An Office of One's Own

In a comment last week, someone stated that grad students are "4 to an office", as if this is a general fact. Is it? Maybe it is common, even if you count cubicle farms with low partitions, but many departments seem to have at least some (or many) private(ish) office for grad students, with doors and maybe even a window (!).

I know I have written about offices before.. apparently, I have devoted at least 15 posts to the topic of "faculty office", and I recall a few mentions of grad offices before as well (such as the fascinating topic of whether professors ever venture into the grad office zone). And yet, I don't think I have ever probed the question of grad office-sharing. The topic came up indirectly in a recent post on background noise and distractions when a student is on the phone trying to have a professional conversation, such as in a phone interview; hence the comment about "4 to an office".

When I was in grad school, I had a different grad office every year, each one better than the one before. I graduated from a make-shift cubicle (some bookcases arranged around a desk) to shared offices to a private office (no window, occasional dead rodents behind the walls, but I loved my little office-cave). Even when I shared an office, I never had more than one office-mate in my immediate vicinity (i.e., two desks in a small room with a door), although in the overall "office space" there were maybe 15 of us (and we all shared one phone). I was quite content with these offices, and always felt that I had a good place to work, even if none of these offices could be described as aesthetically pleasing spaces. 

Despite years of private offices as a postdoc and professor, I occasionally get to relive the shared-office experience during sabbaticals and other extended visits to other universities. For my first sabbatical, for example, I shared an office with a very polite and mostly quiet person who, I eventually realized, was being slowly driven mad by the fact that I had different ideas about office lighting, door position, and various situations involving the windows. In my view, when I was alone in the office, I could have the lights, door, windows arranged in whatever way I wanted, and then when my office-mate appeared, we could find a compromise, but this person wanted everything to be a certain way even when they were not there, and certainly everything had to be back the way it should be when they showed up at the office in the morning or after some time away during the day. This became kind of stressful.

These had not been issues when I had a shared office as a grad student, and only partly because we had no windows; I was lucky to share an office with compatible people, all of whom are still good friends of mine. An incompatible office-mate can really affect your ability to work in 'your' office, including how you feel about going to the office and spending time there. If you have more than one office-mate, the chances increase (exponentially?) that one (or more) will be annoying, or worse.

And yet, I think it is a good thing to have an office plan that facilitates interaction, so that grad students aren't just toiling away in isolation in private offices, at least not for the first few years of grad school. The informal discussions that I had with my office-mates in my general office area were some of the most interesting and significant intellectual experiences I had in grad school, leading in one case to a paper that I wrote with another grad student.

So, '4 to an office' certainly doesn't sound pleasant, but it might not be entirely dire. Many research labs have grad students desks scattered around in and near them, so no one has their own office with walls and window, but everyone has their own space to work. It might be difficult to work at times, but there are also lots of good interactions as well. Another possible arrangement to foster interactions is to have private or semi-private offices arranged around a central area where people can gather (quietly).

Questions of the day: How many grads to an office (range or typical) at your department? Is this scheme (whatever it is) seen as good/bad/indifferent?

Mentoring Madness

Today in Scientopia: discussion of a recent comment that mentoring constitutes a "summer camp buddy-system" for those lacking the initiative to figure out how to do their (academic) job.

Don't Laugh

A few weeks ago, I was having lunch in a campus-area dining spot, and was sitting near a group of undergrads who were having lunch together. During lunch, one of the students got a phone call that seemed to be related to a job opportunity or internship; the phone conversation mostly consisted of the the student's answering questions about courses, other work experience, and career goals. The student's tone of voice was serious and the topics were of a professional nature.

I don't know why the undergraduate (UG) didn't just run outside as soon it was clear that this was an important call, but UG did not leave. UG remained sitting with friends, who were silent for a while, listening to their friend answer questions, but then they started trying to make their friend laugh. Even if UG hadn't run outside with the phone when the call first came, why did UG stay even when the friends started making embarrassing sounds in the background and making gestures and comments to make UG laugh, with some success? Maybe it wasn't as important a phone call as it seemed to me, an ignorant eavesdropper, but I was puzzled as to why UG stayed, clearly having trouble remaining serious and focused on the phone call.

It reminded me of a time when I was talking on the phone with a potential postdoc (PPD). We were in different countries, so it had not been possible for us to meet in person, and this was our first conversation other than e-mails. The conversation occurred at a pre-arranged date and time, and was specified as an interview. It started fine, but then it was clear that someone in the PPD's vicinity was trying to make them laugh. I could hear some muffled sounds in the background, and then the PPD would try not to laugh. It made the conversation difficult because I kept hearing the PPD's stifled laughs, completely disconnected from our conversation, and sometimes I had to repeat a question because the PPD was distracted. The stifled-laughing/muffled-background sound wasn't a brief, one-time interruption; it was protracted and it was really annoying. 

I suppose I could have said something, ranging from "Could you please stop that? It is annoying," to "Do you need a minute to find a quieter place for us to continue this interview?", but decided it wasn't worth it. (Question for readers: Would you have said anything?). I asked myself, "Is this a deal-breaker?" and decided it was not. Even so, it was puzzling to me that the PPD thought this was appropriate behavior during an interview.

One of these incidents involved an undergraduate, one a graduating PhD student; one is male, one is female; one is from the US; one is not. And yet the two incidents seemed otherwise very similar.

Something else that I wondered about these two incidents, aside from not understanding why anyone would risk losing a career opportunity for such a stupid reason: What do the interviewees think about their friends who interfered with their interviews? I think ultimately it is the responsibility of the interviewee to avoid or stop these background jerks, but since they didn't in these two cases, were they at least angry with their friends, assuming that these interviews were at all important to the interviewees?

Proposal Excellenzzzzzzzzz

When I am asked to review a grant proposal by a program director at NSF (doesn't matter which program), I almost always say yes. There have been a few cases that I can remember when I was sent a proposal quite far out of my field of expertise, and I said no to those, but it is rare that I am asked to review proposals that I have no reasonable basis to judge. This is not because I am so awesomely expert in so many things but because the program directors do an excellent job of targeting reviewers.

Of course, saying yes to review a proposal on a topic that you find somewhat-to-very interesting doesn't mean the proposal will be good (or very good). And, unless you have reviewed proposals and/or manuscripts by the PI/coPIs before, you may not know in advance whether it is likely to be well written or not.

So it can be hard to predict what the review-experience is going to be like, even if you have some basic information at the time of agreeing to the review. I am thinking in particular of a proposal that I reviewed not long ago. The proposal was on an interesting topic, the writing was mostly good in a technical sense, and the proposed work involved what seemed to be the appropriate approach (methods etc.), and yet.. it was extremely difficult for me to read more than a page without flinging it aside (or, in reality, the electronic equivalent of flinging, as I was reading it as a pdf).
Why? Because it was so so so so boring to read this proposal. It was very painful.

Is my attention span getting shorter as I get older and busier and more jaded? Do I need lots of insightful illustrations and formatted text telling me what is important? Do I have to be grabbed in the project summary and/or first paragraph of the project description or else I have trouble being interested in the proposal? Answers at the end of this post.

Eventually I did read the proposal all the way through, of course, and I even re-read what I thought were some critical parts, but it was a slog from start to finish. I had to work really hard to figure out that the proposed work was of some interest and significance. The PI did not highlight the significance, but it was in there, somewhere.
I have written about related issues before: How hard do/should we as reviewers work to see the good (or excellence) in a proposal that has some technical flaws? In many cases, the flaws are in the writing, but in this case it wasn't so much how the sentences were constructed (each one by itself was fine), but in how the proposal as a whole was framed. If I had to work so hard to extract the interesting essence of the proposal, does that mean I will/should rate the proposal lower than I would if the proposal were technically excellent (in addition to containing interesting proposed work)?

(I am ignoring, in this particular discussion, the issue of giving early-career people a bit of a break; i.e., not expecting proposal perfection for those who haven't written many or any before.)

I fear the answer is yes, in a way. There was no way I was giving this proposal a rating of Excellent (the highest rating for an NSF proposal). If the proposal itself had been really well put together, showing more vision in general about the work and how to explain it, it could possibly have been in the Excellent range, but given what I saw in the proposal: no. Ignoring the fact that some of the shortcomings in understanding the proposal may have been my own, can I assume that the dense, complicated, non-linear, dry presentation of the proposed work is an indication of how the research itself will be undertaken, understood, and communicated? I decided the answer to that was also yes, and hence my overall positive but not-Excellent review.

That might sound harsh, so let me say that my first impression of the proposal was even more negative, but my opinion improved with more careful reading and thought. The proposed work is good, even very good. In the end, my rating was quite positive, and (I hope) backed up by what I wrote in my review. So:

Is my attention span getting shorter as I get older and busier and more jaded? Yes

Do I need lots of insightful illustrations and formatted text telling me what is important? Maybe -- it would be nice, anyway. Of course, writing "The hypothesis to be tested is ..." in bold italics underlined and set off with an indented bullet, surrounded by spaces and maybe some nice subtle shading and prominent on page 1 of a proposal doesn't guarantee you won't get a reviewer who writes "It is not clear to me what hypothesis is being tested", but one can reduce the chances of getting comments like this.

Do I have to be grabbed in the project summary and/or first paragraph of the project description or else I have trouble being interested in the proposal? Not this time, but I think in general, yes. I eventually forced myself to sit down and read the whole proposal carefully, painful though it was to do so, and saw some interesting things buried in the dense text, but I wouldn't want to risk this myself when writing a proposal. Perhaps my review would have been more positive if I hadn't found it a huge chore to read the proposal. An annoyed, weary, bored reviewer is probably best avoided.

ColleaguePoetry

Some people tend to send epic emails (I am guilty of this), and some people send characteristic emails that might as well be text messages, even if they type the message using a full-sized keyboard. At the moment, I am most entertained by the terse text-emails.

I have seen some of these emails recently, both from people who only send this type of email. These messages read almost like a strange form of poetry, although they don't seem to follow any obvious rules about number of lines or syllables.

I can't include the exact emails of course, but I can create my own versions that try to capture their essence. I hope that some readers will consider this a creative writing challenge and provide their own versions of terse academic-emails one might receive from colleagues (or students!).

I call this first email-poem: "I want to send you random out-of-context information about myself"

Check out this link.
It mentions me.
This topic is important.

And this one, which is a bit longer, is entitled: "I want you do something for me (guess what it is)"

We need to write another proposal.
It should be mostly [method].
We need to do this soon.
Someone else will do it if we don't.
We are the best ones to do it.
This is urgent.
The program director hates me.


Isn't that beautiful, in a way?

Spring Break 2012

It is mid-March, and I feel compelled to write something about Spring Break. Last year, I was impressed to see that more than 80% of professors who responded to my online poll reported that they were working during the Spring Break week, most on campus (and happily so). The results were very similar for postdocs, although (not surprising) a greater % of postdocs stay on campus (postdocs don't really get Spring Break anyway because every week is Spring Break for postdocs?!). The numbers were similar for grad students working over the break, most of whom also stay on campus.

One interesting result from the poll, keeping in mind the small numbers of participants involved of course, is that fewer professors who stay on campus to work are unhappy about it, as compared to the % of happy working-on-campus grad students. Why is that, do you think?

Possibilities to explain why more professors are happier (as compared to grad students) to work during Spring Break:

- Professors have lower expectations re. happiness. We are just happy for a break, any break, and even if we have to work during the break week, it's great to have that week to get caught up and prepare for the rest of the academic year. It's not as if most of us can go anywhere during the break week anyway.

- By the time you get to be a professor, you have already displayed a dangerously high level of affection for the campus environment; why would you want to go anywhere else?

- It's nice being on a quiet, emptier-than-usual campus. Lines are shorter at your favorite caffeine-supplier. This can equally apply to grad students, of course, but one hypothesis is that this is more important to professor (see hypothesis #1 about reduced expectations re. happiness).

- Grad students can still remember what it was like to have a real Spring Break, and aren't far enough along yet on the academic spectrum to appreciate staying on campus. Yes, I know that many undergrads don't go anywhere for Spring Break, but chances are that undergrads don't spend the entire week on academic pursuits; grad students are still too close to these youthful experiences.

I can think of a few more possibilities, but this is your assignment for Spring Break: come up with some more creative reasons to explain the data.

Academic Fish Ponds

In Scientopia, a reader wonders whether to try to move from a Top-20ish graduate program to a Top-5 university to maximize chances on the academic job market in the future.

Part of the Problem

For a large conference in my general field, I was asked to be the (sub)convener of one particular session within an overall larger theme session. Each (sub)convener was asked to invite two speakers. For the particular focus of my assigned session, there were some obvious possibilities, and I was pleased when the first two people I invited both accepted. My only thought for 'diversity' issues when making these invitations was to try to get at least one non-North American speaker (there were many excellent choices), and in this I succeeded.

Both of 'my' invited speakers are male. I was therefore dismayed when I saw the final list of all invited speakers for the theme session. All of them are male. All of them. Of the ~15 conveners, I am the only woman, so perhaps it was my responsibility to invite at least one woman? (<-- said in a sad, semi-sarcastic tone of voice)

When I was mulling over my possible invitees, there was one female scientist in the group I considered, but it turned out that she was unavailable. Maybe similar things happened with my male co-conveners.

I don't know, but it looks bad (to me) when I see a long men-only list of invited speakers. There are talented women in this general field. I suppose it is possible that all were busy or otherwise unavailable, but even so, it's dismaying when there are so many female students and postdocs, and yet we didn't come up with an invited speaker slate that includes even one woman.

So I ended up being part of the problem, perhaps in part because of the compartmentalization of the speaker-inviting process and/or my mistaken assumption that there would surely be some women invited for some of the sessions, without anyone making a particular effort. I should know better by now.

If we had first pooled our names of potential invited speakers, it would then have been obvious whether the list was extraordinarily imbalanced in some way. We could have discussed overlooked-but-excellent choices for particular topics, and helped each other with suggestions. In addition, some conveners could have realized that when deciding between two or more outstanding choices, perhaps a diversity issue should tip the choice one way or the other. I wish one of the high-level conveners had been keeping an eye on the list and been willing to make some comments to us lower level conveners. Or maybe, since I think it is important, I should just reflexively invite women whenever given the opportunity, on the assumption that no one else will?

The Acolyte Stage

In the not-so-distant past, a colleague said, in reference to a promising young PhD student being advised by another colleague (not at our university), "He's just going through the acolyte stage right now."

The context was that this grad student seems to 'worship' his advisor, not in an obsequious way, but in a soaking-up-knowledge-like-a-sponge way, and showing deep appreciation for the research of his advisor, who is quite successful and famous (in the obscure way that one can be famous in a sub-sub-discipline of academia).

In this sense of the term, acolyte is used in a non-religious sense, except that the word worship is commonly used with it. In looking up the word and its various meanings and connotations, I learned that it is also the name of a horror movie that I have no intention of seeing (I hate scary movies).

Is there a difference between calling someone an acolyte (in the academic context) vs. a protégé (which also seems to be the name of a movie) (or protégée)? Protégé can technically just mean 'someone who is advised or mentored', although I think it is more commonly used to imply something closer to the meaning of acolyte in the sense that my colleague used it. (and that's why I don't really like the term protégé.)


My colleague was not using the term to criticize the student in question (he thinks very highly of this person), but he was amused by this student's apparent advisor-worship. He also clearly thinks it is just a phase that some students go through. I somehow missed this stage when I was a student, but I can think of a few of my fellow grad students who could reasonably have been described in this way (including one, mentioned in an ancient post, who even started dressing like our advisor, in turtlenecks and tweed jackets).

I don't think it is overall very common for students to go through an acolyte stage, but it is also not so rare. Agree/disagree?

I also don't think it is necessarily a bad thing (I realize that may seem like an obnoxious statement, speaking as an advisor, as if I wish my students were acolytes, when I most certainly do not wish they were), as long as it is quite brief and evolves into a stage involving more perspective (including the ability to be critical of the advisor's work) and, eventually, acting more like a colleague to the advisor. How brief is brief? A year, maybe two? Agree/disagree?

Do you know any academic acolytes, past or present? Do you think it is a stage, and if so, is it a harmless one that evolves into a more mature perspective, or is it a troubling sign of an inability to be independent and objective?

One Man & a Baby

A couple of years ago, I mused about what I called "TMI Talks" -- professional talks in which the speaker inserts a lot (too much?) personal information that is not at all relevant to the talk topic. Is this unprofessional and annoying (particularly if the talk isn't very good otherwise) or is it a nice example of showing that scientists (and others) are human and there is more to life than just research? Curmudgeon that I am, I came down on the side of believing that most of this personal info should be left out of professional talks. A bit is OK, but not a lot.

Today in Scientopia, I discuss a somewhat-related topic, related to the relentless out-of-context mention (by men and women) of their parenting activities. Annoying or cute? Unprofessional or a normal part of the slow move towards more family-friendly culture in academe? Does it matter (to you) if it's a man or a woman bringing up baby (in conversation)?

Too Much of Too Many Things

Not long ago, I was informally looking at someone's research and teaching record, as a prelude to their tenure evaluation. This was not in any official evaluation capacity (I was not writing a letter), and this was not someone at my own university. It was more of a "take a look at this CV and see if you think this person has a chance" kind of thing.

Based only on what I saw in the research record, this person has little or no chance of receiving tenure at their university, which expects a certain amount of activity with respect to publications and grants.

But then I looked at what this person has done in terms of teaching and advising, just in terms of time spent on these activities (I had no information about quality), and it was a lot. It was immense, considering that the university also had moderate research expectations of its science faculty.

I am missing some important information about this situation, such as whether this person could have decreased the number of courses taught by obtaining grants and 'buying' out teaching time, but just from what I saw, it seemed like there was a huge mismatch between expectations (by the university) and what was humanly possible (for the tenure-track professor).

I have written before about how I feel fortunate that my job has a good balance of teaching-research-service in terms of expectations/time for each. If all of these components of the job are valued by the university, and if we are evaluated based on how well we do with each of them, then we need time to do them. That seems obvious, but I know there is disagreement in the land about how professors should spend their time.

I should note that my positive view of the teaching-research-service balance in my current job is not just based on how I feel now, as a tenured professor; I felt the same way as an assistant professor, at least in terms of teaching and research expectations. I did feel that I was doing more service work, particularly in the department, than some of my peers, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle (and I believed that I could have said no to some of the committee work, without consequences, if I had wanted to).

I also realize that just because I think my job has a good balance (and I would say the same thing for my job at my previous university), that doesn't mean that everyone else thinks the same thing about their similar professor-jobs in my department/university. The reasons why I have this positive view are many and complex, including my being happy to work a lot, enjoying doing many different things (though not necessarily too many or all at the same time), and the flexibility of of my department in determining teaching schedules.

So:

Do you feel that you have a good (reasonable) balance of what your institution expects you to do? Or is there a big mismatch between, say, teaching load and research expectations? (It would be helpful to specify career stage, discipline, general type of institution.)

If you do feel there is a big mismatch, do you think this is a general feeling shared by your colleagues in your department/institution, or is there a lot of variability within your unit? Is there anything that can be done about this mismatch, or is it hopeless in the face of widespread belief that professors don't teach enough, and yet should also be pulling in the big grants and publishing in Nature or Science every few months, while serving on 9 committees and doing outreach?

If you feel that there is a good balance in your job, is this also a widespread view in your department/institution, and is there someone in particular responsible for creating this good work environment? (dept chair, college dean, provost, president..).

Bio Hazards

Some grad students and postdocs who write to me have advisors who abuse the advisor-advisee relationship by making unreasonable demands on their advisees regarding how they spend their work time, how their time and contributions are credited in publications, and (in the case of grad students) how much time they spend as students before being awarded a degree. In some of the worst cases, the advisors make specific or veiled threats that their future letters of recommendation for the student/postdoc will only be positive if the student/postdoc does what the advisor (unreasonably) demands. The students/postdocs are trapped, fearing for their future careers. (This fear of letters of recommendation also occurs in other situations.)

Most, but certainly not all, of these emails are from students and postdocs in the biological sciences, and specifically biomedical/biochemical fields. As I've discussed before, that could be because there are more people in these fields, or it could be because these fields have a greater propensity for misbehavior, based on the size and structure of the research labs. I don't know (but there are many interesting comments on the post linked to previous sentence).

Some of the scenarios described in e-mails sent to me by anxious students and postdocs seem very clear-cut examples of unethical behavior by advisors. I hope that in at least some of these departments and institutes, there is a mechanism by which students and postdocs can get help and these advisors be held accountable for their repeated 'irresponsible conduct in research'. It doesn't seem like there is, or, at least, it doesn't seem like students know about the possibilities and/or feel that there are any reasonable options.

And that leads me to my question of the day: What are the mechanisms by which advisor-advisee problems such as these can (theoretically) be resolved? 

I am particularly ignorant about the biosciences, but there is likely quite a lot of variability in this answer as a function of institution type and size, across all academic disciplines. My impression, however, is that large biomedical/biochemistry/bio-etc. labs operate as semi-autonomous units in which the PI sets the rules, even if some of these rules would be widely recognized as abusive. (tangent: Don't these PIs have to undergo Ethics Training and attend Responsible Conduct in Research workshops? Don't they see themselves in some of the classic case studies discussed in these workshops?). Advisor-advisee problems can be difficult to resolve even in departments in which there is some degree of oversight, but what recourse do students have in PI-ruled kingdoms?

Even in cases in which there is a mechanism by which students can get help from faculty and administrators, the most difficult issues remain: a student who has a lot of time and effort invested in a research project doesn't want to have lose ground and experience even more disruptions (i.e., sometimes it is easier just to put up with an awful advisor and get out as soon as possible); and
a student with an abusive advisor may be reluctant to complain, fearing the consequences for future career opportunities (the letter of reference anxiety, common to all types of harassment situations).

I will give one specific example of a conflict and resolution situation with which I am familiar, just to show that it can work out in some cases. At University Z, an advisor didn't think a grad student had done enough work to attain the degree, even though the student had been in the grad program for longer than peer students and had (in the opinion of some) accomplished at least as much as others who were awarded the same graduate degree from that department. The faculty had some sympathy for the advisor, who was justified in being frustrated by the not-great work done by this student, but the student had a job offer, and the offer depended on the student's having the graduate degree. The advisor was not willing to budge; the student needed to do more work or no degree, even though the advisor had no grant to support the student's further research. The rest of the student's committee and the departmental graduate program advisor examined the available information and disagreed with the advisor: they felt that the student had done enough research of sufficient quality to be awarded the degree. The advisor refused to sign the relevant forms, so the graduate program advisor and committee members took care of the paperwork, the student got the degree, and is now happily employed.

This worked out in part because the student no longer needed the advisor's letter of reference; in the future, if a letter is needed, the graduate committee members can help with this, bypassing the angry advisor.


That incident had a happy ending; I suspect that most do not, but it would be useful to have more information, in part so that we are all better informed when students ask for advice.

Therefore, I am interested in hearing about examples from different departments, institutions, and academic disciplines:

• Is there a good way to resolve serious problems in your department/university/etc.? 
• How much is your department (etc.) willing to get involved in advisor-advisee issues, when problems are detected? and
• Even if there is some process on the books for resolving serious problems involving advisors and students, do students ever find it reasonable and useful to pursue these options, or is the conflict resolution process seen as something that sounds good in theory, but has too many pitfalls (or is just a bunch of empty words in a document somewhere, to make administrators feel better)?

The Hate Stage of Writing

This post was inspired by the recent comment of a colleague, who told me that he knew it was time to send a manuscript off for review because he "hated" the paper; meaning, he was tired of reading it over and over. This is not the same as hating the content of a paper.

At least for me, the experience of writing a paper goes through different emotional stages in terms of how I feel about the paper. The urge to graph this phenomenon may overwhelm me in a few minutes, but let me at least start by writing about writing.

Ideally, the beginning stages involve affection for the topic and high interest in the writing. It would be bad to start off with negative feelings about a paper. I am trying to think of an example in which I approached a paper with loathing, boredom, and/or exhaustion, or even indifference; I am sure there have been examples (some papers have to be written whether we want to write them or not), but I think this is rare for me. I think I tend to start off feeling interested in, and happy about, the writing.

I should say that writing isn't something I just sit down and do at the 'end' of a project; it tends to be an ongoing process, but there is of course a start to all things; that is, the day when I open a new document and give it a title and start outlining/writing the content of the paper.

OK, I just glanced at my CV. There have been some papers that were painful to write, but this was mostly owing to co-author issues, not to any lack of affection for the topic of the paper. I think I can say that I have not started writing a paper in what I will call the hate stage of writing.

That comes later, if it ever comes. When does it arrive and how long does it last? That varies from paper to paper.

Now I am going to have to graph this. I am going to select four (4) not-too-old papers from my CV -- papers in which I was the primary author or otherwise involved in a major way in the ideas, data, writing etc. and that were written recently enough that my memory of the experience has not faded too much. For each of these papers, I will graph the writing experience, from start to finish. In this case, 'finish' means the point at which all revisions are done.

In this graph, there is no absolute time scale, of course, as the time frame of each paper varies considerably: time from start of writing to submission, time in review, time for revision and maybe re-revision etc. I have scaled each writing experience to fit my arbitrary graph.

Note that most of these selected papers never get to the (total) hate stage, and I certainly didn't submit or finish any of these papers in the hate stage. For me, the submission stage isn't at the highest level of positive emotions about a paper, but it doesn't seem to correspond to a hate stage either. (Does it for you?)

I think the green and red curves are fairly typical of papers that involve certain easy-to-work-with colleagues. There are some undulations, mostly related to routine fatigue in constructing a paper, but my interest level and affection for these papers remains quite high. There may have been some syn-revision dips related to annoying reviews of the green and red papers, but these papers started and ended with positive feelings.

The purple paper is one that I mostly enjoyed writing, though I had to do some heavy lifting for a co-author or two, and that got a bit old towards the middle of the project. Nevertheless, my feelings about the paper, even at the very end, were mostly positive.

And then there's the blue paper -- major co-author issues account for the dips towards dislike (but never deep hate!) of working (and working) on this paper*. This might be where a real time scale would be informative; not surprisingly, the blue paper in real life took much longer than the others, and that was a significant factor. Even so, I was feeling overall positive about it at the end. And if I plotted the post-publication emotion level for this paper, it would be quite high, as it was (mostly) worth all the trouble.
* Some of you who know me may think you know which paper this is, but I am pretty sure you are wrong in your guess.

I know that for some people the entire process of writing is in the hate stage, and that is a problem for you and, in some cases, for those who work with you. But, assuming that you are someone who can enjoy some of the experience, but not necessarily the entire thing, do you submit a paper in the hate stage, or does that stage occur at some other point in the writing process, or never for most papers?

But What About Me?

Sometime in the past year or so, I was skimming through a magazine produced by my undergraduate college -- the kind of publication sent to alums and others, probably mostly for the purposes of inspiring donations to the college, but of moderate interest anyway for the articles and other news items.

Not surprisingly, this publication's articles focus on interesting and unusual things being done by graduates of the college, as well as current faculty and students. I almost always find something of interest to read.

In this particular issue of the publication, I was struck by a letter written by a fairly young graduate of the college ('young' in this context means only 'younger than I am'). She was complaining about the fact that the publication focuses too much on people who have had interesting, successful careers or who are involved in other time-consuming activities such as volunteering. She is a self-described "stay-at-home" mom with 2 young kids, and so she doesn't "see herself" in the magazine. This made her feel alienated and it made her also feel that perhaps, in the eyes of the college, she was kind of a failure.


That letter is something I would classify as a But What About Me? kind of letter, and I found it puzzling for several reasons. OK, in some ways I could understand it -- after all, this entire blog is like one long But What About Me? letter -- but I was nevertheless puzzled by a few things, such as:

1. I can certainly appreciate her point that a relentless message that career = success, no career = failure, would be demoralizing (if you saw things that way and let them get to you) or at least dismaying, but I have seen articles in this college publication about the decisions women make about career and family, and there is frequent mention of career-family issues. There are more articles about this than there are about science professors. Did this particular woman miss these articles, or did the fact that most articles are about people with interesting careers somehow obliterate the presence of the family-focused articles?

2. Does she really want to read approving articles about stay-at-home moms in more issues of this particular publication? I couldn't relate to this: I don't want to read more articles about people like me. I want to read about different people.

3. And that leads me to my next question: How do we define different? Perhaps the woman who wrote the letter has only two bins: women with careers (= different from her) and women staying home to raise their kids (= same as her). And perhaps others have different bins: for example, when I read an article about a woman who has had a career as a musician, film-maker, dancer, writer, artist etc., I am interested because I am learning something new about someone with a very different life. Similarly, a woman who has decided to stay home with the kids has a different life from me, and although I might not be so fascinated to read about her daily life, there are interesting aspects of it, including the decision to do this, what happens when the kids are older etc. It's just a different bin. I don't identify with the dancer more than with the stay-at-home mom just because the dancer and I are both pursuing careers. That's my perspective as someone with a career and a family, anyway.  Perhaps this perspective also stems from the fact that some of my best friends from college have stayed home to raise their kids, and I don't think of them as alien 'others'; we still have a lot in common.

So then I started thinking about this concept of bins, and how many we see when we look at the rest of the world, recognizing that the number changes depending on context. In the specific context of my reading my college glossy-mag, I think my bins are scientists and non-scientists. Within the non-scientists bin, there are many possibilities, including ballerinas, politicians, and stay-at-home moms.

This is one of those musing, picking-apart kinds of posts, without the intention of criticizing an individual, in this case the letter writer (although it may seem that way). I am most interested in learning about different perspectives, and in that sense the letter I am describing was very interesting and got me thinking; in fact, I don't remember anything else that was in that particular issue of the college magazine, even though I am sure it was festooned with successful career people.

Vegetarian Zombies

I DON'T CARE IF IT'S FRIDAY, THIS IS A QUIZ.

My teenage daughter and some friends came up with a list of possible topics for a character in a theater project. Scan this list and see if you can detect the one that I think does not belong in this list:

Person going through a divorce because he cheated on wife
College student sleeping with best friend's girlfriend
Fifteen year old breaks up with boy/girlfriend over FB
15 year old loser -- family issues, no money, school drop out
Bartender -- free alcohol, works late, loves job
Stripper -- paid well, diseased boyfriend trouble
Meth addict -- depression, well-paid job, boyfriend troubles, no friends
Prostitute who is beaten up by a pimp
Kid starting college - doesn't want anyone to know his mom works there
Gay teenager about to come out
Guilty serial killer
Vegetarian zombies
Cannibals
Tiger Woods
Drug addicted wrestler
A drunk priest
A man addicted to helium

The Expanding (or Contracting) Grad Universe

If you advise PhD students, do you have an advising philosophy in terms of the scope of projects for students just starting their PhD research? I know there are big labs in which grad students are cogs and do a particular part of a large project involving many people, and I know there are fields in which the PhD research is entirely student-driven, from idea to dissertation. In my field, there is a lot of variability, and this gives some flexibility in advising style. To some extent, the scope of the project can be modified to suit the student's interests and abilities, but, at least for the early phases of the PhD research, the advisor's philosophy about types and scopes of projects is the starting framework.

I ask my question about advising philosophy in that context. I think the question is applicable in cases in which the advisor determines the project (or, at least, most of it) and in cases in which there is more room for the student to take the research in new directions.

Here are two examples of different approaches:

The Contraction Approach: The advisor starts grad students on projects that involve several to many different components, sees how the students do or what particularly grabs their interest, and then the dissertation research proceeds accordingly. In some cases, no contraction of the scope is necessary, but in others, some components of the project are jettisoned. I think this is a reasonable approach as long as what is left still comprises dissertation-level research. Of course, another possible outcome is that the student does not succeed with any component of the research, even when the scope has been reduced, and then everyone has to make a new plan.

Pros: Students are exposed to an array of possibilities and, ideally, one or more will catch their interest and therefore what ends up being the dissertation research is what most interests the student.

Cons: Students can be overwhelmed. Particularly if a student doesn't know how to organize their time to make progress on their research (perhaps while also taking classes and/or working as a teaching assistant) or is easily discouraged by the obstacles that always arise in the course of research, having too many choices can result in no progress on any of the possible research avenues. 

The Expansion Approach: The advisor starts students on one or a few research activities, sees how they do, then the research expands from there depending on student ability and interest. In some cases, the expansion can be rapid and large; in others, not so much, but still represents a widening of the project's scope from the beginning stages. I think this is a reasonable approach as long as the student knows that the research scope must widen from the first small steps, and there is good communication about how much expansion is expected/desirable.

Pros: Students can master some fundamental techniques or concepts before moving on to new or more complex aspects of the research, building a strong foundation for later research.

Cons: Students may be bored by the first research activities, particularly if these mostly involve technical things, and may therefore never become engaged in the overall research. Also, students may feel that the early research activities are "enough", and anything else is "too much". It may not be clear how fast or how much the scope needs to change, so it can be difficult to move the research much beyond the early stages.

I suppose we could also add The Plateau Approach, in which the research activities are pre-determined, and the students just has to start on them, do them, and finish. That isn't necessarily as cog-like as it sounds, but I focused on the other two approaches because those are closer to descriptions of advising methods I have tried.

In theory, the Expansion Approach makes a lot of sense to me, but in practice, I now tend towards the Contraction Approach, even though it has pitfalls as well. I have had too many situations, mostly early in my advising career, in which the Expansion Approach resulted in a student who could never see the "big picture" of the research and who couldn't (or wouldn't) move beyond the early stages of the research. In my field, that's fine for undergrad research or an MS, but not for a PhD.

Of course every student and every project is different, so even if an advisor has an advising philosophy such as one of these (or something else), it's good to have some flexibility. Even so, this brings me back to my original question about whether you, advisors of PhD students, tend to have a particular approach that you favor (because it works? because you think this is how things should work?) when advising PhD students.

CreePI

In Scientopia, I discuss a letter from an undergraduate researcher who is now anxious about her interactions with her lab's PI, and invite comments from readers who might be able to help her with her difficult situation.

Do You Need A Tissue?

Have I really never asked this question of readers before? It seems not, and yet, I find myself really wanting to know the answer. The question applies to anyone who works with students and who has visits from those students (in person) in their office.

Do you keep a box of tissues in your office for the specific purpose of giving to crying students?
	Yes
	No
pollcode.com free pol

In the comments, those answering Yes could leave interesting details, such as how often you need to resort to the tissue box and whether you buy top-quality ultrasoft tissue or the cheapest kind you can find (or does your department supply these for you? or perhaps you don't supply tissues to students but offer them industrial-strength paper towels?).

For those answering No, is this because you don't need them or because you have made the deliberate decision not to provide tissues to weeping students?

Don't Fence Me In

This is self-centered and unreasonable, but when I am invited to give a talk, my ideal situation would be to give a vague title (Cool Science Things) that isn't much more informative than a list of keywords (cool, science, things). I don't really believe that people will come to hear me speak no matter what I talk about, so in my sane(r) moments, I do understand that a talk title is necessary to provide some clues as to whether a talk has any hope of being potentially interesting to those considering attending (for those who have a choice).

Even so, I like to give talk titles that are as vague as possible, so that I can give whatever talk I am most in the mood for when the time comes. This vagueness allows me to talk about the coolest (meaning: the hottest) science.

Some departments that bring in invited speakers want not only a title but also an abstract, presumably to provide further information for those who are considering attending, or just for general educational purposes. I always comply, but I don't like providing talk abstracts because I feel that it limits what I talk about, more than just a title.

So, I can write a brief, vague abstract, no doubt annoying those who like an informative abstract, and therefore still keep some freedom as to talk content. Alternatively, I can provide a talk title and abstract, and then talk about something different; perhaps not completely different, but I could add in a topic (or two) not mentioned in the abstract but still broadly covered by the talk title.

And that leads me to my question. Which is more annoying:

- A talk accompanied by a vague title and/or abstract;
- A talk that is only somewhat related to what you thought it would be based on the title and/or abstract; or
- Neither, you are going to be happy or unhappy, depending on how good or bad the talk is; it doesn't matter what the title/abstract were.

World's Lamest Blogroll

Yes, I know I have a very lame blogroll. I don't mean that any of the blogs listed are lame, of course, just that the list is short and has stagnated quite a lot in the past year or three. I have never wanted to have a long blogroll, even though that is hypocritical because I appreciate that very thing in other blogs, but I would like it to be better than it is in its current state.

I have mostly confined my list to Blogs I Read (hence the title of the blogroll) -- that is, blogs I really do read routinely. There are some other interesting blogs with the occasional interesting post, but I tend to rely on other blogs to highlight them for me and lead me there. Unless my attention is held by more than one post, however, I only return when (re)directed there by a blog I read routinely. I freely admit my failings as a blog citizen and as a person.

How important is it to have a non-lame blogroll? What is the purpose of a blogroll? What does it all mean? Why am I even here? I suppose I should have figured this out by now.

I don't know, but if it is important in some way to have a non-lame blogroll, perhaps you can help me improve, if you are willing and able. That is, I wouldn't mind some suggestions of blogs to read and possibly add to the list. The blogosphere is a dynamic place, with new blogs appearing all the time, and old ones moving to new locations.

As can be seen from my existing blogroll, I am most interested in general issues of academia and life; for example, not the results of scientific research, but the doing of the research, and not the specific courses that we teach, but all the amazing things that relate to teaching and other interactions with students and so on.

I apologize in advance if I don't add any particular suggested blog, but keep in mind that I am old(ish) and cranky and unlikely to be too fascinated by, say, a blogging-my-PhD type blog. And yet, I realize it would be good for me to read more blogs by the youngsters, so that I don't fossilize too much and so that I can stay in touch with my inner grad student and thereby understand my outer grad students. Or something. And I should read (routinely) more blogs by non-US persons. And what about non-scientists and non-engineers? Maybe..

In addition to having a bias of unknown magnitude against blogging-my-phd blogs, I will just throw out there the possibility that I may also be reluctant to read (routinely) more blogs by biophysiomedical scientists. These blogs give me nightmares.

What else? There is one more thing: I am irrationally against including blogs that are behind some sort of registration wall, even if it is a free one. I am not against reading these blogs, I just don't want to link to them,  even though I know there are some interesting blogs in those places.

Other than that, I am open to suggestions. Thanks in advance for any help you can give with my efforts to spruce up the blogroll.

I Notice These Things Too

A reader writes about something puzzling observed during a talk.. discussed in Scientopia.

Bloom Watch

Last week, in a post that touched on the topic of post-tenure emotions (empowered vs. entrapped), I wrote this:

.. I have done my best work after getting tenure. I am not one of those genius-people who did her best work by age 30 (or 35). Some of us get tenure based in part on our accomplishments, such as they are at the time of the tenure evaluation, but also largely on a gamble about our potential. (I am going to explore an aspect of this more in a near-future post.)

The kernel of the idea I want to explore relates to what we do after tenure, no matter what we did before tenure. In this case, the "what" mostly refers to research because I am basing this discussion on my MRU*-centric point of view, but, with some modifications, this classification scheme could perhaps be exported to other situations. I think that probably most of us in academia can easily think of examples of each of these Types listed below, although some are more common than others. [* Major Research University]

Type S: steep upward trajectory in career from day 1; S1: productive before and after tenure, but even more productive and creative after tenure; S2: flatline at high level after tenure;

TYPE M: moderate upward trajectory from day 1 to tenure (enough to get tenure), but then M1: a steep upward trajectory after tenure, similar to Type S1 but this person was slower to bloom, or M2: flatline at a moderate level after tenure;

Type F: flat trajectory before and after tenure, but at a high enough level to get tenure (maybe just skimming over and along the tenure bar) and high enough to escape the label of "deadwood" after tenure; not awesome, but steady and better than Type L..;

Type L: steep (L1) or moderate (L2) trajectory pre-tenure; other trajectories possible, e.g., intercept with vertical tenure-line may be just about anywhere, but the key to the L path is that it involves the total transformation to deadwood not long after tenure (that is, not decades after tenure, but instead it happens while still at the early/mid-career stage).

OMG I think I am going to have to graph this.

Note that there is no significance to the y-intercept. The Type S line could start above or below some of the other lines, for example, but I am imagining this type of person as making a strong start.

I think it is also important to note that I don't just mean 'number of publications' (or grants) in my definition of productivity. I mentioned creativity in my definition of Type S, and this is an important element of 'blooming' in my classification scheme. The post-tenure 'bloom' in this case is not just a churning out of a stupendous number of publications, but involves making new and interesting discoveries or advances, having new and creative ideas, and all that kind of good thing.

Also, there is no criticism attached to (some) of this. Some faculty who flatline at a moderate to low level, for example, have taken a different career path, such as one involving more teaching and/or service. That may or may not be fine, depending on circumstances and expectations.

Do you see yourself here, or did I leave out some important trajectories? Feel free to suggest significantly different trajectories (yours or your favorite/hated colleague's) and I may modify the graph later.

Girls' Corner

Once upon a time, I was visiting another university and was given a temporary place to sit with my laptop and get a bit of work done. It was not a real office, just one of several desks in a little cluster in a corridor near an administrative office. It was a rather busy corridor, so it was not the greatest place to work, but it was good enough.

When you visit another institution, you never know what, if anything, you're going to get in terms of temporary workspace -- it might be an empty seminar room or classroom, a corner of your faculty host's office, some chairs at the end of a hallway, a cubicle in the library or in a student office, or nothing (in which case I go to the nearest cafe, and am quite happy with that). For longer visits, you are likely to get a real work space, but for a short visit, you take what you can get.

But to return to this particular work space.. It was set up for anyone who needed a temporary space: visitors, students who just needed a work space for a few minutes or an afternoon, adjuncts between classes, faculty whose offices were in other buildings but who needed to be in that building for a brief time, and so on. Sometimes when I was using a desk there, the other desks were empty. Sometimes there were other people temporarily using these desks. It changed constantly.

It did not take long to notice that there was a certain situation in which passersby felt the urge to comment about those of us sitting in that workspace. I am sure some of you can guess what that situation was. Hint: Do you have your gender lenses on?

If there were 2 females sitting there: no comments, even if we were the only ones working there. If there were at least 3 females and 0-1 males, some men walking by made comments: "What's going on here? A girl scout meeting?", "Can anyone join this club or do you have to talk like this (said in a high pitched voice)?", "Is this the girls' corner?", "Is this the departmental sewing circle?", and so on. If there was a lone male with us women, he got teased about his "harem" etc.

ha ha ha

Actually, I didn't think it was funny*. It was tiresome being interrupted with these inane "humorous" explanations for what a small group of women could possibly be doing in a Science Building. 

It's (another) little thing, but wouldn't it be nice if it were unremarkable for 3 (or more) female scientists to sit working near each other in a Science Building?


* I am a feminist and have no sense of humor.

On Sort Of Keeping Up

Back in the days of paper journals and treks to the library (in the cold/heat, rain/snow, at the risk of being hit in the head with the various projectiles that students like to toss to each other on campus lawns), I loved going to the library on the day that new issues of my favorite science journals were put out on the special shelf for new arrivals. It was very exciting to gaze at the Tables Of Contents and graze in the abstracts of articles that looked promising.

Some articles were so interesting that I sat right down and read them there. Exciting and important articles were photocopied for intensive reading and re-reading later (not to mention filing!), using an ever-changing array of photocopy machines with various options that were useful/bizarre and that accepted/did-not-accept coins or special cards that you could only get in a certain place at a certain time, and so on. And then there was the challenge of finding a machine that didn't have a grad student photocopying an entire journal or book for hours on end. Those were thrilling days.

The thrill continues, even without the extra stimulation of photocopying, but now of course the lists of new papers arrive electronically and we can all read the relevant journals from just about anywhere. That is really great for many reasons, but it is particularly nice for those of us who travel a lot. I was thinking about this recently because I have been doing so much traveling this term, and yet my selected electronic alerts keep coming, helping me keep up. Without the awesome electronic access we have today, it would be very hard to keep up with all the journals that I typically read (or at least glance at, to see if there is anything new and interesting).

I admit that sometimes when my inbox is filling up, I sigh a bit when I see a dozen or more emails from various journals. But I do not delete them! I keep them until I have time to look at them, and then I am glad that they are there to help me sort through the new journal issues. I am sure I miss some articles, but of course there are other awesome electronic ways to seek them out later and fill in gaps in reading.

As my inbox was recently filling up with alerts that I did not have time to look at right away, I realized I had not quantified my journal-reading in a while. Hence my questions:

• How many journals do you read (look at) routinely? 
• How likely are you to find a paper that you want to (and do) read in one or more of them, each time there is a new issue?

And some qualitative questions:

• Do you enjoy reading the literature of your field? That is, do you feel a sense of happy anticipation when looking at new titles, or do you feel oppressed? Do you hope that there will be a paper of interest, or are you glad when there is not?

My answers:

I routinely look at 20-25 journals, and there are quite a few other journals that I look at, but less often (and for which I don't get alerts). That number is probably low compared to some (sub)fields, but I am glad it is not higher.

The answer to the second question varies by journal of course, as there are some journals that always have something of interest to me, and others that only do now and then. But there are some journals that always or very often have something of interest, so there is something new to read every time I look. Some papers might just get an abstract-read, some will get a full-body skim, and some will get an in-depth read, depending on my time and interest. I give myself a B/B+ for effort.

The information onslaught is overwhelming no matter how diligent one is about looking at new publications as they are flung out by the various publishing geysers, but I think it is important to try to keep up. I wish I could read more -- and more broadly -- than I do (oh for those carefree graduate and postdoctoral days..), but I still find searching and reading the literature very enjoyable, and not a chore, despite the relentless deluge of new papers. I am happy when there is a new paper of interest to read.

The Local Mom Effect

We can look at the data for the % of science professors who are Female Science Professors and wonder to what extent the low numbers (relative to the % of women who acquire PhDs in some science fields) can be ascribed to the difficulties of being a mom and an FSP, and we can look at the data for how many FSPs have kids vs. those who don't (or pick any academic discipline in which women are underrepresented, not just Science). That's been done and those data could surely use more scrutiny and discussion, but that's not what I want to do here today.

Instead, I am intrigued by the possibilities of what might be learned from a rigor-challenged exploration of whether the % of FSPs (with/without children) in one's immediate professional surroundings has an influence on an individual's outlook, choices, opinions. That is, if you are in a department or some other sort of academic subunit in which there are many FSPs with kids, is your opinion (and possibly your life) profoundly different as a result, no matter what the statistics say about the overall low % of FSP-moms in your field? And if you are in a unit in which few/no FSPs have kids, are you less likely to have kids or even to pursue a career as an FSP?

At some universities in the US, there are departments in my field with no FSPs, and there are departments that have some FSPs but none of them have children. What are the effects of these places on the outlook of women students and postdocs re. careers and children? (Note that I am not critizicing anyone's choices to have/not have kids; that's a personal decision that no one else can judge.) And if someone has a pessimistic outlook based on their observations of people in their department (thinking: "These FSPs don't have kids, so it must be impossible/difficult to be an FSP and a mom"), can this be changed through other interactions beyond the department?

Alternatively, if you are in a department in which all or most female professors have kids, and these women seem to be doing just fine with life and careers, does this counteract some of the anxiety or pessimism that might result from seeing the grim statistics for that field as a whole?

I don't know, and that's why it seems like a good topic for a blog post, so that readers can send comments on how they think their experiences and opinions have been shaped by their immediate academic environment.

I remember sitting in a small meeting of women students, postdocs, and faculty once (many years ago), and the topic came up about the difficulty of being an FSP and a mom. One grad student said that she was concerned about this because there were "no role models". The other women faculty and I exchanged puzzled glances -- every single one of us in the room had one or more kids. Everyone in the room knew each other, so there was no way this student didn't know we all had kids. We were also representative of this unit of the university; there was one FSP absent, but she also had kids.

So I said "We all have kids, so I am confused about what you are looking for in a role model". The student said that because most FSPs don't have kids, there aren't enough role models. Yes, well, "not enough" is not quite the same as "no". Is there such thing as a critical mass of role models, and below that number, the exceptions are not significant? Maybe, but at the time, I thought that was an unnecessarily negative and cautious way to look at things.

And that certainly wasn't my approach. At about the time my daughter was born, I didn't know many FSPs in my field, but I did know a few, and some (2) of those at neighboring institutions had kids and were very happy. I didn't actually give it a lot of thought, and certainly never gazed at statistics to make any decisions. In that sense, I was not affected much, if at all, by my immediate academic environment or by the larger academic community (perhaps contradicting the central question of this post).

Even so, that is still a useful result to the general question of whether we are affected (or not) by our immediate (or larger) professional communities when making major life decisions.

These Happy After-Tenure Years

Some of my friends got -- or seem to be getting -- tenure this year. Yay for all of them! They are thrilled and I am thrilled for them.

This is a happy occasion for most, and the only reason I add "for most" is because I have read essays (including a recent one in The Chronicle of Higher Education) by or about people who feel depressed and/or "trapped" by tenure. Unlike some who left critical comments on the CHE essay, I do not subscribe to the "You should be happy because there are even unhappier people in the world" philosophy. If you don't like many things about your job, you aren't going to like them once your employment position becomes (essentially) permanent, even if others in academia have less job security than you do. I feel sympathy for these depressed-by-tenure people, even if I don't really understand the phenomenon. I hope those depressed by tenure find a way to recover, perhaps by changing something about their career paths or goals (but not necessarily by becoming a depressed administrator).

I am fortunate that getting tenure was a happy, empowering thing for me. Although tenure was of course a necessary goal in my academic career path, my primary job satisfaction has involved the doing of research, teaching, and other professional activities -- developing new research projects, working with students, teaching new courses or improving old ones, and so on. Tenure gave me the chance to keep doing what I loved and also provided new opportunities, so I have never felt "trapped" by tenure.

Also, I have done my best work after getting tenure. I am not one of those genius-people who did her best work by age 30 (or 35). Some of us get tenure based in part on our accomplishments, such as they are at the time of the tenure evaluation, but also largely on a gamble about our potential. (I am going to explore an aspect of this more in a near-future post.) In letters supporting tenure cases, it is common to see phrases like "rising star" or "steep upward trajectory" to describe the tenure candidate, in recognition of the fact that there is only so much that can be done in the tenure-track years, even by those who work 24/7.

Perhaps this mostly applies to fields in which the tenure-track years involve building labs and research groups and other time-intensive activities that are necessary for new and exciting research projects to be launched and for at least some research goals achieved. I bet, however, that it also applies to any field in which more ambitious research can only be undertaken once you have developed a certain network of colleagues and contacts and attained the awesome knowledge that only comes with experience (says middle-aged me).

People who feel trapped by tenure probably dislike quite a few things about their job (colleagues, students, location etc.) and are likely a bit burned out by exhaustion and stress. For most of us, though, I hope that it is not the case that the best, most productive years are over once tenure is secured. Tenure gives us the security to pursue more risky research ideas, lets us build a larger research group (if that is desirable), and gives us the chance to serve on even more committees (<-- sarcasm).

Tenured readers: Do you feel "trapped" by tenure? Or empowered? Both? Neither? Something else?

What I Think I Do

Many of you have probably also seen a recent spate of virtual posters that are supposed to humorous expressions of different views of various jobs, such as Professor, Scientist etc. The ones I have seen are more bizarre than funny, and some are a bit disturbing.

For example, in a poster about being a professor, there were different images for What My Parents Think I Do and What My Friends Think I Do. This distinction assumes that our Friends are not also Professors. I have some of both species of friends, but quite a few of my friends are professors. Those who are not professors don't have any more idea of what I do than my parents do; those who are professors (whether of not they are Science Professors) have a pretty good idea about my job.

That was just odd, but I was most puzzled by the What My Colleagues Think I Do image of an attractive female student in short-shorts leaning provocatively over the desk of a male professor. The images in the poster as a whole are of male and female professors, so there is no general assumption that professors = male, but this particular part of the poster is quite male-oriented. In any case, do colleagues really think that male professors spend their days like this? I rather doubt it. I think mostly we picture each other grading and attending meetings when not working on the next grant proposal or manuscript.

My personalized version of the poster would look something like this:

FSP

What My Parents Think I Do: ?

What My Friends Who Are Not Academics Think I Do: ?

What My Students Think I Do: ?

What My Spouse Thinks I Do: The Same Things He Does At Work

What My Colleagues Think I Do: The Same Things They Do At Work

What My Cats Think I Do:

What I Actually Do:

top: Picasso, Sleeping Woman Before Green Shutters
lower: Pollock, Number 8

Food For Thought

In the course of normal academic life, there are many circumstances in which we become aware of the medical, religious, or other restrictions on which foods our colleagues and students can or will consume (or not). The dietary needs and preferences of people in even a fairly small group can be quite varied, and can become the concern of those organizing professional or socio-professional events.

Examples of academic activities that may involve an awareness of dietary issues for others in our profession include:

- the organization of conferences, workshops etc. that involve meals or refreshments for all participants;

- the hosting of meals for visitors; e.g., during a visit by others to our institution for a talk or interview; or

- the arrangement of meals -- either at restaurants or in self-catering situations -- during research-related travel (visits to other labs, some conference travel, field work etc.).

Although there are some obvious ways to accommodate the needs and preferences of most individuals, it can be very difficult to find a good solution for everyone. Even the option of eating in a restaurant may not accommodate everyone, unless the restaurant has a very diverse menu and/or the ability to make the necessary modifications.

I am a rather omnivorous person, but there are a couple of food items I need to avoid owing to allergic reactions. My two food allergies are only rarely a problem in professional settings, but over the years there have been some memorable situations, such as:

- Years ago, during a job interview, the department chair hosted a dinner for me at a restaurant that specialized in a food item that I cannot eat without experiencing a rather severe reaction. He did not ask me if I had any food preferences. He had a favorite restaurant and wanted to take me there, so that's where we went. Although I explained about my food allergy, he seemed annoyed when I did not eat the specialty of the restaurant and kept talking about how unfortunate it was that I could not eat his favorite food. I felt very uncomfortable during and after that dinner.

- A few years ago, at a professional luncheon at which I was to give a speech, everyone was served something that contained this same food item. There probably was a mechanism by which I could have indicated my food allergy in advance; I am sure that the organizers of the luncheon were willing to make arrangements for those with dietary restrictions or preferences. So rare is it for me to encounter this food in a professional setting, however, that it didn't occur to me to mention it in advance. I was very anxious about the possibility of having a dramatic medical incident while on stage in front of an audience, so I didn't touch anything on my plate and instead just nibbled on some bread. I was very hungry when I gave my speech, but that was better than the alternative.

- More recently, I encountered my other food allergy for only the second time in decades. This one is quite rare, does not provoke a life-threatening reaction (just an annoying rash), and is typically easy to avoid entirely. In certain parts of the world, however, the food in question is ubiquitous, and people commonly offer it to visitors. Particularly when there are issues of culture/language, refusing this food would be seen as rude and unusual. I therefore took the approach of trying to manage the situation (limiting contact with the food but not refusing it), and I succeeded until the last day of a research visit, when this approach failed catastrophically, alas for me.

Compared to what others experience, my issues are very minor and easily managed. If you have more serious and extensive dietary restrictions, you probably get pretty good at managing the socio-logistical issues involved. I think it likely, though, that dietary issues are quite often a concern in professional settings, and perhaps continue to be anxiety-inducing for early-career people who worry about being negatively judged as a result, despite an increase in awareness in recent years.

As an occasional organizer of events in which I need to be aware of the food issues of others, I have found that it is extremely difficult to accommodate (not to mention please) everyone. What I continue to explore is whether there are limits to my responsibility, and if so, where these are.

Would you draw a line, and if so, where (and how)?

On the Importance of Liking

Professors who advise students: Do you feel that it is

(1) essential
(2) important to some extent
(3) nice if it happens but not that important, or
(4) completely irrelevant

that you like your advisees?

I am not writing about any of my own students, past or present. I am musing about a comment a colleague once made to the effect that it was really important that s/he liked her/his advisees.

In the case of undergraduate students, you may be in a position to pick and choose advisees after previous interaction in classes and beyond. In the case of graduate students, it is likely to be more hit-and-miss. I think many of us try to work with whatever comes along, in terms of grad personalities, just as we hope our students will also be a bit tolerant of some/all or our annoying characteristics.

But what about you? How important is liking to you?

Citation Conspiracy

Someone recently told me about this, and I was wondering if anyone has participated in something similar:

A group of colleagues makes a specific effort to cite each other's papers -- those paper not involving the author/s doing the citing, so no self-citation is involved -- to help each other get their citation numbers up. They don't gratuitously cite a paper that is irrelevant to the topic at hand, but they proactively seek opportunities to cite each other's papers, and, given a range of options for citation of a particular point, they will choose to cite a paper by someone from this group.

If you have not participated in something like this, does it bother you that some people do this?

I have not participated in a citation-circle like this, and the fact that others do does not bother me. These people are not inappropriately citing their friends -- the citations are all relevant -- and it is likely that most of us do something like this anyway, even without making a concerted effort. We tend to cite papers with which we are familiar, no matter how diligent we try to be in surveying the vast literature in each of our sub/fields.

Does a citation-circle have any measurable positive effect on the career of a particpant? If it is effective, involving a sufficient number of productive (in terms of publications) researchers, it can make the difference in the citation numbers (h-index and so on). Increasingly, career advancement relies on having good citation numbers, so being in a citation-circle might be quite helpful, even if it doesn't result in a dramatic jump in citations.

Does a citation-circle harm those not in it? I suppose one instance in which a citation-circle, even one conducted in an ethical way, might have an unintended negative effect on someone not in the circle would be if one of the "proactively cited" papers becomes one of those papers that is commonly cited in introductions. And then, because it is cited prominently in some papers, it gets picked up as the go-to cite for introductions in papers on similar topics. The citation numbers can then snowball, and other papers might languish in undeserved obscurity.

I think that happens to some papers anyway, with or without a few citation-circles in action. Therefore, I was intrigued by the existence of such citation-circles, but not disturbed. But that's just me, perhaps reflecting my secure position as a mid-career professor who obsesses about citation data mostly out of curiosity rather than out of necessity. I am curious if others feel otherwise, but I need to note again that comment moderation will continue to be sporadic for a few more days (sorry).

Useless Moneybags

Every once in a while, someone makes a statement in a comment about how their advisor "doesn't do anything". In some cases, there is the added description that an advisor "doesn't do anything except get grants". I find these comments fascinating, but not necessarily in a good way. I am sure I have written about this before, but since I was thinking about the phenomenon recently as I was sitting suspended over an ocean, I am writing about it again now.

I am sure there are exceptions -- of course I don't know how things work in other fields or at other institutions other than ones with which I am closely associated -- but I think in many cases, this comment displays a misconception about the definition of "anything" in a research context. [This is where the young and perhaps not-so-young say to their advisors (but perhaps not aloud): "But that's your fault because you are supposed to teach us what you do". Yes, that's true to some extent, although it's a rather lame reason for remaining ignorant over the entire course of a graduate program, as I've discussed before.]

In any case, I know that the Do-Nothing (except provide grants) Advisors are believed to exist, and that is why many of us learn during fascinating and mandatory Research Ethics workshops that just providing the money for a research project is not sufficient justification for us to be a co-author on the resulting papers. And yet, I always wonder: But what if the research was our IDEA? Doesn't that count?

Today, what I want to know is how many readers have said or thought that their advisor doesn't (or didn't) do anything, meaning in this case that the advisor doesn't (or didn't) do any research (whether it was true or not)? If anyone leaves a comment confessing to having this thought/belief, it would also be helpful to know the academic discipline involved. In my field, it's relatively easy for me to do some actual research myself, but in other fields or in other research group configurations, it may be more difficult for an advisor to do this. Hence, additional information may be important for exploring and understanding this phenomenon.

There may be various modes of thought that feed into such a view. One that I imagine is common goes something like this:

- because you and other students ± postdocs, techs etc. are the ones actually generating data, you are the ones doing the real work, and your advisor is therefore "not doing anything".

But I hope it is more complex than that, and not an indication of a lack of appreciation for the value of ideas -- the ideas that can lead to a successful proposal and therefore a grant, the ideas for overcoming obstacles that may arise during the data-gathering stages, and the ideas that come once the data (or whatever) are obtained and it's time to think about the results, understand them, discuss them, interpret them, and thereby generate new ideas.

If a grad student who thinks their advisor doesn't do anything is in a situation in which they (the student) had some ideas that formed the core of a grant proposal that they largely wrote (perhaps with some help with the logistics of writing/submitting a proposal), got the grant (perhaps with their advisor's name on it), carried out the research largely independently (perhaps after learning some key techniques from someone other than the advisor), made the most significant interpretations, and wrote the papers, then go ahead and say it: your advisor didn't do much, if anything.

Otherwise, I think it is a strange and incorrect thing to say.

What About Us?

In Scientopia today, there is a discussion of issues facing mid-career and older faculty; specifically, issues related to negotiating a retention package at one's current institution, upon receiving an offer from another institution.

Not So Fast

This post concerns a non-academic topic that has been roaming around in my brain for a while, and it is therefore disconnected from any particular time, place, climate, or topographic feature. It concerns how different my experiences are from those of other people (specifically: similarly-aged men) while participating in a particular outdoor activity.

When I participate in Outdoor Activity X (OAX) with others, I am just another person doing OAX. When I am alone, however, things are different.

Before I give some examples, I will acknowledge that of course the experience of being alone vs. being in a group/couple is different in general, not just when participating in an OAX. For example, when I am walking alone in some cities in North America and Europe, I am often stopped and asked for directions -- much more often than when I am walking with someone else. This is not surprising, but nevertheless the commonness of this phenomenon does not account the nature of some of the interactions I have when alone and doing OAX.

For example, when I am alone and participating in OAX, the following happen with enough frequency to be notable:

- A man criticizes something about what I am doing or how I am doing it. Example: Not long ago, I was told by a middle-aged man that I was going too fast. I was not. Nor I was going so slow that sarcasm was a reasonable explanation for his statement. And the fact that he barked "too fast" at me and then zoomed away makes it unlikely that he was trying to initiate a friendly conversation.

- A man does something a bit dangerous/scary in my vicinity, veering at the last second to prevent collision, in some cases laughing at how startled I am. I have no explanation for this phenomenon, but I hate it. Is it an attempt to show that they are more in control and/or more awesome than I am, or it is just for random thrills? What motivates anyone to scare another person for no (good) reason?

- If I pass a man, 92.43% of the time he will immediately speed up and pass me (if he is physically able to do so).

Incidents of the first two examples are relatively rare. The third one is common, but it amuses me rather than offends or frightens me, so that's fine.

I am writing about this because it mimics some aspects of my professional life; that is, mostly things are great/fine, but punctuated by incidents of Gender-Directed Weirdness (GDW). You can dismiss each individual incident as a Random Life Event if you want, but over time, when 100% of these incidents involve men and these incidents only occur when I am alone (and when similar events are not experienced by men I know participating in OAX), I think that GDW is a pretty likely explanation for some/most of these incidents.

Memo to the men: I could do without the comments and the scary games. And if you are passed by a woman, particularly one who is clearly not young or impressively fit, please don't feel emasculated and/or humiliated. If you immediately speed up and pass her, there is a 53.68% chance that she will be laughing at you, and not in a nice way.

(my apologies for continued sporadic posting/comment moderation as I spend time in various intense research activities and travel for at least another week.)

Taking a Chance

In Scientopia‎, something about making decisions about one job offer when you are hoping for a different job offer but you have to decide about the first one before knowing about any other possibly-better ones.