a newsletter, and some departments have a faculty member assemble it. I suspect the latter option might be rare at a research university, but I don't really know.

Last year, creating the newsletter was a huge task because (1) I had never done it before, and (2) It had been so long since the previous newsletter that there were many things to write about and there was a huge pile of unsorted data to sift through and organize (alumni/ae news, donations, scholarships/awards etc.). I had a lot of help writing the newsletter (various faculty, students, and staff wrote parts of the newsletter), but it was still a lot of work.

I have agreed to be the Newsletter Editor again this year, but only for this year. I think that this job should rotate around the department every year or two so that different people are involved in it.

Last week, the department chair asked to speak with me. Here is a transcript of our conversation:

Department Chair (DCh): Now, I know that you think that someone else should take over the newsletter next year, but to be honest, when I consider all the faculty in the department, the number who have the appropriate skill set to produce a great newsletter is very small.

FSP: That's OK if the number is small, as long as the number isn't one.

DCh: The number might actually be one, and that one is you.

FSP: As I recall, last year you initially assigned this job to Another Professor. You must have done that because you thought that Another Professor was capable of this task. [<-- I thought this was a fairly clever response, as it left the chair the choice of admitting that there are non-me options or admitting he had been wrong in his initial choice of newsletter editor, and I was betting he'd do the former. Alas, I was wrong.]

DCh: I was wrong.

FSP: No you weren't. I think Another Professor would do a great job with the newsletter. Creating a good newsletter is not a 'skill set' that I alone possess.

DCh: Let's talk about this more next week.

(FSP thinks: We can talk, but .. no means no)

Question 2: How many professional service activities can one person do and remain sane?
(or is even too late to be asking that question?)

Chemistry People

Until this year, the entertainment at my daughter's elementary school end-of-year ceremony has been a magician or something of that ilk. Magicians cost money, however, and can be difficult to schedule, so this year, somewhat out of desperation, there was a Chemistry Demonstration by a team of 'chemistry performers' who do amazing things with chemistry for school groups. It's part of an outreach program at the university, it's free, and the kids loved it. The chemists were more entertaining than the magicians of previous years. My daughter reported that several girls in her class now say that they want to be "chemistry people" when they grow up. Who knows if they really will, but today's chemical entertainment definitely left the kids with the impression that chemistry is cool and interesting. Outreach works?!

Right to Complain

Dr. DeMentor (see previous post) and I have an additional point of disagreement. He thinks that my not taking the opportunity to 'change the culture' by pursuing an opportunity to become an assistant Dean means that I give up the right to complain ("at least not too bitterly") about the somewhat dismal situation for women science faculty at my university and beyond.

Even if I were capable of giving up complaining, I do not agree that I have lost this 'right'. Refusing to become an administrator now does not mean I have to be silent. To me, that's the same as saying that all my other contributions and efforts mean nothing, and I don't think that's true, even if I could be more effective (in some ways) as an administrator.

I suppose if my research led directly to a cure for a hideous disease or resulted in an invention that revolutionized how we make toast, my choosing to pursue my research would not seem so selfish as compared to driving positive change in academic culture.

I know that at some level DDM is right. I should say that he is just one of several colleagues whom I like and respect very much who think I am making a mistake in not pursuing this administrative 'opportunity'. They all give the same reasons. It is hard to go against the advice of such well-meaning friends, but in this case, at least for now, I am.

Debate With Dr. DeMentor

This week, a colleague/mentor of mine visited; this is the person who taught me how to teach and has been an important supporter of mine throughout my academic career. In the past couple of days, we have had several debates (arguments) about whether I should pursue an opportunity to become an Administrator (an assistant Dean) at my university. We disagree about whether I can do more 'good' for women-in-science as an administrator or as a scientist. He thinks the former, I think the latter. I think the latter mostly in the context of where I am now with my career, but could see changing my mind in the future. Even so, he thinks I should make this career change now.

I convinced my friend, colleague, mentor to put our debate in writing for posting here. This will occur in several stages, with the first part (posted here) involving our staking out our initial positions:

DDM (Dr. DeMentor): A person at your stage in her career has 2 basic choices: you can continue what you've been doing, which presumably has been very satisfying and serves your own agenda for personal growth and contributions that you feel are critical. And that path remains largely about you and your interests, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I just believe that at a certain stage in the life of an academic that there is the opportunity to move to a different track where it is less about building your own career and reputation (awards, accolades, opportunities) and more about giving back as you set the stage for the next generation of people in your field and in particular in your case women in your field. So one is kind of a self-interested path and one is more philanthropic. You are a good role model and you help individuals achieve their goals, but I believe you would have a greater impact of changing the culture on your campus and beyond if you were in a position of authority and could effect institutional change rather than individual change.

FSP (me): But I think that my being a senior and somewhat successful researcher and professor gives me more opportunities and more credibility as a role model for women scientists. The opportunities come through professional outlets -- giving talks at universities and conferences, participating in panels and committees, and just by being visible in my field as a senior woman who is a productive researcher. As a deanlet, I could have more of an impact on my university, but as a visible researcher, I can have a broader impact beyond this university. Also, keep in mind that my research ambitions aren't primarily about accolades or even being a role model: the reason I do this job is because I love the science, both as a researcher and a teacher. It's hard for me to imagine giving all or even some of that up right now, even if that seems selfish.

To be continued, I think, if DDM sends me his counter-point, though in the end we didn't evolve much beyond these main points.

Professional Service Can Be Fun

Compared to all the time I spend reviewing ghastly manuscripts and proposals, participating in stupid committees, and all the rest.. my experience with a recent teaching workshop was an amazingly anomalous positive experience with Professional Service. It was disconcerting at first to be working with a group of friendly people who listened to each other and laughed a lot. It was a multi-generational, gender-balanced, geographically disparate group. There was also a nice mix of college and university professors, and this provided a range of experiences to call on for the teaching materials we created.

I was the only one from a big R1 university, but I felt right at home at this workshop. At a previous teaching workshop I attended, I felt isolated because the workshop was 98% professors from small colleges, and many of the topics discussed were irrelevant to the realities of teaching at a large university. This recent workshop, however, was an invitation-only event in which the organizer specifically selected a small group of people with particular expertise. We tackled the problem of how to teach some of the more difficult theoretical and applied aspects of our field. This was something my fellow workshop participants and I had all given a lot of thought to, but each had done so largely independently, and it was fascinating to get together to share ideas and create materials that can be used by others.

I arrived at the workshop very tired from all the traveling I've been doing this month, so it was also great that the trip was very worthwhile. I feel like I've been away from my family too much lately, but fortunately I don't have to go away again for nearly 2 weeks.

Listening Tour

Today my assigned task was to listen to 6 of my colleagues each talk for an hour about their ideas regarding possible future directions for our department. A co-interviewer and I took notes, helped move the discussion along, and we will now synthesize our findings to present to a committee of colleagues doing similar things with the rest of the faculty. The marathon day of meetings was both interesting and not interesting at the same time.

Interesting: We don't often spend that much time just listening to our colleagues' ideas. In faculty meetings, people just blather in a non-linear way and not much gets done. Today, I really got to find out in great detail what 6 of my colleagues think about the future of our general field.

Not interesting: My co-interviewer (a junior colleague) and I were assigned 6 faculty who are either not active researchers or who are isolated from the rest of the department (for various reasons). Our senior colleagues are interviewing the important people. No one is going to care about what we heard today, and in some cases for good reason. Nevertheless, we listened respectfully and will do our best to present their views to the committee. When my co-interviewer saw the list of faculty we were assigned, he asked "Are we being punished?". No, but welcome to the bottom of the food chain; that's how this place works.

It was a long day of talking to somewhat strange people, but it was not a waste of time. However, after the 6 hours, my lucidity was obliterated and I am only now approaching the state of being able to put coherent sentences together.

I Volunteered For This

Our department has a boring, dry, ugly newsletter that appears every few years. One of the administrative assistants has always been in charge of it, and she has other priorities, and years go by without a newsletter. So.. I volunteered to organize, write, construct, create a new newsletter. In a way, it's yet another little task that I do while the important guys in the department make the big decisions, but only in a way. I actually like doing this kind of thing -- writing, putting together words and images to communicate with people. And I did volunteer. And now I have to create something.

I have been poring over a lot of departmental newsletters this past week, looking for inspiration. My first conclusion is that there are a lot of boring, dry, ugly newsletters out there. Newsletters filled with lists of names, epic poems written for men getting awards, and photos of diverse groups of young students Doing Science.

It's quite possible that my enthusiasm for doing something new and different will get stomped on by the reality of creating this thing whilst also writing a proposal, giving an invited talk a couple thousand miles from here, teaching, attending a conference a couple thousand miles from here, and finishing up some papers by the end of the semester. And studying for my own final exam in my intro language course!

But I would like to do something fun and aesthetically pleasing with this newsletter. I am getting sort of fond of the idea of 'interviewing' some of our new faculty members rather than just writing a few paragraphs about each of them, with questions like "Why do you do what you do?" and "How did you get here?", not just "What do you do and how do you do it?".

The Chair's view of this newsletter is that it is a vehicle for attracting donations. I will try not to let that harsh economic reality intrude too much on my enjoyment of the project, which I mostly see as a way to communicate with friends and alums of the department. I find myself imagining that I am writing it for some of my former students, and thinking about what they might want to know about the department now.

Any suggestions of what you like to read or see in an academic newsletter?