Freed By Vidal Sassoon

Explanatory note/caution: It's Friday, it's mid-May, and this post is no more substantial than yesterday's.

If you have read the recent headlines and/or obituaries, then you have seen things like this:

Hairstyling legend Vidal Sassoon, who freed women from (bad hairstyles)..

The London-born hairstyling pioneer.. freed women from (time-intensive haircare)

Vidal Sassoon used his hairstyling shears to free women from .. etc.

Vidal Sassoon.. was the man modern woman has to thank for her freedom.. blah blah blah

I'm not crazy about the 'he freed women' theme, but that's not what I want to write about today. Instead, (see above note/caution), I am going to tell you my very own Vidal Sassoon story. It is not quite as gripping as my Ayn Rand beach story, but it is more timely for this week. [A suggestion if you have even more time to waste: Google "Ayn Rand beach story" to find the original post, then click on http://literature.quebecblogue.com/2009/08/31/femalescienceprofessor-ayn-rand-beach-story/ to read a different but more entertaining version of that old post.]

Anyway, many years ago, when I was young but already deeply involved with Science, I spent quite a bit of time in London. I was very happy there, and I had some nice flatmates with whom I had absolutely nothing in common. They were not interested in Science. They were interested in clothes, fashion, going to clubs, and so on. I realize that those interests are not mutually exclusive, but I was not interested in those things. I got the impression that my flatmates felt a mixture of mystification and pity for me, but they were nice about it.

One day, they kidnapped me and forced me to go with them to the Vidal Sassoon School of Hair Design (or whatever it was called). They thought it would be entertaining to force me to care about my hair, or at least to do something about it for a change. (I have never been fond of getting my hair cut.)

We (and other young women) were put in a line, and some sassoonists walked along the line examining each person's hair. They ran their fingers through our hair, making comments, and dismissing everyone whose hair was deemed inferior. All of my flatmates failed this hair test; their hair had been worked over too many times by chemicals and heat. They were told to leave.

My hair passed! I was one of only 3 selected! In fact, my hair generated a great deal of excitement, and I had a small crowd of sassoonists circled around me, touching my hair and oohing and aahing. My flatmates watched in amazement. What was so great about my hair? It was pristine hair. Some of the sassoonists told me that they had never before seen pristine hair on a female over the age of 12. They stared at me like I was an endangered species of bandicoot, or a never-before-seen mythical creature. It was a bit unnerving.

They put me in a chair, argued about who would get to work on my pristine hair, and then set to work. What did they do with my special hair? Without consulting me, they cut it off, all of it. They left me a few vertical millimeters that made me look like a Q-tip for most of the next year.

Thanks for nothing, Vidal Sassoon. I did not want to be freed from my hair.

It was convenient in some ways, but I immediately noticed a difference in how people reacted to me. In fact, I gained a degree of invisibility as a short woman with short hair, and mostly that's not a good thing when it is already a struggle to be taken seriously.

And those who knew me couldn't resist rubbing my head, as if I were a strange pet. That is also not conducive to being taken seriously. 

Now that I am old(ish), I could probably cut off all my hair and people would either not notice or think I had cancer. But, even though cutting off all my hair (again) would be an awesome gesture in honor of the late Vidal Sassoon, freer of women, I will keep this as a blog-thought e-gesture.

I Heart Jet Lag

Does anyone else like jet lag? I must admit that I kind of enjoy it, but I have not met m/any others who do. It isn't so great if I arrive at a distant conference and almost immediately find myself sitting in an afternoon session, struggling to keep my eyes from rolling back into my head, but there are some aspects of jet lag that I like. For example, jet lag sleep is strangely deep and satisfying for me.

I can't sleep on planes, and I don't even bother with any particular strategy involving sleep aids, flying at a particular time of day etc. I just take whatever flights work best for reasons of schedule/economy and then roll with the jet lag. I do not struggle against it. I am at peace with it. It might even make me a nicer person (temporarily).

I have been known to cultivate jet lag. When I get home from a trip, I don't mind waking up insanely early for a few days. I am not typically a 'morning person'; in my non-jet lagged existence, I require alarms and severe cat activity to start to wake up, and then I need a few snooze alarm episodes. When I am jet-lagged, I wake before the alarms and even before 2/3 of my cats. This is quite interesting and novel, at least for a few days.

You might think that jet lag would make routine administrative work even more difficult, but in fact it can be quite helpful to have a temporary, jet lag-induced feeling of detachment and distance from some otherwise tedious activities (some meetings, paperwork etc.). It wouldn't be fun all the time, but for a few days, I am happy to recover slowly from the rigors of travel, eventually emerging from jet lag into my usual mode of existence. That's fine, too, I am usually ready for things to go back to what passes for normal around here.

That's Not What I Meant

As an editor of a journal, the feedback that I give to authors of publishable papers varies from:

optional advice, along the lines of "I think your paper would be improved if you added/deleted/considered X, but this is just a suggestion for you to use or reject. I'm accepting the paper anyway, so whatever you decide is fine" (although I don't word it exactly that way);

to

make these changes or else, along the lines of "Reviewers (and/or I) found the following errors that must be fixed. Most of the paper is fine and quite interesting, so I'm inclined to accept it but you have to do a very thorough revision or I will not hesitate to reject the paper" (although I don't word it exactly that way).

I always think that I am being unambiguous about whether I am giving friendly (optional) advice or a do-or-die editorial command, but I can tell from some author responses that they are reading between the lines of my editorial decisions, even the friendly ones.

This possible case of reading between the lines was particularly troubling to me:

In a paper that I thought was quite likely to be acceptable after moderate revisions, the authors did a good job with the revisions, but the manuscript needed re-review because the revisions were rather extensive. The reviewer (who had also reviewed the first version) liked the paper, but made a few more constructive suggestions to improve the paper; these did not require additional work or $ (other than thought/time) -- the reviewer (and I) just thought the authors should give some more thought to a few things that would potentially broaden the readership of the paper. In my decision, which clearly stated that I was going to accept the paper whether or not the additional changes were made, I explained why I thought these suggestions were worth consideration. 

The revised revised paper came back with a few changes, but the most significant one was the addition of at least 4 new references: all to papers on which I am a co-author!!

Did the authors think my advice was somehow code for "I want you to cite my work more?" If so, this is disturbing, as this was definitely not my intention and quite a stretch to interpret this from my words or actions. As it happens, the citations are relevant, but the paper was fine without them.

It is sad if the authors were so cynical as to think that I would only be satisfied if they cited my work more. I had already told them that I was going to accept the paper, so it would be very strange (and deeply disturbing) if they thought my decision hinged on their citing my papers. One of my colleagues thinks that my general instruction (based on the reviewer comment) inspired the authors to read more widely in the relevant literature, whereupon they encountered some of my papers and decided that these would be good to cite. Maybe, and that might explain 1, maybe 2 new citations, but 4? Strange.

The paper was accepted, as originally decided, but I involved another editor in further interaction with these authors, as I was no longer comfortable dealing with this group alone.

Have you ever deliberately cited the work of an editor (not a possible reviewer, but specifically the editor), hoping it would increase your chances of having the paper accepted? At what stage did you do this: in the first version (if you knew the likely or certain identity of the editor) or during a revision stage? Do you really think it matters? This is either a test of your cynicism level or of my delusion/naïveté level.

How Many Times

In Scientopia today, I pose a question from a reader who previously went through a retention process (years ago) and is considering doing so again. Is this too much? Is there a limit to how many times one should do this?

Research Triangle

Over the years, various colleagues have explained to me their personal beliefs about what they consider the optimal number of PIs involved in research projects, not for any particular research project, but just in general. The proposed optimal number of collaborators is most typically 1 or 2, although some people make a case for higher numbers.

Note that these hypotheses refer to general situations, not necessarily to any particular individual or project. This is mostly a "thought exercise"; fodder for musing and discussion. In real life, of course, the nature of the project, the culture of the discipline, the amount and type of funding available, the type of institution, and the personalities and career stages of the people involved are important in determining the Optimal Number of Collaborators (ONC). Some people prefer to work alone, so for them, the ONC =  0. In my own case, the ONC is a very stable 1-2, but I am happy to work in larger groups for some projects.

I say "mostly" a thought exercise instead of entirely, because I know of some cases in which the organizational structure of a research unit (and even the design of research space) has been planned based on a hypothesis about the ONC.

The theoretical limit of certain types of grants can also affect this. For example, with most NSF grants (at least in my field), it's possible to have 2-3 collaborators, but more than that would blow the budget up beyond a reasonable (fundable) limit.

Eveb so, is there a general ONC that applies in many cases, considering mostly human factors such as how many people are likely to get along well and have good, productive discussions and overall collegial relationships? That is, can we say, without being too far from unrealistic, "The most productive and collegial collaborations involve n people"? Does anyone want to make a case, for yourself or for the wider world of researchers, for:

ONC = 1: collaboration with one other person, perhaps even the same person on many different projects over the course of a career (= research line, or dyad?);

ONC = 2: collaboration with two other people (= research triangle);

ONC = 3: collaboration with three other people (= research quadrilateral);

.. and so on, with various polygons describing higher ONCs.

And does anyone want to generalize about ONC > 3? Do these collaborations tend to be more/less productive than smaller groups owing to their larger size (the bigger the group, the more research results), or does the increased chance of personality clashes, miscommunication etc. make (some of) them more unwieldy than the lean, mean research machines of smaller teams?

I am veering back and forth between the general and the personal here because there are two different levels of questions I am posing:

(1) Do you think that in general the ONC concept is relevant to the World of Research? (and if so, what is the ONC?); and

(2) What is your personal ONC for most projects (or does this number vary a lot?), and do these collaborators tend to be the same ones for project after project, or do you play the field with collaborators and work with many different people (even if your ONC doesn't change)?

Special Treatment

Quite often, I get a comment or e-mail along the lines of "Why do women need special treatment?" (to get a job), "Men have to struggle too" (but no one is helping us), "Why are you so obsessed with gender?" (just do your Science), and/or the tired old question "Why are you Female Science Professor and not just a Science Professor?" (like the men). Some of these questions are politely expressed, and some are not.

The answers to these questions are in the blog archives in various places, so that's not what I am going to write about today.

What I'm wondering about today is whether there is any significance to the fact that some people (men and women) don't see sexism and discrimination in academia or elsewhere, although supposedly objective measures as well as the personal experience of many indicates that these problems persist.

For the sake of this discussion, let's ignore the more extreme, rude, and what-about-me viewpoints (including those held by people who think "feminazi" is a really clever word). Today, in May 2012, let's consider instead whether an apparently neutral, non-hostile lack of awareness is:

1. overall a good thing, indicating a change for the better (sexism is so rare, some people have no idea it exists because they have never encountered it); or
2. the same-old bad thing: sexism is as prevalent as ever and the fact that some people don't see it -- in their own lives or in the experiences of others -- is one reason why it persists.

Does anyone believe in the more optimistic of the two possibilities listed above? I think that it might apply locally to some people and environments, and in that sense a 'lack of awareness' (again, of the non-hostile sort) does indicate progress. But I don't think this is the primary explanation, alas.

In coming to that conclusion, I dove into the archives to see what I have written about this topic over the past 6 years, and thought about whether I have -- in my own career and life, keeping in mind the effect of my increasing age and seniority on my experiences -- seen a change just since I have been writing this blog. I have seen a change for the better -- a substantial one in my own life/career and a not-insignificant one in my general field of science -- but still not as much as I would expect given the increasing number of female students, postdocs, and faculty in the STEM fields. The feeling (by some) that women get jobs, grants, awards etc. because they are women and not because they are highly qualified persists at a disturbing level.

The persistence of this view is surely related to the still-low numbers of women in some fields, but I wish it did not have to correlate quite so closely, given the slow rate of increase in the participation of women in some fields, particularly at the post-graduate level. For now, I suppose we have to hope that there is some critical level of representation -- << 50% but >> 1-2% -- at which these perceptions become exceedingly rare.

Losing By Speaking Up

In Scientopia, a discussion of whether women "hold back" their comments in professional settings, out of concern for being perceived as too talkative. Studies have shown that being talkative may be a positive trait in men, but not so for women, in terms of career advancement.

Inside Job

And speaking of job ads (as I was in some posts last week), have you ever seen an ad for a faculty position, research scientist, or postdoc and been suspicious that the type or level of detail in the job description indicated that the department had an "inside candidate"?

I have found that this topic comes up quite often in discussions about particular jobs, based on reading (between the lines of) the job description in the advertisement.

Another suspicious aspect of some ads, leading some to wonder about inside candidates, is an application deadline very close to the appearance of the ad.

There are many possible explanations for unusually detailed ads and imminent application deadlines, and I think the existence of an inside candidate is one of the least likely of these explanations (at least in North America, the system with which I am most familiar).  (agree/disagree with this assessment?)

And yet, I know they do exist. I have written about this before, and described my own (now ancient) experiences with applying for jobs that real, not just inferred, inside candidates.

What I am interested in is: how common it is for someone to infer (without specific information) the existence of an inside candidate, based only on the job ad, and then not apply for the job?

Or: how common is it to know that there is an inside candidate, and have that piece of information affect your decision to apply (specifically: not apply because you think it is pointless)?

It Seems to Get Better

The results of Friday's poll are quite encouraging, I think. More than 75% say that they have gotten better at handling criticism, rejection, and failure with time. This is not to ignore the pain of those for whom it has gotten more difficult with time (or for whom it has always been difficult); nevertheless, ~77% is a hopeful proportion, even if it is based on a limited dataset in this case.

An interesting topic raised in the comments is whether dealing with criticism etc. becomes easier with time because there is less of it with time, as we advance in our careers. Some possible scenarios for how this might play out in the course of a career include:

- Reviewers etc. become more positive as you pile up achievements and other evidence for success in the relevant aspects of your career. This may because you are truly awesome and have an endless supply of excellent ideas that you express well, or it may because of the so-called "halo" effect; that is, if you reach a certain level of success, people assume even your stupid ideas must actually be great and you can coast on your reputation; or

- You may still get critical reviews, but the personal attacks that can appear in some reviews and other evaluations disappear or at least decrease with time; for example: "I don't agree with Professor X's interpretation of these data, and would suggest instead that s/he consider ...." instead of "Professor X is a total moron".  (a complication on this scenario is when the author list includes one or more students and one or more distinguished professors; what's a reviewer with a penchant for personal attacks to do in that case?)

- A combination of both: negative reviews and personal attacks decrease, but never go away entirely. This decrease, combined with an increased ability to deal with non-stop evaluations of various sorts, leads to a general feeling of being able to deal with criticism and rejection more easily (although there may be notable exceptions from time to time). I think this is a likely scenario for many of us.

Even for highly successful academics, criticism and rejection never entirely goes away. For example, the impressive scientist, person, and blogger Athene Donald wrote just the other day, "My first individual grant failed; my last one did too with a churlish email sent at some insane time of the night from our Research Councils ‘shared services centre’ only last week.  Clearly in between I have had occasional success, and for any individual receiving the sharp end of rejection it is well to remember Robert the Bruce."

Remembering Robert the Bruce might not work for those who are not citizens of the UK (and isn't he the one whose embalmed heart went on a Crusade?), so I am wondering if there is some other historic person for North Americans and others to think of in times of need. I personally just like to think about my cats when dealing with the sharp end of rejection (I do like that phrase), but perhaps I am not thinking big enough. Any suggestions?

Skin Thickness Monitor

Following on yesterday's post, which raised the issue of confidence (including fear of rejection, mentioned in the comments) when deciding whether to apply for a particular job (such as a faculty position), a colleague noted to me that those who are cautious about applications are likely also cautious about proposals, papers, and other important things in the life of academics at research-oriented institutions. That is, even if you get a job, the fear of rejection persists.

I think that is likely true for some (many?) people, given, for example, (anecdotal) evidence that impostor-syndrome feelings don't quickly vanish as a result of academic and career success. Similarly, most of us probably have one or more colleagues who devote a lot of time to "perfecting" manuscripts in response to imagined negative reviewer comments, or not even writing for long periods of time because it is too painful to think about the possible future negative comments. This seems to be a characteristic that is not easily vanquished.

Nevertheless, painful though the process may be, it is possible to become more impervious to criticism and rejection with time and experience, as long as you keep hurling yourself into the fray and finding ways to cope with the inevitable negative comments (and using those that are relevant/substantive to improve your work). Criticism is a feature of academic life, of course; that's why I have a blog-post label for "criticism or rejection or failure".

If you have been involved in academia (or any career) for awhile, do you feel that you have developed a "thicker" skin over time as a result of the constant judging and evaluation, have you become more sensitive, or have you stayed about the same (whatever that may be: from very fearful of criticism and rejection to quite calm about these things).

Has your ability to deal with criticism and rejection changed over time?
	Yes, I have learned to deal with it better
	Yes, I have gotten more sensitive
	No, I have never been able to deal with this well
	No, most criticism doesn't bother me and never has (much)
pollcode.com free polls

If you feel that you have developed a thicker skin over time, did you have any particular strategy or get any particular useful advice or was it just a matter of time and experience? I think for me it was the latter, greatly helped by the support of colleagues and friends, an element of stubbornness, and a feeling that the interesting and fun parts of my job more than made up for the difficult parts (criticism).

It's The Thought That Counts

This is a title I have used before (in 2007!) for a totally unrelated post, but I am going to make use of it again today for another post about job ads.

Years ago, back when some science departments realized they needed to show that they were not obviously discriminating against female applicants even if very few (or none) were interviewed or hired, the preferred mode of proving a theoretical interest in hiring women was to place a job ad in the newsletter of an organization for women in the relevant field.

Of course the ad was also placed in the major venues for such ads as well, but advertising in the women's newsletter was given as evidence that "we tried" by many departments. According to my experience and that of colleagues at other universities, this evidence was always accepted by the various university offices responsible for seeing that hiring procedures followed the university's equal opportunity policies, even if no women were interviewed.

It didn't matter that there was no potential applicant on the planet who would only see the ad in the newsletter and not also in the major job-ad venues of our field.

I see it as a sign of progress that many (most?) departments don't do this anymore. They don't do it anymore because they don't have to make this meaningless gesture to show that they are theoretically willing to consider applications from women because many actually do consider applications from women, and invite them to interview, and offer them jobs. 

Does anyone disagree with that and think that it is a good thing for a department to place such an ad in a newsletter for women or other underrepresented group? (whether or not it is backed up by a record of non-discrimination?)

Do any departments still place ads for tenure-track faculty positions in newsletters of women-in-science organizations? I have not done a systematic survey.

And does anyone know of a human resources/equal opportunity office that has rejected this as the sole evidence of a non-discriminatory hiring process?

I Can See Myself

If you have ever applied for a faculty position or postdoc, or at least looked at the ads and thought about possible future applications, how closely did the ad need to describe your research expertise and interests for you to consider applying? I am ignoring other factors here, such as type and location of institution etc. I am just interested in the point at which you 'saw yourself' in the job description:

- in the first-order, big-picture title, which presumably lists the field or subfield? or

-in the more detailed text in the ad; that is, did you need to see a more specific description of your research expertise/interests before you decided to apply?

In some cases, ads have a list of research specializations under the umbrella of the general field/subfield. Does it matter whether this list is prefaced by words indicating that these are just examples, or, without this information, do you assume that what is listed is what the hiring committee wants and therefore if you don't see your research specialty listed, they aren't going to consider your application?

I am asking in part because of the hypothesis (not mine) that men are more likely to apply for jobs that might sort of be relevant to their expertise but women tend to apply for jobs that describe closely their expertise. According to this same hypothesis, posed to me in an email from a reader who also applies it to postdoctoral applicants, the reason relates to confidence level. According to this person, if they advertise for a postdoc who works on bandicoots, there will be some male applicants with expertise in wombat studies, but all the female applicants will have specific bandicoot research experience.

Of course there is some variation in terms of culture of a field in terms of ads/hiring, and also in how detailed ads are; some places cast a broad net and some have very specific needs in terms of specialty. Even so, these questions are still of interest (at least to me).

• Did you ever apply for a job that had only a very vague description of the research specialty desired? Or did you only apply for those that described your specialty more closely?
• Did you ever apply for a job that didn't really describe what you do, but you thought the hiring committee might be intrigued by your research anyway, perhaps because you are a bit interdisciplinary and/or in an emerging field that they might not have considered (but should)? or
• Did you ever not apply for a job that didn't list your very specific field of expertise even if the ad was related to your research field in a broader way?

Why/why not? (and specify male/female, if you wish to provide this information)

Works Not Well With Others

In Scientopia, a discussion of working with others vs. being immersed in your own work, as a student, research scientist, or professor.

Spot the Scientist

The other day, as my husband acquired coffee in a cafe at a location quite remote from our home, the barista announced that he was going to guess my husband's profession. He guessed Silicon Valley software engineer. Not bad: from a distance, science professor isn't so different from various types of engineers, at least the sort who tend to be in casual attire.

My experience has been that it is a little more challenging for people to guess my profession from my attire/appearance, but that is mostly because many people have different expectations about women (just one small example is here). In many cases, I don't mind (it can be fun to surprise people and overturn their expectations), but in some cases I do (if people are rude/patronizing).

At a large conference, it is quite easy to pick out fellow conference-goers (male and female) on the street, even those individuals who remember to take off their conference badges/name-tags when they emerge from the conference center. This is easy in part owing to the tendency of conference-going scientists to roam in packs on city streets, but even when sighted in small units (1-2), it is easy to spot the science people.

In fact, at a very early age, my daughter learned how to Detect Scientists on the street. When she has attended conferences with her scientist parents, a favorite activity has been to sit in a cafe near but not too near the conference center, and try to pick the scientists out of the crowd of passersby. Perhaps she can use these skills later in life.

Can people guess what you do (approximately) for your job based on your appearance or are you constantly surprising people when you tell them what you do? Somehow I think this might break down somewhat along gender lines, but I imagine that there are also men who don't look like a stereotypical scientist (or engineer or whatever).

My husband is not one of these men, even when not wearing a graph-paper plaid shirt, but that's OK. I think it is important for the non-scientist population to know that nerds walk among us and are generally harmless and pleasant if supplied with sufficient quantities of coffee.

Out of Office

There are all different kinds of busy.

During some busy times, I find that I can get lots of different things done because I get into a 'bring it on' kind of mode and just do whatever needs doing (and then I collapse later). For other kinds of busy, I need more focus and I have to make stark decisions about use of time, like whether to blog or work on that paper that needs finishing.

I am in one of those stark times now, and am going to work on that paper that needs finishing while I'm doing some traveling and other things. It's kind of funny in a way because after I am done traveling, I will be even busier, but it will be the kind of busy in which blogging is a welcome distraction.

So: Happy Mid-April and I'll be back in a week or so.

Token Awards

Today in Scientopia, I discuss the practical aspects of awards that are given for "diversity" reasons; that is, the question of nominating (or not) students for these awards, despite being somewhat troubled by some aspects of these awards.

The Human Games

Question from a reader:

What would cause you to treat grad students like they were people?*

What a great question! The answer is probably obvious, but I will explain it anyway. 

Of course, the first thing I do is throw students in a pond. It doesn't have to be a large pond, but it should be quite cold and there should be some unspecified monsters in it. Then I just stand back and see what happens!

Here's the interesting part: 

If a student sinks, it means they are human and I can treat them accordingly, in most cases by firing them without explanation or notice because who wants to work with a human? 

If they swim, either because they already know how or because they somehow figure it out by themselves, then it means they are not human and will likely do a successful PhD and will become a professor just like me and can continue these fun games with their own students.

But you already knew that and hence your perceptive question. I hope, however, that it is at least somewhat helpful to see it typed out here in a cold rigid font. 

* Note: Although this is a direct quote from an e-mail sent to me by a reader, there was also other text in the e-mail that was worded in a more polite way, and I don't think the question was intended to sound quite as rude as it appears. So, my response it not entirely fair in terms of addressing the individual who sent the question, but I get this and similar questions from time to time, and thought I would give a general reply.

Academic Texts

Puffer fish from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraodontidae
Clinton image from http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/

Searching

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

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

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

• Are any of those people ever non-academics?

• Are students part of the committee? Postdocs?

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

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

• Other? 

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

Format Matters

When you are submitting a manuscript, do you format the text, tables etc. in the style of the journal or do you wait and see if the paper is going to be accepted before taking the time to do that?

Some journals (editors) get annoyed if the manuscript is not already (mostly) in the journal format at the time of submission, even if the paper may be rejected. One reason for this is that the formatting stage can add an extra step; that is, one more back-and-forth between editor and authors, so it's more efficient if the formatting is done at the beginning (and any problems fixed in the review stage). If the paper is accepted, this helps everyone; if the paper is rejected, the authors wasted some time.

Avoiding this extra step definitely makes the review process faster for the author. In my experience, it is the rare author who sufficiently takes care of all necessary formatting issues in the revision stage if they didn't previously make an attempt at following journal format in the first submission. If they try to format the manuscript correctly the first time, I can comment on any problems, and then these can be fixed in the revised manuscript. If the manuscript is not formatted until the revision stage, I typically have to send it back again for technical fixes. Some of the details of formatting can be taken care of by the diligent copy-editors employed by the journal, but the paper is supposed to be (mostly) in journal format when the editors send it along to the copy-editors.

And beware submitting a paper with flawed reference lists to some journals! Certain large publishing companies use manuscript submission software that detects even minor flaws that used to be dealt with at a later stage of the review process but that now can delay review of a manuscript. Wouldn't it be nice if these clever programs also formatted the manuscript (including references) for you, saving time for everyone? As an author and editor, I would like that. Formatting my own manuscripts and checking the formatting of manuscripts of others is tedious.

Anyway, there may be reasons beyond efficiency to format the manuscript in the style of the journal to which it is submitted. As an editor, when I see a manuscript submitted in the very characteristic style of another journal, it does cross my mind that the manuscript might have been rejected by that journal and submitted to my journal. Does that matter if this thought flits across my brain? Probably not, but, as an author, I'd rather an editor not have that thought.

A prior rejection may be irrelevant to another journal depending on why it was rejected by the other journal and whether any significant changes were made to fix potential problems. I am not necessarily talking about rejection by High Impact Journals, but also peer journals (in terms of impact factor and topic).

If a manuscript with suspicious formatting seems worthy of review, it will be reviewed by my journal despite the xeno-formatting, but on more than one occasion I have received an e-mail from an invited reviewer of one of these manuscripts saying "I already reviewed this for the X Journal and it doesn't look like they have changed anything. This is the same paper and I still hate it." That's not good. Not that formatting alone would improve the fate of the paper, but ideally the re-formatting and a serious revision would occur simultaneously, so re-reviewers (and editors) could potentially be more friendly to the revised paper.

So far I have mostly been discussing this from the point of view of an editor, but what actually inspired this post is the fact that I have been spending considerable time today formatting a manuscript for a particular journal. This journal has really bizarre and picky formatting rules, and I am sure I will make errors, but at least it will look mostly like a correctly formatted paper. Maybe that will help the editor 'see' it as a paper appropriate for this journal.. Or, at least, that is what I tell myself when I am making sure that I follow the correct rules for fonts, headings, first paragraph indentation (or not), in-text references, reference list...........

Not a Monster

In the discussion on the Scientopia post yesterday there was a comment about whether professors worry that having some "failed" (possibly fired) students will affect recruiting of new students. I think the answer to that for many professors is Yes (but leave a comment/explain if you are one of those who does not care).

I know I have written about this before and there are relevant anecdotes deep in the archives, somewhere, so some of this is a re-discussion of this topic. I am going to assume for most of this discussion that the advisor is not evil or otherwise highly dysfunctional (but will get to that near the end of the post). I am also not going to make a distinction between failing and firing; for the purposes of this discussion, it might not even be widely known exactly why a student left.

The impact of failed/fired students can be an issue in recruiting because you can't really explain to potential students exactly what happened with a failed/fired student, especially if there are sensitive issues involved. I know one student (many years ago, not at my current institution) who had to leave a grad program owing to a cheating incident. I don't know what that advisor told prospective students, if anything, and I don't know how open the departing student was with fellow students about the reason for having to leave, but as an advisor, I would be very reluctant to explain such a situation to a prospective student. And yet, it wouldn't be fair to the advisor, who had only a few advisees at a time, if such an incident had a negative effect on their ability to recruit new students.

I have also mentioned before that I have advised or otherwise worked with students with major substance abuse problems (that pre-dated their working with me, in case you are wondering). Some of these students eventually finished their degrees, but at least one (the most severe case) did not. He told people that I had "fired" him, but in fact he was forced by his parents to try rehab (again). Mostly it was a human tragedy for that particular student, of course, but it was also a low point for me as an advisor. 

There was another interesting comment on the Scientopia post yesterday: a description of a student's point of view and a professor's point of view, as told by a third person who had talked to both about a certain difficult advisor-student situation. Based on what I read, I would say that both sides are "right"; in some cases, personalities and priorities just don't mesh between student and advisor.

So, even if a student has run-of-the-mill problems with grad school (nothing involving cheating or drug addiction..), there are still complex issues and different points of view. A student could complain "My advisor never checks on me to find out what I am doing and see if I need help ", and the advisor could complain "My student never comes to see me to show me what s/he has done recently and ask questions." Of course both should be talking to each other, but if that doesn't happen and the student flounders to the point of failing, should prospective students be cautioned about the advisor (uncaring, lets students sink then fails them) or just told about their advising style (works best with students who take some initiative and don't mind being a bit independent)?

The advisor can also tell prospective students about their advising style. I have been having this conversation more and more with prospective students in recent years. In fact, some ask me directly: do you have an open-door policy or do you prefer to have scheduled meetings with students etc.? I think these conversations are very useful, and can be a way for the advisor to signal in advance what won't work (implying past problems without discussing individuals).

Here is my hypothesis o' the day, for discussion:

I think that if the advisor is overall a reasonably good, well-meaning advisor and just has the occasional advising disaster (for whatever reason), there won't be a major (long term) negative effect on their ability to maintain a good group of successful advisees. This may be more true for senior professors with a track record of advising success, and more of an issue for early-career professors.

But this is the part that I am less sure about: the case of not-good, perhaps even evil advisors. I have seen some dysfunctional advisors lose their grad program entirely, but I know of others (mostly via e-mail from readers) who somehow keep getting students. I think the difference might involve the overall success and funding record of the advisor: if you have money, you can have students (??). In those cases, I would think that word-of-mouth cautions from former and existing students would nevertheless make recruiting new students difficult, and that this would be a way to try to force a change for the better, but I don't know of any cases in which this was tried and worked (do you?).

I Used to Be Nicer

In Scientopia today, an angsty-message from the grad-advising trenches.

Sorry Professor!

From time to time, I peruse online reviews of various things: books, hotels, restaurants, etc., and am sometimes reminded of teaching evaluations, but not necessarily in a good way. For example, I recently read two highly negative reviews of two different books, and found that the negative reviews were motivated by technical problems with the e-version of the books, not the writing/plot etc. Is that fair to the authors? No. It reminded me of some negative teaching evaluations I have seen in which a professor was severely criticized for things the students hated about the physical classroom space.

I don't know why I even read reviews of hotels anymore. I guess I am looking for systematic information that will indicate whether a place has a major problem or is a good place to stay. Typically, though, reviews are mixed, indicating more about the review-writers than the hotel. Particularly when reading reviews of small, charming hotels outside the US, I must admit that I am not shocked to the core to learn that there was a crack in a tile in the bathroom, a strange stain on the carpet by the window, or even a front-desk clerk who was not super-friendly.

Sometimes I wonder if the ease with which we can all review almost everything* in our lives affects how some people approach teaching evaluations, either the writing or the reading of them.

* Did you know that you can review rivers and other natural features? For example, the River Seine in Paris currently has 611 reviews on TripAdvisor, has an overall rating of 4.5 stars, and reviews ranging from Average to Excellent. Hooray for the River Seine for not getting any ratings of Poor or Terrible! The River Danube, perhaps owing to its length and the fact that it flows through so many major cities and you can review it in each one, has more variable ratings.

Here is an example of a review of a small hotel in an international city (review modified slightly from original version but retaining its essence):

We are college students from [country that is not the US] and used to traveling but even for the low price and good location we won't be back to this hotel. The staff don't really speak English even though this is a "hotel". The breakfast wasn’t anything special but we didn't really mind because it was cheap and we are young! However the elevator is really small and has no door and that is very unsafe! Again we thought it's not that bad and we are young. The rooms are really small but again I thought it's cheap and we’re young and don’t care but it got worse because the room was NOT made up every day. By day 3 we had no clean towels! It got even worse because of the language barrier but we are young and cheap and don't mind most things, but the staff stared at us when we walked through the lobby and this even creeped me out and I’m a guy. This place is just not worth it, even for less than 30 euros a night for 2 people.

Is it just me, or do you get the impression that the person who wrote this is young? Despite my advanced age, I personally could probably go 4 or 5 days without clean towels. When I first read the review, I wondered if this young man has similar expectations of his classes and professors, and if he writes similar reviews of his professors, if there are student evaluations of teaching at his university.

Maybe he would write something like this:

I am a student in Professor X's class but even considering the convenient day and time of the class I can't recommend this class. Professor X uses words I don't understand, even though she is supposed to be a "teacher". The lectures weren't anything special but I didn't really mind because this is a required class I have to take. However the chairs in the classroom are really uncomfortable and this is unsafe! Also the classroom is really small but that's OK too except that it is not cleaned every day and sometimes I see writing on the white board from other classes and once I saw a candy bar wrapper on the floor. It gets even worse because sometimes Professor X makes eye contact with me during class, when asking a question, and this creeps me out. This class is not worth it, even if it only meets for an hour on Tuesdays at 11 AM.

I think this could be a very fun game (or creative writing exercise) for academics: converting real teaching evaluations into hotel/restaurant reviews, and converting real hotel/restaurant reviews into teaching evaluations.

The game will need a zippy name; something even better than ratemyprofessorsandhotels. Like the various versions of the game Monopoly that involve sports, animals, movies, and New Jersey, we could perhaps propose an academic version of the game Sorry!: Sorry Professor! (other suggestions welcome, although note that all suggestions will be subject to review by everyone).

TQ

Many years ago when I was a non-tenure-track professor, I was taken aback when I learned that the quality of teaching by people in my position -- that is, all non-tenure track instructors -- was considered a priori sub-standard by my institution because we had no long-term investment in the college.

The Dean said this aloud in a meeting and repeated it in a memo. At the meeting, I thought I misunderstood the Dean, but the memo was unambiguous. Tenure-track and tenured faculty had a commitment to the college and the rest of us didn't, so their teaching was, by definition, of higher quality than ours. I doubt if this conclusion was supported by any data; it seemed to be more a belief. I didn't see the point of stating it so explicitly, as a generalization, but of course the focus was to make the the 'real' faculty feel good.

I found that somewhat demoralizing. I cared a lot about my students and my teaching, and I was working extremely hard at my teaching, as I also had in a previous position as a non-tenure-track instructor. Some of my tenured and tenure-track colleagues were doing the same, and some weren't. I channeled my annoyance into targeted loathing of the Dean (but not the college, my colleagues, or my students), and focused on my work.

Later, when I was a tenure-track and then tenured professor at a large university, I learned that the quality of teaching by people in my position was considered by some to be a priori sub-standard because we spent so much time doing research, we couldn't be as good at teaching as those who are entirely dedicated to teaching, including non-tenure-track (adjunct/contingent) faculty. This was the view, not so much of the institution itself, but of a broader community (and in particular those focused on college-level science education).

The reason both statements could be made and thought possibly true by some is that the first one involved a small liberal arts college and the second a large research university.

These generalizations are meaningless. There are good, bad, and mediocre teachers in all the possible types of jobs involving teaching at the different types of colleges and universities in the US and beyond.

Here is my own (possibly meaningless) generalization, or belief, based on no data, just observations in the past 30 years as an undergraduate, graduate student, instructor, and the various stages of tenure-track/tenured professor:

Teaching quality (TQ) for an individual or even a group of individuals in similar jobs does not correlate with type of institution or with job title.

If that is the case, then TQ is more a function of an individual's teaching skills and dedication, both of which are somewhat fluid concepts because they can change with time and circumstance, but are still more important than institution type of job title. There may well be some 'environmental' factors such as teaching load, support from the institution etc., but it is not useful to make assumptions about whether someone will be a good, bad, or indifferent teacher based on whether that person is employed at a small college, a large research university, a private institution, a state institution etc. or whether that person is an adjunct or a senior, tenured professor. I don't think this is a controversial statement, but I am still surprised when -- to this day -- I encounter these stereotypes.

The issue that is relevant to students is whether they are likely to encounter more good teachers in certain circumstances than in others, but I am not going to wade into these larger issues, including debates about how we measure TQ, the value of student evaluations of teaching, whether students are at a disadvantage (or advantage) if taught by large number of adjunct faculty, and so on (I have discussed these in other posts),

My point today is a small one, inspired by a recent experience in which someone from the small-college world expressed surprise that teaching excellence could be found at a large university, bringing back some memories and triggering this post.

Happiness Index

There are many ways to measure happiness in one's life and career. For example, I recall learning, as an undergraduate, that one's happiness could in part be calculated from the distance of one's home to the take-off and landing flight paths of major airports.

Anyway, for academic persons involved in research, happiness these days may derive in part from the number of times a publication is cited. In this case, the h in h-index does not refer to happiness, but for some people it might as well.

What I am wondering is, for any individual -- at whatever career stage, in whatever academic discipline, and with whatever personality traits you may have -- what is your personal minimum number of citations for you to feel happy, or at least moderately satisfied?

That is, when you look at your citation numbers for each publication, is there a particular number of citations that make say (to yourself, if not to anyone else), "OK, I am happy with that number of citations"? (leaving open the possibility that you would be happier if it were cited even more)

Is that number = 1? 5? 20? 37? 50? 100? 300? 1000? 7326? more?

What are the most important factors in deciding your personal minimum number of citations for happiness? I expect that the culture of each field plays a role. Is there are particular number that is considered pretty good in your field, and can you say what that approximate number is? For example, I have seen letters in support of tenure/promotion cases (not in my field) in which the letter-writer has asserted that the n < 10 citations of a paper is considered a very good number in that field. In my field, that would be considered not so good.

I expect that one's happiness with a publication's citation count experiences a bit of an uptick when that publication reaches a number that causes your actual h-index to go up, but is that your minimum number, or is your personal minimum number >> your h-index?

I don't want to give many details about myself, but my absolute minimum citation happiness number is indeed the one that makes my h-index go up (so this is a (slowly) moving target), but that milestone just causes a flicker of citation-happiness. For me, the true minimum citation happiness number is quite a bit higher, and therefore more elusive.

That's not to say that I am disappointed in or depressed about publications that don't exceed my citation-happiness threshold -- in fact, some of my all-time favorite papers are among my least cited ones. It's just that there is a certain bonus satisfaction that comes from having papers with (relatively) large numbers of citations, even for tenured professors whose careers don't hinge on these numbers.

The reason I have been thinking about citations recently (again) is because the other day, a (very) senior professor told me that he was upset about another colleague who doesn't cite his (the senior professor's work) when he should. He said that he wants his citation numbers to be as high as possible by the time he dies because "that's all we have" (as a legacy). I thought that was sad and disturbing, particularly coming from someone who has a large number of papers that have been cited more times than any paper of mine will ever be. I hope I don't feel that way when I am his (near retirement) age, even if it does make me happy when my papers are cited.

You're Asking Me?

Earlier this year, I gave a talk at another university. Much later, I encountered the head of the department that I visited, and he apologized for missing my talk, explaining that he'd been out of town that day. He said "I heard your talk was very good", a nice thing to say, but not necessarily sincere, just a common pleasantry. But then he said something that surprised me. The very next thing he said was:

Was it?

I was surprised and just said something inane like, Well, I hope so. I got a lot of good questions. I enjoyed it blah blah blah.

Then he said I really did hear that it was good. OK... so why ask me?

Anyway, that was strange, but it made me think about how we feel about the talks we give, and whether this feeling (positive or negative) has anything to do with how most of the audience felt about the talk, at least during the times when they were awake. Of course there is going to be a range of responses in any audience to any particular talk, but I think we can still get a general sense for whether a talk went well or not.

I know people who always feel terrible after they give a talk, even if the talk was great (in my opinion). For some, the experience is such an anxious one, that is is difficult to enjoy the experience of giving a talk, even if the talk is interesting and presented well. I hope that for most people, this anxiety fades with time and experience giving talks.

Other people will give a range of responses when asked (by a friend or close colleague) how they felt about their own talk, depending on their perception of how the audience was responding. You can give very similar talks to two different audiences, and in one you feel like you totally rock, and in the other you feel like your talk fell flat. And sometimes you don't really know and just have a general sense that the talk went pretty well, but you don't really know.

The same talk can be a different experience in different places because there may be differences in your presentation style, your energy level (perhaps related to whether cookies and coffee were served just before the talk), and/or time of day (or day of week or month of year etc.). However, the experience is also greatly affected by whether the talk was on a topic and at a level that was appreciated by a significant number of people in the audience. I mostly use the number and type of questions during or after my talk as a guide to whether the audience is interested and if my talk is making any sense at all. I haven't found the facial expressions of the audience during a talk to be a very useful guide. And I am not offended when some people fall asleep, as long as most people are awake.

So: How do you feel your talk went? I think it is a strange question to ask someone you don't know well, but it is an interesting question to discuss among friends and colleagues.

Promote Yourself

Today in Scientopia, a discussion of how and whether to promote your work (and therefore yourself) without (necessarily) alienating everyone in your field, from the point of view of a non-extroverted mid-career science professor.

Pronoun Fail

In my seemingly never-ending quest to find the best, most user-friendly, flexible, non-annoying, and free collaborative workspace in which to share ideas and data with a particular large research team, I recently set up some trial workspaces using various platforms. I didn't want to send out invitations to the entire group until I decided which, if any, we would be using, so I only added one guinea-pig colleague, just to test things out.

He was surprised when one of these sites sent him an automated e-mail with a link for joining and with some text that said (in slightly modified form):

FSP has created his own project so that he can communicate with his colleagues and friends.

I looked in the profile options to see if I could select a gender, but this is not an option. Apparently we are all, by default, men.

Yes, I wrote to the company.

Starting From Zero, Again

This comment, from a postdoc, on Monday's post intrigued me:

I think it would be depressing to teach a similar course over and over again. It would feel like every year you go back to point 0 and have to start with another set of ignorant students all over again.

In fact, it's not depressing at all. Sure, certain aspects of teaching the same course over and over can get tedious, and that's one reason why many of us make changes to our course content from time to time, but, at least for me, it is not depressing, and certainly not for the reason the postdoc proposes.

In fact, that's part of the fun of it for me: hitting reset, starting over, beginning with a new group of students who don't yet know the awesome things you are going to teach them (this is not the same as being "ignorant"), and then watching them progress through the term. If all (or most) goes well*, it can be very satisfying. Surely there is an annoying analogy involving gardening/farming and the seasons, or something like that?

[* that is, not too many high-maintenance students, no cheaters etc.]

It's the same with advising grad students, and that's not depressing either.

Does anyone agree with the postdoc about feeling depressed (or other negative feeling) about having to start over at "point 0" with each new group of students? Or perhaps people who feel that way won't pursue a career involving teaching(?). And if they do pursue a career involving teaching, will they always feel that way, or see that, in fact, the rebooting aspect of teaching is not depressing? It would be particularly interesting to hear from someone who thought that it might be depressing to start from the beginning again and again, but found that it wasn't. Or vice versa.

Changing of the Syllabus

Thinking about yesterday's discussion of differences in teaching Science vs. Humanities topics, I wondered how often we professors, over time, change the syllabus of the courses we teach, and, if they do change, why they change. By the phrase "over time", I am trying to say that I mean changes over the years, not within a particular term.

I think it is entirely possible, in any discipline, to teach a "classic" topic that doesn't change dramatically from year to year, or even decade to decade, no matter how much the broader field itself has changed. And then there are courses on "topical" topics, that include or focus on concepts or methods that were unknown in the past, perhaps even in the fairly recent past; this, too, could apply to any discipline, even if not to every course within every discipline.

I was thinking about some of my "classic" science courses in this context, and realized that they have actually changed quite a it over the years, not in terms of the core concepts, some of which have remained unchanged for a long, long time, but in the examples I discuss. There are new applications that did not exist a decade ago (or less), and if I taught the course the same way that I did 20 years ago, students would learn the basics but not be aware of how these can be used to do Modern Science.

I don't think I could specify exactly how much these courses have changed with time, but a very rough guess would be somewhere between 20-40%. In some cases, these changes are reflected in the syllabus (in terms of the list of course topics) and in some cases, not so much. That is, the listed topics are the same, but what I say about them has changed a lot over time. I refer here to changes that are driven by advances in the field, not variations I might introduce to keep from being bored with teaching the exact same thing year after year.

The above discussion refers primarily to undergraduate courses and to some advanced courses, but, for me, graduate seminars are a different beast. The topics of graduate seminars that I teach change significantly over time. It would be impossible (or, at least, very unwise) for me to teach the same graduate seminar over the years; things (including the scientific literature) change too much, too fast for that. I could organize a seminar on the same or similar (very) general topic every 10 years (for example), but the content of the seminar would be very different each time. I would think that this, too, could be said for many other disciplines.

Have you ever taught a course that literally could stay pretty much the same year after year, for a long time, perhaps even decades? Or, (more likely, I think) if you teach a course with content that can, should, and does change with time owing to advances in your field, how much does it change (per whatever unit of time is relevant to your situation)?

No Ability to Grasp

In a recent posting on the New York Review of Books blog, Charles Simic, Pulitzer-prize winning poet and professor emeritus of literature and creative writing, states that "Widespread ignorance bordering on idiocy is our new national goal". His evidence for the spreading of ignorance comes in part from polls showing that large numbers of Americans believe certain things that are known to be false about recent and current events, and also from his experience as a college professor: 

Anyone who has taught college over the last forty years, as I have, can tell you how much less students coming out of high school know every year. At first it was shocking, but it no longer surprises any college instructor that the nice and eager young people enrolled in your classes have no ability to grasp most of the material being taught. Teaching American literature, as I have been doing, has become harder and harder in recent years, since the students read little literature before coming to college and often lack the most basic historical information about the period in which the novel or the poem was written, including what important ideas and issues occupied thinking people at the time.

I will not discuss in detail his ideas about the role of the media in spreading propaganda and disinformation, or why so many Americans believe (or are willing to believe) obvious lies about our own recent history (not to mention the present), except to disagree with this point: "In the past, if someone knew nothing and talked nonsense, no one paid any attention to him. No more." There are many examples throughout history (in the US and beyond) in which much attention has been paid to those speaking nonsense from ignorance. Even so, I agree with Simic that current trends are disturbing.

But Simic also writes: "to have it [disinformation] believed requires a badly educated population unaccustomed to verifying things they are being told", which feeds back into his experience of teaching for 40 years. That's the part that interests me because, in my ~20 years of college teaching, I have not seen a shocking decline in how much students coming out of high school know, as he describes in the excerpt above. [I am also ignoring any discussion of college-educated vs. not college-educated people in the context of the current US election-year explosion of ignorance, and am focusing here only on Simic's personal observations of a decline in college student knowledge and intellectual abilities.]

Why haven't I seen this change in how much students know and can learn? Did the change happen >20 years ago, so the biggest decline precedes my teaching experience? I can't evaluate that from my own experience, but I admit to being skeptical that students in the good old days were more accustomed to "verifying" things that they were told. In fact, today I think that many students are deeply skeptical of what they are told, and we professors have to make a concerted effort to be convincing in our explanations.

Or is the difference not so much my relative youth as a professor but the fact that I teach Science and Simic teaches Literature? He writes about how students today don't have much context to understand literature because they don't read much (relevant) literature before college, and they don't know about history, even the history of places where they grew up (he gives the example of New England mill towns). It is therefore more difficult to teach these students.

In Science, we require less context of that sort (particularly of the historical variety), although we expect our students to know (some of) what they have learned in previous science and math classes. As long as they have learned something in their previous science/math classes, I can take it from there and teach them what I want them to know in my Science classes, whatever the level and format of the course.

But Simic doesn't just say that students haven't accumulated certain facts before arriving in college, but that they also ".. have no ability to grasp most of the material being taught". That's different, and, if true, should also apply as much to Science as to Literature, History etc.

I get as frustrated as any teacher does when some students do indeed fail to grasp a concept (or basic fact), despite being given ample opportunity and assistance. Even so, at every type of institution at which I have taught, I have found that every course contains students with a wide range of abilities. A challenge for me as a professor is to teach them all. This has not changed in my 20+ years of teaching experiences at different colleges and universities.

Another possible explanation for my failure to discern a decline in student abilities over the years is that I am oblivious. I am skeptical about this explanation, but I do not reject that possibility out of hand. I think when we are intensely focused on something for a long time, we can lose perspective. Perhaps I have been "dumbing down" my courses bit by bit over the years, progressively adapting to the declining abilities of my students, so any decline in student abilities was imperceptible to me (?). However, if I had taught the same course in 1992 and then not again until 2012 (assuming that my teaching abilities remained the same and it was a course that could be taught the same despite the passage of decades..), perhaps I would see a difference (?). Somehow, I don't think that is the explanation.

At the moment, I am intrigued by the Science vs. Not Science possibility. I wouldn't want to take this so far as to say that teaching (and learning) Science requires less of an intellectual engagement with, or curiosity about, the rest of the world, as compared to history, literature, and so on. I don't think that is the case. But perhaps some fundamental aspects of (college-level) Science can be "grasped" more easily (that is, with less background information) than, say, a 19th century novel? For example, in this context, is it easier to explain the second law of thermodynamics than the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier?

What do you think? Have any of you long-time teachers seen any change, for better or worse, in overall student ability to understand what you try to teach them? Please give the time-frame of your observations (in years), your academic discipline, and any ideas you have that might explain your observations.

High-Maintenance Equation

A colleague and I were discussing the teaching of large classes (~100 students) and how/whether this is substantially different from teaching a class with 30 students or 300+ students. This is not the first time I have had this conversation in my life, but it is always interesting to hear what others think.

Of course part of the answer to the question of whether there is a difference relates to the structure of the class and whether you have grading support etc., but to the extent that we can generalize, what are the main factors in similarities vs. differences in teaching a lecture-format class of 30 or 100 or 300 students?

Aside from issues such as ability to learn student names, we agreed that a rather major factor affecting the experience of teaching is the number of high-maintenance (HM) students in a class. In a large class, there is a greater chance of encountering HM students, and more of them.

What are examples of HM behavior? It is important that I explain that I do not include in this category students who ask a lot of questions unless the questions are repeatedly and insistently of the 'just tell me the answer so I don't have to think about it or go to class or read the textbook' or similar variety. Just asking a lot of questions does not by definition make a student HM. (See also discussion last year of how HM student behavior is not unique to students; professors do many of the same things when in the role of 'student'.)

Lots of unreasonable requests (for things the student could easily look up on their own), lots of whining and excuses, and/or frequent begging for a better grade are possible components of HM behavior. Students who require a lot of help are perhaps technically HM in some ways, but if they are working hard to understand the course material and are sincere, then I would put them in a different category.

So, just considering the most difficult, soul-destroying type of HM students: Is their effect on your energy level and emotional state diluted by the large number of non-HM students in a class? I would say no (mostly). The type and frequency of HM behavior and the number of HM students are the major factors, not the overall class size. This is a hypothesis that I propose, for discussion.

That is, if you have a class of 100+ students and 1 very HM student, is that somehow less of a drain than if you have a class of 30 students and 1 very HM student? And if you think it is, can you write your personal equation that relates total class size, number of HM students, and their cumulative effect on you?

Too Much To Expect

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

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

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

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

You have a hypothesis.

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

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.