More On Success

Speaking of ambition and success (Friday’s post).. Last week I got a nice but bizarre email from my former advisor. He wrote: Among the pleasures of my life as a prof has been the opportunity to witness the great successes of some of my students, and you and Superstar Guy come to mind immediately of course. That was nice of him to say, even though I am not in the same league as Superstar Guy (you’d have to use a log-scale to plot us both).

My former advisor has had a lot of Ph.D. students, but only a small fraction are professors at R1 universities. [maybe he sent us all emails saying that he is particularly proud of Superstar Guy and (insert name)?!].

I am quite sure that my former advisor is proud of me because I have done well as a professor at an R1 university. He is definitely of the success is being a professor like me school of thought. If I had been spent my career thus far being an excellent teacher at a small liberal arts college, I am quite sure that he wouldn’t see me as so much of a ‘success’. Even so, I should say that although I don’t agree with that point of view, I am nevertheless pleased that he is proud of me. I have worked hard, I love my career, and it feels good to have accomplished what I have done so far.

The bizarre aspect of the email is that it came from someone who never said anything personal and never gave any but the lamest of praise ('nice effort') when I was a student. Even more bizarre, there is not a chance in the world that, back in the (grad school) day, my advisor would have imagined that he would one day consider me among his most successful students. It would have been too absurd to consider back then. Not remotely possible. Laughable.

When I was a student, my advisor had a large research group, including several ambitious male Ph.D. students with their sights set on jobs at R1 universities. I was quiet and, if asked, stated that my goal was to teach at a small liberal arts college, assuming I even got my Ph.D. from this program, which back then chewed up and spit out its few female grad students at an alarming rate. Among my advisor’s research group from that time, the only ones who got (and kept) jobs at R1 universities are Superstar and me. This fact amazes me to this day.

I hope that one day I am in a position to look back at my career and think similar fond and happy thoughts about my former students. In my case, though, I think that I will be equally proud of the science writer as the science professor. The point of this job isn’t to clone oneself and define success accordingly. That said, I admit that I would very much like to help increase the number of FSP’s in the world.

Ambition

Today I had an argument with a colleague about the concept of ambition. He and another colleague had been discussing their shared opinion that many young scientists today, especially women, lack ambition. That is, young scientists are easily derailed by obstacles and/or choose an unambitious career path; i.e., one that doesn't involve seeking a faculty position at a research university. This lack of ambition is caused by many different factors, including: lack of confidence, laziness, an inability to deal with obstacles, lack of passion for Science, or poor choice of partners (e.g., women marrying unsupportive men).

I must first note that both of these colleagues are strong supporters of women in science and equally apply this definition of lack of ambition to men and women. For example, I don't think they believe that lack of ambition is a major reason for the so-called leaky pipeline that results in so few senior women in science. Even so, I disagree with their view of what it takes to be a successful science professor.

When I argued with my colleague today, I objected to his definition of ambition and his characterization of young scientists who choose a different career path as unambitious. By this definition, only those who have successful careers as professors at research universities are ambitious, and anyone who 'fails' at this (or doesn't even try) lacks ambition. My colleague used me as an example of someone who didn't let obstacles derail her career as a science professor at a research university. That is, there are obstacles to succeeding at this career, but they are surmountable (with ambition).

I hate it when people use me as an example to argue that the current academic system is fine. If the current academic system were just fine, there would be a lot more FSPs than there are. It does not follow that just because I "made it" as an FSP, academia is a family-friendly place that fosters the careers of women in science. That would be a bizarre and unscientific conclusion for anyone to make. That is where the argument today kept reaching an impasse. I would say "What does ambition have to do with it if a young woman decides she doesn't want to spend her life dealing with sexist men?" and my colleague would say "But you did that. And you did that because you are ambitious."

I have never felt particularly ambitious. There was never a point -- not in college, grad school, or even during my postdoc -- where I had my sights set only on a faculty position at a research university. At my graduate and postdoctoral universities, the faculty were not people whose lives I aspired to emulate. I continued doing research because I love the discovery aspects of it -- the creative thinking and the always-learning-new-things aspects. I think I have always been more driven by curiosity than ambition.

If young scientists today do not find the prospect of being a science professor at a research university appealing, perhaps this is because universities have not changed sufficiently from the days when all it took to succeed was to be a white male with the right academic pedigree (and perhaps a wife to take care of things at home). Some people probably lack sufficient passion for science -- surely this has always been so -- but I don't believe this has anything to do with ambition. For example, considering the pluses and minuses of a career as an FSP -- 'get to work on interesting scientific problems' vs. 'get to work daily with sexist trolls' -- some women will decide that such a career is worthwhile and conducive to an overall happy life and career, and others will decide it is not worth it. The latter may not indicate a lack of ambition so much as problems with the academic ecosystem.

I hope at least some of this discussion makes sense. This afternoon, I had a long and frustrating meeting that was an excellent demonstration of an obstacle to enjoying life as an FSP, and I would not be surprised if my ability to be lucid were severely impacted.

That's A Great Question

As I wandered the halls of two academic buildings today, I passed various classrooms with classes in session. No fewer than 3 times did I hear the phrase "That's a great question" uttered. I wonder how many times each day this phrase is used, and I wonder whether anyone says "That's a good question" any more. Good is not as good as great, so perhaps it is damaging to a student's self-esteem to label their question as merely good and not great. (?)

Other variants include: That's an excellent question. That's a really great question. That's an important question.

Is there an alternative? I'd rather not replace it with a more modern expression, e.g.: That's an awesome question. That question totally rocks. But is there anything as succinct yet effective?

That's a great question is distinct from I'm glad you asked that question, as the former in theory should mean what it says, but the latter can be used as a pedagogical technique for making a student feel better about asking a stupid question; i.e., the subtext is: Your question demonstrates a lack of understanding of the topic, but I'm going to use your question as an example of a common mistake that many students make and therefore you shouldn't feel bad about asking it because I can use it as a 'teachable moment' and therefore resolve what might be widespread confusion about this issue.

Earlier this semester, a student in one of my classes asked a question that indicated confusion about the topic of the day, and I said the typical professor I'm glad you asked that question thing and then did the teachable moment thing. Then I asked the class how they felt about a professor's saying I'm glad you asked that. Some students said they hated it because they know it really means That was a stupid question and you don't understand the topic, but they also admitted that they would rather a professor be kind that way than say directly what they thought of the question. They also don't like it when a professor tries too hard to find something positive about a totally wrong answer given by a student in class, even if the answer is totally wrong, as that can be confusing for everyone.

In a small or medium class, it is not so difficult to create an environment in which students feel comfortable asking questions. It is more difficult to do this in a large class, but it is certainly possible. That's a great question can be used to create just such a comfortable environment, but once it is clear to everyone that you welcome and enjoy answering questions in class (as I do), it can be tricky using the phrase. For example, what if you use it for some questions and not for others? Results of a brief informal and statistically invalid survey of a few students indicate to me that they notice things like this.

Thus far, I have been talking about the uttering of That's a great question by professors to students. I don't think this phrase does any harm, even if it is overused. However, there are circumstances in which it is not a great idea to use the great question phrase. In particular, people giving job talks during an interview might want to avoid this phrase. I have seen it annoy a number of colleagues to have a perky young interviewee tell them that they (a distinguished and brilliant person) asked a great question. Of course their question was great! Aside from the ego issues involved, it is particularly bad if That's a great question is used to mask the fact that the person hasn't thought about a particular issue and has no good (or great) answer.

Editing the Dead

A manuscript that I have been reviewing/editing was sent back to the author for revisions, the author and I corresponded about the revisions, and then recently I got an email from someone at the author's institution informing me that the author had died unexpectedly. This manuscript, if published, will therefore be the Last Paper of this scientist.

Too bad the Last Paper is kind of awful. It is also too bad that there aren't any co-authors who can fix it up and make it good.

I never met the late author, but I am familiar with his name from his publications over the years. In his correspondence with me, he was very nice and was not at all upset about the extensive revisions required for further consideration of his manuscript. In fact, he seemed quite pleased to sink his teeth into the work and improve the paper.

The deceased person's co-workers want the manuscript to be published. I doubt if they know that it isn't a good paper, and are seeking only to honor a colleague they admired.

I have never rejected a dead person's manuscript before. If the author had lived and had not revised the first version of the manuscript, I would have rejected it. The only difference between that situation and the current situation is that the author's excuse for not doing the revisions is a very good one.

Should editors lower their standards for the dead? If we do, I doubt that large numbers of people will want to take advantage of this route to getting their manuscripts published. Therefore, publishing mediocre/bad papers by dead people from time to time is unlikely to set a dangerous precedent.

My concern isn't actually with standards in this case. If I accept this not-so-great manuscript, I can 'live' with myself [apologies for insensitive word choice]. It makes me sad, though, that this scientist's Last Paper is so lousy. Would I want my Last Paper to be like this or would I want an editor to be unsentimental and reject it?

However sad it is for one's Last Paper to be awful, the alternative isn't so great either. If someone dies just before publishing an outstanding paper, they wouldn't be around to enjoy the experience of stimulating new discussions, ideas, research etc.

The publication of this manuscript seems to mean a lot to the late author's students and colleagues, and I will probably accept the manuscript after doing what I can to fix the writing without altering the content of the paper. It's disconcerting, however, to know that the author won't be checking my editing.

So, the manuscript will probably eventually be published as this author's Last Paper. I guess that's OK -- no one would judge someone's overall scientific legacy on the quality of the Last Paper. The late author had a long career and published quite a few papers, and ultimately no one will care which paper was last. I hope.

Cat Search

If anyone doubts the warping effects on one’s brain of being on a faculty search committee that involves reading 100+ files and 100+ reference letters, perhaps this post will serve as evidence that the effects can be severe.

We have had a cat vacancy in our home since last winter, so we convened a diverse and distinguished search committee consisting of three experts (us). We recently interviewed several candidates intensively, following the European model of interviewing all candidates at the same time (very efficient). We were, in theory, open to hiring at any level, and we did interview one very intriguing candidate who would have had to have been hired at a senior level, but we were unsure about how this older cat would interact with existing cats in our home department. And, although the cat appeared active during the interview, we couldn’t help wondering: would she essentially retire once securing a permanent position?

Our short list of viable candidates ended up consisting entirely of kittens. None had had a previous home position before, not even as a postdoc. There can be a great risk in hiring such an inexperienced feline, but the rewards are potentially great if they thrive in their new environment and have a long and productive feline career in your home.

We evaluated each kitten’s background, their potential for interacting with humans and other felines, and we tried to gauge their potential for creative (but not too creative) behavior. In the end, I must admit that we favored stereotypical kitten behavior over kittens who seemed to be pushing the envelope. The kitten to whom we made an offer (which was instantly accepted) actually looks a lot like some previous members of our cat faculty. We weren’t expecting this, but it somehow just happened, perhaps because we feel most comfortable with this type of cat and weren’t ready to deal with one that was too different from what we are used to.

Introducing a new kitten into a home department dominated by senior felines can be tricky, and can involve some less-than-mature behavior on the part of senior felines, who feel threatened by the energetic addition. Even so, we are looking forward to the energizing effect our newest feline hire will surely have on our older faculty felines. We are reasonably confident that the new kitten will get tenure and have a productive career in our home, even if none of the senior felines has thus far been willing to be his mentor.

Terminal Advising, 2

Topic: The different ways that advisors deal with graduating students or departing postdocs in terms of continuing research projects. The ‘data’ on which this post is based represent an amalgamation of the experiences of several colleagues and me.

Two scenarios representing the best and worst case examples (from the point of view of the advisor), both of which involve a former advisee moving on to another position that involves research, are:

Best case scenario: The departing person is a creative and productive individual who contributed significantly to a shared research project and who is either moving on to research projects that are entirely their own or who is taking the ‘old’ research in new directions. In the first case, the advisee intellectually owns the project, and although there are likely some rules about archiving research materials, there should be no problem with the departing person's taking the research project with them. Even in the latter case, most of us are more than happy to help our former advisees continue working on shared projects and for them to take relevant research materials with them (again, leaving archived copies of some materials – e.g., notes – as required by university/funding/ethics requirements). It is in a former advisee’s best interests to become independent as soon as possible, but in some cases it can be important or necessary to continue existing projects for some time.

[This post is told from the point of view of the advisor, although there are probably cases of evil advisors cutting off excellent advisees from their promising research for nefarious (selfish) reasons. I am not personally familiar with such situations and I hope they are extremely rare.]

Worst case scenario: A marginal student/postdoc demands to continue working on a particular project although he/she has not demonstrated the ability to take the research any further, at least not independently. If the project was not their original idea, even if the student/postdoc has provided some data (and is therefore a co-author on publications), it is not their project to take, intellectually or physically. This particular scenario has resulted in problems ranging from illegal/unethical situations (former advisees taking research materials without permission) to uncomfortable interactions (telling a former advisee that you aren’t willing to continue working with them).

It is difficult to tell an advisee that you don’t want to continue working with them after they leave your institution. Even if there is historical evidence to show that in general you are happy to continue working with former advisees, you will seem like an evil, grasping ogre who is selfishly trying to keep for yourself all the glorious rewards that obscure basic science research can provide. And what do you do if you have several advisees all finishing their degrees/projects at about the same time and you are not treating them all the same in terms of your willingness to work with them after they leave?

And then there are the complex intermediate situations: In one recent case involving a colleague, a very talented and hard-working former student is demanding that the former advisor and fellow researchers not be coauthors on his publications, even though everyone contributed ideas and work to the project. It remains to be seen whether this demand will be met. In general, being unethical and manipulative (“I thought you wanted me to succeed”) is not a good route to take to demonstrate independence, and will likely backfire anyway (most people in their field will know that the advisor and other people in the research group were involved in the project and will wonder why they aren’t coauthors..).


There is no cookie-cutter approach to handling the terminal stages of advising, as each case is different and comes with its own special mix of pride, hope, and anxiety.

Terminal Advising

There are some interesting issues related to the professional relationships of advisors and advisees at or soon after the end of the latter's graduate or postdoctoral programs. There are several aspects of this I want to explore in the near future. Today I will write about issues related to an advisee's job search efforts.

Some graduate students and postdocs show me their application materials when they apply for academic jobs, and I am happy to give general advice and assistance based on my experience reading many such applications. Application materials should be an accurate reflection of the applicant’s ideas and abilities, but I think it is entirely reasonable for an applicant to discuss and get input about general issues of content, tone, type and amount of information, and balance between research and teaching statements.

Some advisees prefer not to show me their application materials. At this stage, some advisees want to be more independent, and that is fine with me.

In an effort to help my advisees with the job search process, I am giving a series of informal Applying for Academic Jobs 101 talks to my research group this fall. There are also formal courses on this topic given by the university, so students and postdocs have many options for getting advice and information. Other resources are available for those interested in non-academic jobs.

Of those who show me some or all of their application materials, some show me their application materials before sending them and some show these to me after submitting them, in the latter case just as a FYI kind of thing to help me “focus” my reference letter (as one recent applicant phrased it when he sent me the cover letter for a submitted application). Either way is fine with me; it is up to the applicant to make this decision.

The conundrum: what to do if application materials have major problems.

Example: This fall, I was given a copy of an already-sent cover letter, and the letter was filled with glaring writing errors of a non-trivial sort: e.g., sentences that made no sense, missing punctuation and words, typos.

The issue is not the content of my reference letters. The difficult questions for me are: (1) if a flawed application is not yet submitted, how much help with the writing should be given? and (2) if the flawed application has been submitted, should the applicant be told about the problems?

The general issue is the extent to which someone should get assistance with job application materials in terms of writing and other technical aspects. It would be wrong for me to rewrite or provide major editing of an applicant's letter or statement, but just saying “This writing is bad” seems insufficient.

I am trying to figure out the best way to help applicants fix their applications, but without crossing a line between providing an unethical level of assistance. Ideally, I would also be able to do this without causing great anxiety at a time that is already anxious owing to the usual uncertainty of a job search process, but somehow I don't think that is possible. I can imagine how I would feel if my advisor told me that all the job applications I just sent off are deeply flawed. I would want to know that before I sent off more, but it would still be a mortifying experience.

Yes, it is possible that someone can be a brilliant and creative scientist but a poor writer, and that is the kind of thing an advisor can deal with in a reference letter. Most situations are less clear-cut, however, resulting in yet another psycho-socio-ethical dilemma for us hapless professors to confront.

UnBonded

Recently I had a meeting with a woman who just became part of a publishing team with responsibility for publishing some books I'm involved with. I generally avoid such meetings, preferring instead to focus on the writing/ideas part of the books. Lucky for me, the first author of the books is a socially skilled person who excels at most interactions with humans (and I am not just saying that because he occasionally reads this blog), and he mostly takes care of the author-publisher communications.

I could have refused to have an in-person meeting with this new person, but my co-author talked me into meeting with her. He said that these publishing people like to get to know authors in person, and this helps them be more interested in and enthusiastic about the project.

So I met with her and I liked her well enough, but we spent 90% of the meeting talking about her kids and her husband and her personal life. I think it's fine to get to know each other beyond the immediate project at hand. For example, it's important to me that the people I work with are aware that my life involves a family (including a young child) as well as my research and teaching -- but in this case I wish we could have spent more time talking about books.

Maybe I am missing some sort of bonding gene that would allow me to value this personal interaction with a business associate. I kept trying to turn the conversation to some new ideas that my co-author and I had recently discussed for a new book, and these ideas were well received, but the conversation always turned back to the woman's troubles with one of her children or decisions she was making about her kids' education.

I greatly sympathize with her difficult personal life and admire her for her successful career in publishing, but given the limited time of our meeting, I think we should have used the time more 'efficiently' (see earlier post this week). Is this evidence of my lack of compassion for people dealing with major obstacles in life? Am I incapable of valuing an interaction of this kind? My own answers to these questions are no to the first question and perhaps to the second. If this woman were a friend or close colleague, I would give her all the time she needed to talk about whatever she wanted/needed to talk about, but in this case I think it was an inappropriate use of a business meeting, even one whose apparent purpose was for us to 'bond'.

For me it was more of an anti-bonding experience. I hope to avoid in-person meetings with this woman in the future, even though I feel sincerely sympathetic about her problems. I think I conveyed my sympathy, even if I did (gently) try to change the subject a few times.

When I compared notes with my co-author about an earlier meeting he had with this person, he had a very different experience. They mostly talked about book ideas, though she did share a few pieces of information with him that she also shared with me (e.g., her age).

I repeat: lucky for me my co-author excels at this type of scientist - non-scientist interaction. As with research collaborations, it is nice to be part of a team in which the strengths of various people on the team can be used in different ways (i.e., effective ways, to use the Word of the Week). This also makes the work overall more successful and fun for everyone.

Facebooking Faculty

At a meeting last month, I discovered that a senior colleague from another university has a Facebook page. I asked some other colleagues if they had Facebook pages and was very surprised to find that many did. Soon after, I got a request from someone to be their ‘friend’ on Facebook, and lately this has become an almost daily occurrence.

I have been consulting with my Facebook expert colleagues to try to figure out how to proceed. At present, I don't see why I would want to participate in this aspect of internet culture.

One colleague in particular has thought a lot about issues of faculty-student interactions via Facebook, and shared with me his personal philosophy:

- Always accept an invitation from a student to be a Facebook ‘friend’ but never send an invitation yourself;

- Don’t do anything with Facebook except reply to messages and post photos from student-oriented events; for example, don’t write on a student’s “wall”;

- If you look at your student-friends’ pages, be careful about whether/how you talk about it with them. This colleague never discusses with students what he sees on their Facebook pages, but another colleague once advised a student to remove some offensive material that might have negatively impacted that student’s education and career options if a potential employer ever accessed Facebook.

I have no interest in participating in this aspect of student life, but my colleagues assure me that it is worthwhile as long as you limit use of Facebook to professional interactions. My colleagues say that in their experience many students think it is cool to 'friend' their professors on Facebook, and only a few are bothered by it. I think I still need more convincing.

Student-Troll Interactions

Last night I had dinner with several of my graduate students, and they spent a lot of time ranting about my colleague, Professor Troll. Some of their stories and impersonations of his more annoying characteristics were very funny, in a you-might-as-well-laugh-even-though-it’s-not-really-funny kind of way, and we laughed together a lot.

At one point, when one of the students made a remark about how patronizing and rude the Troll is to students, I said “Not just to students. He’s like that to everyone”. I wanted them to know at least that. I don’t know if that was any comfort to them, but they should know that I will most certainly not insist that he be on their committees, even though his field of expertise is relevant in some cases. On the contrary, I will make sure that he is not on their committees. It’s fine if they discuss their research with him, but I don’t want any of them to be in a position where he has power over their graduate program/future/career.

I was quite restrained in my level of participation of the anti-Troll rant. My students had enough stories of their own, and they are under no illusions about what I think of my colleague. They are also well aware that he thinks I am an intellectually defective, non-rigorous poser of a science professor. Perhaps the conversation was unprofessional, but mostly it was good to laugh about it together.

Thoughts on Efficiency

Several recent commenters asked me for more information about how I manage to be so ‘efficient’. Just to be clear about where I am on the efficiency spectrum: I do tend to get things done in a timely way (= efficient) but I am not a neat or extremely organized person (= less efficient than I could be).

In thinking about it, I didn’t really know what to say in terms of what would be interesting or useful or even accurate, so I asked a colleague to help me. Perhaps that is one example of how I am efficient: I ask people to help me and/or do things for me (?).

First, I asked my colleague if he considers me to be ‘efficient’ and he immediately said yes, he does. I asked him in what ways I am efficient and how/why I am that way, recognizing that the second part is an impossible and loaded question.

He mentioned the following, in no particular order of importance:

- I don’t procrastinate. I would amend that to say that I don’t procrastinate very much. I tend to ‘just do it’ when confronted with various tasks (reviews, committee work) and fit them into interstices of time. For such tasks, I tend to get them done on the time scale of days or weeks rather than putting them off and letting them pile up. I think he’s right, but since these tasks are endless – e.g., whenever I send off a review, the Editor Gods somehow know to send me another request for a review -- getting them done sooner doesn’t mean an end to the work, which is infinite.

- I don’t get distracted by things or wallow in negative emotions; ‘things’ includes unimportant things (e.g., obsessing over my rude and patronizing colleague) and important things (e.g., major life events that might be depressing or upsetting). That is, I don’t shut down in the face of obstacles. This is in part luck, as I have never had to face anything too dire. My family and I are healthy and thus far life crises have been few and manageable. I think this might be important on a day-to-day basis, though. I have some colleagues/students who are entirely stopped for days/weeks by such events as taking a pet to the veterinarian or getting their car repaired. I find great satisfaction in getting things done, so I like getting things done, even when faced with minor obstacles.

My colleague, who does not describe himself as efficient (accurately, I would say), and I also talked about how it is that we are able to work well together. Just because I am rather efficient, doesn’t mean that I can only work with other efficient people. I am definitely annoyed by people whose inability to get things done on time negatively impacts me (e.g., anecdote from last week about the committee member who didn’t read all the files by the meeting time), but in terms of scientific collaborations, I enjoy working with many different people. My colleague’s analogy involves gears of different sizes but that work together to get something done.

He also asked me if I make lists. I do not, with the exception of when I have a major deadline looming, such as a proposal deadline or departure for a major trip. In general I don’t need lists (yet), but my avoidance of lists may also have a deeper reason – my mother is a List Person. She makes lists while driving. Her phone conversations with me involve her reading to me from a list of conversational topics she pre-planned (and wrote down) before our conversation. Her visits to me involve her leaving lists for me – things I should do, things I should buy. My mother is great, but I don’t want to emulate her List Mania if at all possible.

Letters

Every once in a while I obsess about Letters of References. This is one of those times because:

- I have been reading hundreds of L of R's in recent weeks.
- I have been writing L of R's for promotion files, students seeking things etc., and
- I have been thinking about names of L of R writers for myself at the request of my department Chair, who is nominating me for an award.

I've written before about what makes a good/great L of R and what makes a bad/loathsome L of R, so in this post I will instead discuss issues related to selecting L of R people for one's own purposes.

As a grad student/postdoc seeking employment, I had letters from my advisor(s), a Ph.D. committee member or two, and someone who had been a teaching mentor. Later, as I moved from a visiting professor job to a tenure-track job, I had letters from a colleague at the institution I was visiting. When I was applying for jobs to move from one tenure-track place to another, I did not request letters from colleagues at the institution I was seeking to leave, but some people do that.

When I needed letters for tenure, I had letters from various luminaries in my field and a colleague from my first tenure-track job. There was much discussion at the time about whether to get a letter from my Ph.D. advisor. Some of my department colleagues thought that a letter from the former advisor was essential for tenure/promotion files because the advisor could make a statement such as "My former student, Professor X, is the best student I have ever had in 82 years of advising Ph.D. students." Other people thought that a letter from the advisor was not relevant, as the advisor was not objective, even though a letter from an advisor is essential when one is first applying for jobs. I felt ambivalent -- I knew my advisor must have written a good letter for me at one point or I wouldn't have had job offers, but I also felt that he had always been closer to his male students and I didn't know how I would fare if he were asked to compare. Also, we had had an uneasy advisor-advisee relationship owing to his unethical behavior involving other women students. In the end, he was not asked to write a letter.

For promotion to full professor, luminaries were again asked to write letters, including some international scientists. It was important to get letters from people from highly ranked universities, as committees like that kind of thing. Owing to a snafu that was only detected just before my file was to go to the Dean (something entirely the fault of an administrative assistant who somehow manages to be simultaneously hostile and near-comatose), the Chair asked for a letter from a distinguished professor in my own department -- someone with whom I have never collaborated but who is widely respected in the university.

For my ongoing exploration of possibly maybe moving to another university, I have mostly not needed letters. Faculty at one university didn't consult me -- they contacted the people they considered authorities in my field and asked them about me. Another university requested 3 letters, and I gave them the names of 3 people, only one of whom is a research collaborator.

Now I have to think about names for this award nomination. The chair thinks that the nomination will be more likely to succeed if I have letters from Chairs, Deans, renowned international scientists, National Academy of Science members, and Nobel Prize winners. Letters from at least one of those are not going to happen. Choosing letter writers for an award of this sort involves considering who will effuse the most in a letter, and that's not something that is easy to guess for some people. I am also stressing out because several of the obvious letter writers are at institutions that are considering hiring me, and that makes for a bizarre situation that I didn't want to discuss with my Chair when we talked about names.

Having someone write a letter for an award feels more awkward than getting letters for things like promotion/tenure. The tenure process can feel like a life-or-death situation. When I write tenure letters for others, I take this responsibility very seriously and work hard at writing effective letters. Awards aren't necessary in the same way, and it's asking a lot to request that someone take the time to write a letter for such a thing.

Random Update 2

Token Ignoramus (August 31, 2007 post): I am being a dutiful search committee member for a faculty search in a field that is far beyond my expertise. Although I found the initial organizing stages of the search to be painful (e.g., insider gossip sessions by faculty close to the field in which we are searching), once we started reading and discussing applications, things got much better.

At the most recent meeting, I was annoyed because only 3 of us had read all the applications – the search committee chair, the grad student representative, and me – although the meeting had been called to discuss all the applications. So now we have to have another meeting. It definitely takes a long time to read 100 applications. Am I less busy than the others on the committee? Is the fact that I made the time to read these applications proof that my life is unbalanced? I prefer of course to think that I am more efficient, but I recognize that I could be delusional about that.

I was happy to find that many of the applications are interesting, and some are intriguing. I do have some biases – there is one whole subfield of this field that I find boring. My department has invited a lot of speakers in this subfield in recent years. I will listen to my colleagues if any of them make a case for this subfield, but we haven’t had that discussion yet because the others haven’t read all the applications.

Memo to people actively applying for faculty positions now:

(1) Spell-check your application materials.

(2) Make it clear at the top of your CV what your current position is.

(3) Use your academic or business address/email if you have one, not your home address and your cute hotmail or yahoo username.

(4) If you are seeking to leave a tenure-track or tenured position, do not write in your statement/cover letter that all your colleagues are morons, you are the only one in your department doing transformative research, and you just can’t stand being in such an intellectual bog anymore. Perhaps this is true, but it would be better to explain your interest in leaving in a more positive way; e.g., mentioning interesting opportunities at the place to which you are applying rather than denigrating your current colleagues.

(5) Re. mentioning or not mentioning your spouse/partner: I don't have any particular advice about this because there is so much variation in how different places deal with the issue of 2-career academic couples. In the recent applications I have read, I saw 3 different classes of behavior with respect to this issue:

1 - not mentioned at all (even if the applicant is part of an academic couple); I think the lack of mention is entirely appropriate. It may be very relevant eventually, but it is not relevant at this early stage.

2 - explicit mention of being in an academic couple; I think this is fine as well. If someone wants to mention it, that is their right. In some cases it might make it easier for the university to be proactive in finding a good solution.

3 - explicit mention of not being in an academic couple; this is a political maneuver. It didn't affect my opinion of an applicant's credentials one way or another, but I thought it was bizarre to read in a cover letter/research statement something like "My wife, who is a [insert name of very portable job], and I are both very excited about the possibility of moving to X." Is there any reason to mention this other than signaling that you don't have a potential complication? I use the example of a "wife" because that is what I saw in this batch of applications.

Random Updates

Professor Magnet Hotel update (October 1, 2007 post)

I stayed again at the PMH and enjoyed my stay, as always. I recommended this hotel to some friends who were visiting the same city, and they recommended it to some friends, and this added to the professorial guest population. Even so, one of the very first hotel guests I saw, other than the people I knew, was.. a man wearing a graph paper shirt (October 3, 2007 post). After graph paper man had walked out of the hotel, one of my colleagues said “math professor”. I was thinking civil or mechanical engineering, but there is a high probability that he was a math professor.


That's Debatable update (October 2, 2007 post)

My students had their first in-class debate, and despite a few bugs, it went pretty well. I stopped the debate at one point so we could do a real-time assessment of how things were going and make adjustments so that the rest of the debate (and subsequent debates) went as well as possible. One student on each side was dominating the debate (a male student on the male-dominated team and a female student on the female-dominated team), but taking a break allowed the groups to ‘regroup’ and fix this in a gentle/diplomatic way. Several students suggested we should have a 10-minute pre-debate the week before the next debate. This will help the groups iron out any issues of terminology and to get a sense for the major issues that each side will emphasize. I think that’s a great idea.

I was impressed that when the debate reached the brink of becoming a bit hostile, the students found a way to calm things down and get the debate back on a polite and professional level. I was just about to intervene, but it was much better that the students solved the problem themselves, and did so very effectively.

Trolling for Insults

The week has barely started, but I have already had an encounter with my colleague, Dr. Troll. On Monday I went to a meeting of one of the committees I am on. Dr. Troll is not on the committee, but he has a class in the room in which the committee was meeting. The meeting ended a few minutes before his class was to start. As I was leaving, Dr. Troll arrived and asked me "What are you doing here? Are you taking a class from these guys?" and he nodded at the other professors in the room. It was a bizarre question and I didn't know if he was being obnoxious or stupid, so I didn't reply. Then he repeated his question: "Well, are you?"

I said, "This is a meeting of the X Committee", and he acted very surprised. I have no idea why he was surprised; I am on lots of committees. It is very possible that he was being obnoxious (or stupid).

Water Off A Duck

This weekend as I was contemplating some home improvement projects, I remembered an incident from when I first moved here. I arrived at my present job with an infant, I was coming up for tenure after only being at my new university for a year, and the tenure bar was higher than at my first university. My husband and I bought a house soon after arriving here, but we didn’t have time to think about the house or garden for the first few years that we lived here.

One of the technicians in my department lived in the neighborhood, and he and his wife (a grad student) frequently went for walks in the evening. Their walking route occasionally went past our house.

When this couple was about to leave the city to go to new jobs and I was saying goodbye to them, the technician informed me that there was something he had wanted to tell me for as long as I'd lived in my house: every time he walked by my house, it really bothered him and his wife that I had shades in my windows rather than curtains. He then proceeded to describe what he thought were the perfect curtains for my windows. Perhaps I could even make the curtains myself!

Aside from the fact that I didn’t want curtains and I don’t know how to sew anything more than the occasional button, at that time of my life, the attractiveness of my windows was quite far down on my list of priorities. Tech Guy didn’t understand that, but I sometimes wonder if he does now that his wife is a professor and they have kids and a house.

At about that same time, one of my senior faculty colleagues described me as a swimming waterfowl. He said that, at the surface, I appeared to be gliding along gracefully and effortlessly, but he knew that I was paddling furiously underwater at top speed. Those who heard this analogy then disagree now about whether he compared me to a swan or a duck, but whichever it was, I took it as a compliment. I certainly didn’t feel like I was doing anything gracefully, but it was nice that someone thought I was.

Ten years later, I am not so duck (or swan)-like, and my garden (if not my house) looks great, but I’m still not going to get (or make) curtains.

Naming Names

This morning I participated in an informal meeting with other professors and some graduate students in my department. The purpose of the meeting was to give advice to one of the graduate students, who was puzzled about some data and wanted to discuss possible interpretations. There were 4 Female Science Professors and 1 Male Science Professor at the meeting. The discussion was interesting, but after a while I realized that the student was calling us FSPs by our first names and the MSP (with whom she works much more closely than any of us FSPs) as "Dr. X". This MSP is quite happy to be addressed by his first name by students, but for some reason this student, who has been in the graduate program here for several years, wasn't comfortable calling him by his first name.

It is a classic phenomenon, and I have several FSP colleagues who complain about it because they feel that it means that students don't respect them as much as they do the MSPs. That may well be, but informality in form of address doesn't necessarily mean lack of respect. In the situation this morning, the student was interested in comments and advice from all of us, and has sought me out in the past for additional discussions about research topics. I do not feel disrespected and certainly don't want to be called Dr. FSP by students in my department. What I do want is for this student (and others) to get over their awe of tall MSPs with gray hair and beards.

Fishing Expedition

A favorite phrase employed by some proposal reviewers is to accuse the PI’s of proposing a ‘fishing expedition’, meaning that the PI’s don’t really know what they are going to find but are hoping to find something. This is typically meant as a devastating negative comment: that is, one should have a more certain prediction of the outcome of the research or the research should not be done.

The term is used in the sense of casting about randomly and wildly in the hopes that something interesting will turn up, and isn’t meant as a comparison with people like some of my fishing relatives who have specialized equipment, technique, and knowledge, and who are reasonably certain of getting an interesting fish.

Some colleagues and I were discussing the ‘fishing expedition’ phrase recently, as we had all, at one time or another, received this comment in proposal reviews. We wondered why 'fishing expedition' had come to be used in such a negative way. Some (most?) research has a very uncertain outcome, and that is not necessarily a bad thing, as the pay off if something interesting is discovered is potentially great. [insert any one of a number of famous stories from the history of scientific discovery]. In many cases, even if the outcome is negative, something valuable is learned. These arguments, however, do not make for a very convincing proposal to a funding agency, even though we are all supposed to be doing transformative research these days.

In some cases, the phrase is accurately applied and highlights a potential problem with the research. Some proposals describe application of a huge array of poorly-described techniques that will be hurled at a problem in the hopes that something will emerge. This can make for a bad proposal.

I received the ‘fishing expedition’ comment in one of my proposal reviews in the past year. Although the overall proposed research was favorably reviewed, a reviewer singled out one of the more exploratory aspects of it for critical comment and recommendation that that part not be funded (because it was a fishing expedition). This kind of hedge trimming suggests that only the safest, most predictable work should be done, and any exploratory tangents should be lopped off early. In these cases, I typically try to find a way to do the exploratory part of the research anyway (e.g., using funds from small grants from my university).

A previous trend in proposal-trashing involved the phrase 'stamp collecting' -- i.e., mindlessly collecting and organizing data. What's the next hobby-related pejorative, once reviewers tire of 'fishing expedition'? My personal preference would be 'zorbing'. Any other suggestions?

Unbalanced

A male colleague at another university has told me numerous times that he uses me as Exhibit A when discussing life/career issues with students and postdocs (particularly women). For him, I am living proof that It Can Be Done: have a research/teaching career and a family and a happy life.

He recently told me that a postdoc (whom we both know) said she didn’t think I was a good example because my life is ‘unbalanced’. My colleague was disturbed by this because he felt that she was being irrational about rejecting me as a Role Model. I don’t have a problem with it – everyone has their own definition of balance, and what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for others.

What does bother me is that the postdoc who thinks I am ‘unbalanced’ made this characterization with inadequate data. For example, she assumed that I never take vacations with my family because I couldn’t possibly ever take time off and get as much done as I seem to do. News flash: I excel at taking vacations. I go somewhere interesting with my family several times each year. Some trips are with my daughter alone, and some involve my husband, daughter, and me. Some trips are related to professional travel (e.g., tacking on a family vacation to a conference trip) but some are entirely vacation. And sometimes we just lurk at home and have fun doing random things together.

Another example: this postdoc assumed that I must not spend much time with my daughter, who is in elementary school. Owing to the flexibility of an academic job, I spend as much (and possibly more) time with my daughter as parents with full-time non-academic jobs. My daughter is a happy, healthy, interesting person, and we have lots of fun together. If the postdoc doesn’t want to work full-time when her kids are young, that is her decision to make, but it doesn’t mean my life is ‘unbalanced’. It’s just not how she wants her life to be.

My colleague went to great effort to convince the postdoc that I am not just an insane working machine, but he says that she is unconvinced. It’s possible that she doesn’t want to be convinced, and that’s fine. It would be better if she would just say that she doesn’t want a career at a research university for her own reasons rather than using me as a negative example, but I know it can be hard to admit that in an environment that considers desiring a faculty position at a research university to be the ultimate goal, with anything else indicating failure or a lack of ambition.

So, I hope I get to keep my credentials as a Role Model, even if being living proof that It Can Be Done is not enough to convince everyone that this is the best possible life – because it isn’t the best possible life for everyone.

I Could Have Done That

Many years ago when I was a second-year grad student, I gave my very first conference presentation. The topic was a project that was not my main thesis topic, but a 'side' project that my advisor let me explore because it interested me. It was a simple, focused project using some new technology not previously available, and it easily set to rest a minor debate that had been unresolved owing to the lack of such data. It wasn't a big deal, but it was a nice introduction for me to research, writing, and conferences.

My advisor and I presented the work as a poster at a national meeting, and I found the experience very thrilling, as a parade of scientists, including many whose names I knew from reading their papers, visited my poster and chatted with me about the work. One particularly Famous Scientist stopped by the poster, said "I could have done this", and walked away. He walked away before I could reply, but my response would have been something like "No kidding".

Over the years, I had several more "I could have done that" encounters with this Famous Scientist. For one project that I did, he told me that he had thought about doing it for years but just hadn't had time. If he had the time, he would have done this project long before I did it. For a paper that I published, he wrote to me a long letter saying that he had not reviewed my paper, but if he had, he would have had the following comments [there followed a long list of comments]. The comments were mostly positive, as it turns out, and many were along the lines of "I knew that already" (even though most people didn't).

Based on this brief description, you may have concluded, as I did at the time, that this person is an obnoxious jerk. In fact, he is kind of obnoxious, but I have come to appreciate him in many way. His passion for science is not driven by an interest in being famous or in putting people down. He is curious about everything, he reads everything, and he has an opinion about everything. Although he terrifies many students, he loves discussing science with anyone and everyone, and is fascinating to talk to. The list of his undergraduate and graduate advisees who have had successful scientific careers is awesome.

During visits to my department, he has spent hours with my students discussing their research. He finds something interesting in even the most boring talk, and likes to spark discussions with creative questions and comments. He is a very interesting person.

Although I wouldn't have guessed it from his "I could have done that" comments over the years, he meant them as compliment in a weird kind of way. It is surely an egotistical way to some extent, but now that I know him better (and am no longer an anxious young grad student), I can get past that kind of thing and have some great conversations with him. He even recently suggested that we collaborate on a project. I couldn't help but wonder if that meant there was finally something I could do that he couldn't, or if he just didn't have time to do the entire project himself.. but mostly I think it would be fun to work with him.

My point is that although some of the obnoxious people I have described in this blog may be incurable jerks, some are more nuanced jerks, though it may take some time (age) and distance to be able to appreciate them.