Men are from Pluto

A colleague and I were talking about this and that recently and he said that at some point he needs to find a new research topic, as the one that he has been working on (very successfully, and in fact sort-of pioneered) is getting very crowded. It's not as much fun (says him) to be in a crowd instead of way out ahead.

So then he said that it was difficult to start working on a very-different topic because it can be difficult to get funding if you lack a track-record and expertise in that new thing. True enough. So I said, "Collaborate" (unsaid but well known: That's what I do).

He said, "No, you can't project authority if you collaborate."

Discuss.

Context: We are both full professors and therefore getting adequate credit for our work is not a career life-or-death issue as it is for early-career scientists. For the early-careerers, this can be important (depending on your particular context). Collaboration can still be a significant research component -- enjoyable and rewarding in many cases* -- as long as you also stand out from the crowd in some way for your ideas and expertise.

But other than that, who cares about projecting authority? OK, some people do. My colleague clearly does, and he is very good at it (projecting authority). I don't really care. Well, I do a bit (I don't like being overlooked), but I don't think collaborating has lessened my "authority". If anything, it has increased it.

I reject as a general philosophy the idea that collaborating de-authoritizes you (I just made that word up), although if that's what floats your boat, go ahead and enjoy your authority (alone).



* if your colleagues are not jerks, and if they don't hold up manuscripts and proposals.

Measure for Measure of Success

Something that I have been seeing more and more in grant proposal reviews (my own and those of colleagues who have shared theirs with me) is the idea that it's not enough to have a record of success advising grad students, undergrads, and postdocs in research -- you have to understand and explain your advising techniques and you have to have a plan for assessing and improving.

OK, I get that, but even when I attempt to do those things, it isn't good enough for some reviewers. They think that I (and my colleagues) are relying too much on past success and traditional measures of success (degrees, publications, conference presentations, post-graduation employment). They are not convinced that that is sufficient. They want something different. Apparently, unless you change something, you are not improving and therefore are not being transformative, or something.

Example reviews (comments condensed/reworded to remove any identifying vocabulary):

A highly qualified PhD student has already been identified for this research but the mentoring of this student and an undergraduate is largely assumed based on prior experience of the PIs. The PIs have records of successful advising but should include in the proposal a more intentional discussion of how they plan to train the next generation of scientists. The mechanism for success is not explained and there is no plan for assessing success of their mentoring. How will successful training of the graduate student be determined other than by the record of publications, presentations, and completion of the thesis? Although the research is potentially transformative and this is an excellent team of researchers, because of these shortcomings in the broader impacts I have given the proposal a lower rating.

That makes no sense to me. I am definitely not saying that we all deserve to have all of our grants awarded just because we have had past success. However, I think that if the proposed research is deemed excellent by a reviewer and the PI has a demonstrated record of success with advising, it does not make sense to downgrade a proposal rating for the reasons given in the example review above, contributing to the rejection of the proposal and therefore a lack of funding for the graduate student.

Here's another:

[From a review of a proposal that included one week of salary for a soft-money research scientist who runs a lab in which students would do some analyses for a proposed project]: Description of the mentoring of the postdoc is not well developed. There is no mention of career counseling. Mentoring in professional activities such as writing proposals and papers is confined to discussions and support for participation in conferences and workshops. There is no mention of how the postdoc will be mentored to collaborate with diverse groups of researchers and students. There is no description of the postdoc's career path in the context of developing an effective mentoring plan for him.

And this:

[From a review of a proposal that included a substantial component of support for undergraduate research]: These PIs have a long record of success in advising undergraduate students in research but no evidence is presented for how the field of research on undergraduate research will be advanced. 

These are just anecdotes, of course, plucked from reviews of different proposals by different PIs. At least one of the proposals even involved a colleague who does research on teaching and learning. It wasn't enough. Some of us PIs have attended national and local workshops on teaching and learning, read some of the relevant literature, even co-authored papers (some with education specialists) in science ed journals. It's not enough.

I think that giving attention to effective advising is an important component of research (and therefore grant proposals), but I also think these and similar reviews show that certain reviewers have run amok and are harming the very people (students, postdocs) they think they are helping.

Ab,surd

A colleague recently shared a review of his (rejected) proposal. The most negative review contained this statement:

There were a number of editorial errors found throughout the proposal. Some were missing commas and the like,

The mind, like, boggles.

Now I need to know: have you ever

• commented on punctuation in a review? (minor errors, egregious errors, pet peeves?) -- did it affect your overall rating of the proposal, as far as you know?

• received a comment on punctuation in a review? (minor errors, egregious errors, pet peeves?)

And if there were punctuation, grammar, and/or spelling errors in a review that criticized you for real or perceived punctuation errors, how did you feel about that?

Did you think, "Oh well, the reviewer is just bashing out a review on a webform and of course shouldn't be held to their own high standards for punctuation in proposals. Perhaps that missing comma on page 10 of the proposal indicates that I am a sloppy and untransformative scientist and therefore didn't deserve a grant that would have supported student research."

Or did you think something a bit more negative about the reviewer's punctuated hypocrisy?

Liveblogging the Exam

Although taking an exam is most certainly more stressful than giving an exam, giving an exam can be quite stressful. I am not asking for sympathy, I am just stating a fact.

The most stressful exams to administer are those in large classes in which students are packed into every available seat and there may be (alas, too often) issues with cheating. You can devote considerable time and effort to anti-cheating activities such as giving multiple versions of exams, you can have students sign an honor statement, you can patrol classroom non-stop during the exam, or you can just hope for the best.

Giving an exam to a small or medium-sized class is less stressful because the logistics are easier, but that is not to say that giving an exam even in these circumstances is lacking in stress. Or, at least, that is my opinion. Is there anyone who would rather give an exam than have a regular class? I would much rather have non-exam class time. [I am deliberately not addressing the possibility of not having exams at all. In some courses I do not give exams, in others I do, depending on the course.]

OK, so I am about to give an exam in a medium-sized class. I am not dexterous enough to blog while handing out the exam (and the TA does not seem to be in evidence), but I can combine semi-live and liveblogging to try to capture the essence of the experience from the front of the room.

I enter the room. They are all here, in their seats, staring at their notes. This has been a very punctual class so I am not surprised they are all here on time. In a more typical class, students would appear throughout the first 10+ minutes of the class, even on an exam day, making a lot of noise as they rush in, grab an exam, find a seat, deal with the logistics of finding a writing utensil and putting their water bottle in a suitable place

Put your notes away! This takes a moment. I try not to let it eat into exam time (there is another class in this room right after ours), so I start handing out the exam to the nearest row of students who are note-free.

Can we start now? I should remember to say that they can start as soon as they get the exam but sometimes I forget and then someone always asks. It is not a large class, so the time difference between those who get the exam paper first and those who get it last is about a minute. If anyone in the back needs that extra minute, they can have it at the end. In a large class, I need a fleet of assistants to help hand out exam forms so that no student has to wait too long to get the exam or to get their question answered if they have one during the exam.

The room is never totally quiet. Someone is always turning a page, even if the exam has.. one page. And certainly if the exam paper has 2 pages: rustle rustle rustle. The second-most common noise is erasing. There is a lot of erasing going on at this very moment. Some students have very impressive erasers.

Two students just had questions about different exam questions. Both were answered easily by my pointing to a key word or words in the exam question. In both cases the student immediately saw that the answer to their question was right in front of them and thanked me.

The first student is done with the exam, halfway through the allotted time.

The second student just finished, with 20 minutes left to go. Make that three students.

Are the ones who finish very early the ones who are doing well in the course so far? In fact, there does not seem to be a strong correlation between those who are doing very well or very not-well in the course (to date) and those who finish the exam early, just as I predict that there will be a random collection of students (with respect to course performance) at the very last second of the exam.

At various times in my teaching past, I have timed myself taking an exam that I wrote. The purpose of this was to see how much time it took just for the physical act of writing (correct) answers, in the ideal case in which the answer is immediately known. The amount of time available for students to take the exam should of course be greater than this, but greater by how much? For certain courses, I developed a simple formula and adjusted the number and type of test questions accordingly.

I haven't done that in a while. Perhaps I am in that dangerous stage of my teaching career when I assume that I 'just know' how to do things like create an exam that is fair in length and level. I like to think there would be some warning signs (in my teaching evaluations? in other student comments?) if I have gone astray (or were to do so in the future).

I have started grading the exams turned in early. Students in previous classes have told me that it stresses them out if I start grading while some of them are still taking the test but it's not as if I am chortling in an evil way as I slash giant red X's through incorrect answers. I am not even sighing. I suppose it could be disconcerting if I also made happy sounds while grading. So I try to be subtle and quiet, serious and respectful as I make my first forays into grading amidst continued test-taking by the remaining students. Do you start grading turned-in exams whilst other students are still taking the test?

.. with a few minutes left to go, ~50% of the class remains. Some are just staring at the exam paper, some are writing rapidly. Some are obsessively clicking their writing utensils.

The deluge of exam-turning-in is about to begin. Some students acknowledge my presence as they turn in the exam and some do not make eye contact. I don't try to read anything into this. Some of the no-eye-contact students may have done quite well and are still feeling the residual effects of exam-stress. My general (delusional?) impression is that the students found the exam to be reasonable. I do not sense major unhappiness or anxiety.

We are in the final minute; 20% of the class remains.

Has anyone ever studied what % of students stay until the very end of an exam time, even if they are finished? Is there a universal value? Or is there a characteristic value for each professor, and/or for particular types of classes, institutions, etc.? The next time you give an exam, please record (and post in a comment) the % of students who stay until the very last possible moment (and was this in a large, medium, or small class)? Do you think the % who cling onto every second avalable is a function of your exam-philosophy or something else?

In this case, 8% of the class needed the exam extracted from them with some effort on my part. I do not like that. What do you do when you have to pry an exam away from a student when time is up? Do you just take it? Do you loom over them? Do you try increasingly forceful statements? Do you beg them to turn it in? Tell them you will not accept the exam if it is not turned in now? Do you walk out of the room?

The exam is done. I was interested in doing some grading while the exam was going on (efficient use of time! good way to see how some students did on the exam!), but now I am not.

Only one student has asked when I would have the exam graded (answer: "in a few days if possible"). I did not mention that cats are an essential part of my grading ritual (TMI).

Self-Check

This is a poll I have done before (4 years ago), and I am interested to see if the results will be different now. I am curious about how often you check your citation statistics -- number of citations, h-index, who is citing you etc. You can sign up to get alerts about this, or you can go and check yourself at one of the citation-counting sites. How often do you get information about your citations?

Whether or not you answered the poll 4 years ago (in April! is there something about April that makes me think about citations?), do you think your citation-checking habits have changed in the last few years? 

So:

How often do you check your citation statistics?
	As often as possible
	Quite often but not routinely
	Every once in a while when I think of it
	Once or twice a year, if that
	Never ever ever
pollcode.com free polls

Post-Postdoctoral-Post

More than 3 years ago, I wrote a post about hiring postdocs. This post seems to have been linked to a site that diverts some traffic to my ancient postdoc-post and keeps the comments coming (intermittently). The most recent comments are all negative: I am an insensitive jerk etc.

OK, maybe so. The point of the original post was to give a PI's-eye-view of the topic of hiring postdocs, and any topic related to the selection of a few and the rejection of most has a high probability of making some readers angry. Nevertheless, given limited funds for hiring postdocs, PIs must make hiring decisions. How do we do that in a situation that is not as structured as the admission of graduate students or the hiring of faculty?

Different fields have different cultures regarding postdocs: for example, regarding bread-and-butter issues such as salary and fringe benefits, the rate of success of postdocs seeking post-postdoc employment relevant to their training, and more cosmic issues related to respect and independence in their work. And even in the best of circumstances, the postdoctoral years can still be ones of anxiety and uncertainty about the future.

Anyway, here are some recent comments on that semi-ancient post, with my further thoughts on the topic:

I think you are a cheap employer that is complaining about the workforce, when the workforce is getting minimum wages to do the most likely irrelevant work that you do. You should consider yourself lucky for having a position, so don't whine about postdocs, you would be nothing without them.

Fact: A typical starting (just-out-of-PhD) postdoc funded by an NSF grant in my field and at my institution makes anywhere from about $42k to $62k per year (salary). At my institution, postdocs paid from a grant also get fringe benefits, calculated as a % of salary and paid by the PI (with indirect costs to the institution). I am not making any judgement about whether that salary is decent or abysmal; that opinion will no doubt vary considerably. I will say that this all adds up to a lot in the context of a typical (for me) grant budget.

Opinion: It is quite true that my work is irrelevant. Conveniently, the work of my postdocs is therefore also irrelevant. Nevertheless, we manage to do some interesting basic science.

Fact: I consider myself very lucky to have a position.

Opinion: I still get to whine.

Fact: Over the years, I have wasted a lot of money on unproductive postdocs. I would like to avoid that experience if at all possible (hence the original post).

Opinion: I have worked with (and am working with) some great postdocs. I consider our working relationships to be mutually beneficial.

(Excerpt) Yet many PI's .. think they're "sorting through the good and hard working postdocs". This is of course false. They are sorting through the leftovers after everyone else jumped to industry. Thus finding bad apples is more common...and really the problem with "lazy" postdocs is that you don't have enough funding to support them...not necessarily that they're crap scientists.

This opinion about "leftovers" does not apply to my field. I don't understand the point about not having enough funding to support postdocs and so that explains why some postdocs are unproductive(?). If someone accept a postdoc and the salary is not as high as the postdoc thinks it should be, does this give them license to be unproductive? Isn't that self-destructive, among other things?

You come across as a completely obnoxious, self-righteous professor. Just remember that hiring a post-doc is a two-way street. You may be judging the post-doc, but the post-doc is also judging you based on the quality of your research and your scientific acumen. Unless you are perfect in those areas, how can your expect your post-doc candidate to be perfect as well?

Of course the applicants are also judging whether they want to work with me; this is as it should be. Nevertheless, with a few exceptions (such as NSF Postdoctoral Fellows), I hire postdocs using funds that I obtained, so I do get to choose which postdoctoral aspirants I think will do well with the project, do well working in my research group, and do well developing their career.

In the time since I wrote my original post about trying to avoid unproductive postdocs, I have had similar experiences to the ones I described. For example, there was the time when an aspiring postdoc who wanted to work on an ongoing project for which I am PI assumed that one of my colleagues was the PI and explained the project to me (in person, at a conference) as if I knew little about it. Did he not even look at the project webpage? Perhaps I would have been more sympathetic if he had at least explained the research well and described an interesting way that he would contribute expertise or ideas. Alas, he did none of those things. This is not about expecting perfection; this is about expecting a certain level of knowledge, initiative, and drive.

I may be an obnoxious jerk but I do want to state here that I think it is important to be respectful, supportive (financially and otherwise), and appreciative of excellent, hard-working postdocs. I hope to be so lucky to be able to continue to do so.

Stress Test

Among the 17* surveys that I had the opportunity to take this week, there was one that involved questions apparently designed to examine how respondents deal with stress: how and whether stress affects one's life and well-being, and so on.

This particular survey was totally flawed in that the assumption of the stress-related questions was that stress is always bad. If you have stress (in your job, in this case), you are going to score low in wellbeingness.

I get that. I think, however, that there should be the possibility of considering a situation in which stress is a normal part of your job, and this is OK. Could we even entertain the possibility that it is more than OK?

Here is an example of a stress-is-always-only-bad survey question:

Select the response(s) that are relevant to how you respond to job-related stress (check all that apply):

o I have trouble sleeping
o I do not want to go to work in the morning
o I am unable to eat a healthy diet
o I am unable to get sufficient exercise
o My personal relationships are negatively affected
o I am frequently ill
o I cannot quit smoking, I binge drink, and I watch bad TV shows

I think that there should at least be an option of 'none of the above', and even better would be

o I thrive on most types of job-stress. Bring it on.


* Note: I did not take all 17 opportunities, and there weren't actually 17, it just seemed like there were a lot. That was stressful.

Ask Not?

The tale of a rescinded-offer of a faculty position, owing to an email from the woman offered the job to the department re. the terms of her offer, has been widely strewn about the internet. I will reprint the email and department/college response below in case anyone hasn't seen these, and then will give my take on the matter (joining the thousands who have already commented online elsewhere).

The apparently dangerous email:

As you know, I am very enthusiastic about the possibility of coming to Nazareth. Granting some of the following provisions would make my decision easier.

1) An increase of my starting salary to $65,000, which is more in line with what assistant professors in philosophy have been getting in the last few years.
2) An official semester of maternity leave.
3) A pre-tenure sabbatical at some point during the bottom half of my tenure clock.
4) No more than three new class preps per year for the first three years.
5) A start date of academic year 2015 so I can complete my postdoc.

I know that some of these might be easier to grant than others. Let me know what you think.

And the harsh reply:

Thank you for your email. The search committee discussed your provisions. They were also reviewed by the Dean and the VPAA. It was determined that on the whole these provisions indicate an interest in teaching at a research university and not at a college, like ours, that is both teaching and student centered. Thus, the institution has decided to withdraw its offer of employment to you.

Thank you very much for your interest in Nazareth College. We wish you the best in finding a suitable position.

This unfortunate event has been seen by some as a cautionary tale for what can happen when a woman tries to negotiate for better pay and working conditions. She is seen as asking for 'too much'. In this case, a woman attempted to "lean in" and was severely punished for it.

I don't know if there is a gender angle to this incident or not, but speaking as someone at a research university, there is nothing in the candidate's email that surprises or offends me. I have been asked for many of the same or similar things by candidates; some of these requests are routine, some of them require discussion. I say 'yes' when I can, and 'no' when that is the appropriate response for my department/university. Negotiations can be constructive and interesting discussions.

I know nothing about Nazareth College's research expectations for faculty and why the email apparently revealed an inappropriate level of research focus that was not detected during the interview. Maybe the moderate number of requests, none of which the college was going to accommodate, was the problem. Whatever the case, it is puzzling why the college didn't simply say no to some or all of those requests and let the offer/decision process proceed. If there were concerns, the department head or other faculty could have had a serious talk with the candidate about teaching expectations and criteria for tenure, so that as much as possible was clear during the candidate's decision-making process. Maybe there is more to the story than just these emails.

I don't want to speculate more about that particular case. My main point is that it would be very unfortunate if well publicized situations like that one made faculty candidates reluctant to ask for what they realistically feel that they need to succeed in the challenging job for which they are potentially being hired.

Even though I don't think anything in the polite list of requests is unreasonable, perhaps a bit more asking around of faculty in the department or institution, or other general digging around, could reveal important information that would avert an 'unreasonable' request before it is asked. Some strategic questions such as "So, is it possible/typical to get a term (or two) off prior to the tenure evaluation year?" or "How many new classes did you prepare in your first few years here? Is that typical?" (etc.) could indicate how requests about leaves and new class preps might be viewed by administrators.

It might also be possible to find out how firm the start date is, and whether the department has a track record of pushing back the start date to accommodate postdocs or other commitments. In my experience at a research university, the asking and granting of delayed start dates is routine. At a smaller institution, however, it might be more difficult for a department to cover essential courses for an extra year; they may want their new hire to show up in time for the next academic year. They might expect a candidate to understand this.

I think the request about salary is entirely reasonable. Candidates for faculty positions should be well informed about salary averages and ranges and should be able to discuss salary with the department head.

In summary:

- I would not have sent that particular list of requests pertaining to a job at a teaching-focused college, but
- I think that anyone (male or female) should be able to do just that as a starting point for discussions (even if the answers are no, no, no, no, no), and
- I would not blink if I saw that same list submitted by a candidate for a faculty position at my institution, and
- in fact, I am interested to know what a candidate thinks is important for succeeding in the job. This is a good basis for discussion and negotiation.

Depending on what your situation is, what, if anything, do you think the 'take home' message of this saga is, in particular regarding the question of whether/how to negotiate after receiving an offer of a faculty position?

I Was Away From My Desk

A recent post over here reminded me that I have been meaning to write about the sabbatical I took a few years ago. I blogged the entire time I was on sabbatical, although I did not blog about my sabbatical.

When I was just starting to think about going on sabbatical, I mused in a post about the possible differences between going on a sabbatical with an elementary-school child (as I did for my first sabbatical, to an international location) and going on a sabbatical with a teenager (as I was planning for my second sabbatical, to a different international location). There were many comments about positive sabbatical-with-teen experiences, and so it turned out for us. We are very fortunate to have an adventurous and healthy teenager who was willing to leave her school and friends for a while and hurl herself into a strange environment. She loved our sabbatical, and her parents enjoyed it as well.

I know that not everyone can go away for their sabbatical and that not everyone wants to do that even if they can. And for those who can spend some or all of their sabbatical at another institution, there are of course many possible choices in terms of location and type of institution to visit. For me, sabbatical = international location, or at least it has so far (n = 2). At one point in our pre-sabbatical planning discussions, my husband suggested that we spend all or part of our sabbatical at a Certain Domestic University and I thought he was joking. He wasn't, but he was happy to go to an international university that had excellent colleagues for both of us.

For the type of sabbatical arrangement at my institution (50% salary while on sabbatical), it takes a lot of planning and effort to attempt to raise the rest (not to mention the usual summer salary). The reasoning behind the 50% salary is that we aren't teaching while on sabbatical, so we are paid only for the research-component of our job (on the not-so-accurate but what-the-heck assumption that the research-teaching ratio is approximately 50:50). I know that some institutions have better arrangements for sabbatical pay, but so far I have been able to manage with the 50% system.

And what of those left behind -- our students, postdocs, research scientists, others? (see older post here) I was quite unperturbed by my advisor's sabbatical when I was a grad student. Even though he went to an international university for the year, I felt that in some ways I had more of his attention than when he was just down the hall. When he was away, I emailed him and he emailed me back. Sometimes I just sent him an update by email (he told me later that he appreciated this). Sometimes I emailed him a question, and he sent useful replies. I had seldom had his attention like that before. He had many grad students, many grants, many projects, and lots of professional and institutional service activities, and I was not very assertive (in person) about getting his attention.

During my advisor's sabbatical, I also got help and advice as needed from more senior grad students, from research scientists, and from other faculty. The various labs kept running in his absence, and all was well.

I think/hope it was much the same during my own sabbaticals. And of course now, in addition to email, there is Skype, so one can participate in various meetings and other discussions with students, postdocs, and colleagues at the home institution.

Whether you go halfway across the world or stay at home, sabbaticals are great for the very reason they exist -- you have time to think, read, write, start new projects, meet new colleagues, and learn new things relevant to research and teaching. On my last sabbatical, I wrote a long paper that I probably would not have been able to write in non-sabbatical life and I developed a collaboration with some excellent new colleagues. My new colleagues and I are now working on plans to send our grad students to visit each other's institutions -- kind of like a mini-sabbatical for students(?).

If your department gets to keep the half of your salary that you are not getting while on sabbatical, your department head (or chair) might even be very happy that you want to take a sabbatical. He/she might complain about the problem of dealing with your classes while you are away but you need not be sympathetic to this. I know of some cases of people delaying or foregoing sabbaticals because of grumbling department heads. That should be the least of your concerns.

It might sound obvious to say "sabbaticals are great", but sabbatical planning can be very daunting and stressful for a wide range of complex reasons involving family, money, advisees, and research facilities, to name just a few key issues. Nevertheless, it's worth it if you can get all your ducks in a row, even if your ducks are mostly going to paddle around in a local pond.

Time is of the Essence

Some recent e-mails from grad-student readers have concerned the issue of time management and being a teaching assistant (TA) vs. a research assistant (RA). If you are aiming for an academic career, particularly at a teaching-focused institution, is it better to be a TA and get teaching experience or is better to be an RA and get a solid research/publication record so you are more likely to get interviews?

My best answer is 'both', if you have that option -- some TA and some RA/fellowship mix seems ideal so that you have a good balance of teaching experience and focused research time.

In real life, there if of course no one answer, not even a wishy-washy one like 'both'.

Over the decades, starting when I was a grad student, I have seen many people who are overall more productive when they are teaching assistants and therefore theoretically have less time for research. For some, the 'structure' that being a TA imposes on the day/week makes it easier to be motivated to do research in the interstices, whereas being an RA -- with endless time to devote to research -- can be intimidating, resulting in not-much getting done.

Others only get work done when they are an RA. They don't focus on anything but teaching when they are a TA, even if technically the TA is a 'half time' position. You might not know if you fit one of these descriptions until you have been been a TA and an RA for a term or three.

Many people are somewhere between these extremes, of course, and I suppose someone could morph from one to the other (and back?) with time and circumstance.

Some of my grad-readers wonder: Do these traits persist post-graduation or can they be restricted to the grad-school environment for an individual? For example, if you have trouble balancing teaching and research (and other things) as a grad student, are you doomed, or will you figure it out later in a different environment if given the opportunity?

I think overall I would be guardedly optimistic about the chance for learning time management skills with time, as need and life situations (career, family, cats) require.

There is no point generalizing, though; specific experiences (please leave a comment) would be much more relevant and interesting.

Toxic Avoidance

A reader e-mailed with an interesting question: If you are on the job market and interviewing for jobs, how can you find out whether a particular work environment would likely be toxic for you? Can you ask about this during a visit or interview? Can such environments be avoided?

My experiences as an interviewee may be too ancient to be relevant, although I will mention anyway that I accepted a job offer from a place that I had been warned was hostile to women (they had a terrible record of hiring, retaining, tenuring women); it turned out to be a great place for me. I think it is important to have up-to-date information about a department's work environment and to realize that how certain longtime faculty members interact with each other may or may not be relevant to the experiences of a new colleague. (It could be very relevant if everyone in a department hates each other and/or if the last n women faculty members quit or no one has gotten tenure there since 1989.)

Otherwise, if you feel that the department head is supportive and there are some likely faculty allies, that may be a good indication that you will do well in that department/unit. Or not, but maybe it is worth a try. If you do well and want to leave, you may have options.

Perhaps some of you have experiences to share about whether you had any inkling in advance about a hostile work environment or whether it was a complete surprise to find yourself in this predicament.

If you had information in advance, how did you learn this? Did you ask or was the information volunteered? If you did ask, how/whom/when did you ask?

Have any of you turned down a job offer because you learned in advance that the department (or company or whatever) would be a difficult place for you?

Probably it is better to ask some general leading questions such as "So, what's it like to work in this department?" than to ask "Hey, is this place totally toxic?"

Deskbound

Several times in the past year or so I have had to combat the suggestion that faculty, postdocs, and grad students "of today", not to mention "of the future", don't want or need their own desks. Of course we all need a "space" to sit down now and then, and maybe we even need a place to put our laptop (or mobile device) for a while. However, we apparently don't want or need our own assigned space. Walls and doors are isolating (and cost money). Cubicles are depressing (no argument from me about that), so let's have open-plan spaces with unassigned desks, "soft seating", and collaborative spaces (a.k.a. tables). I say: Let's not.

Studies apparently show that people are not in their offices 100% of the time, so maybe not everyone needs a designated space to call their own. If the people-to-desk ratio is calculated correctly, most people should be able to find a place to sit (assuming they even want to do that) when they need to. Anyone who happens to have stuff they don't want to carry around can have a locker.

I asked one of the planners for the project in question how I would find my students and others if no one has an assigned space (finding people is not actually my main concern, but I was curious). The answer: when someone temporarily alights in a space, they log in and their location will be registered on a website or monitor that I can check. Or maybe I could just put locator-devices on everyone and keep track that way? I have long wanted to do that for my most adventurous cat (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Cat without an assigned office.

Need to have a private conversation with a student/advisor/anyone? Go to a "huddle room". Need to work with a group without disturbing others? That probably won't be possible, but at least there will be lots of "collaborative space". Anyone nearby can just put on headphones. Or leave. In fact, maybe everyone will just stay home (because it might be quieter there). It seems to me that an increase in collaborative space might just drive people into isolation because they can't get any work done when at "work".

And yet I am told that this type of office space works well in "the corporate world" because it is "creative" and "flexible". I am told that academics associate the size and location of their offices with status and that is why I am clinging to the antiquated idea of everyone having an assigned office.

I think I shall continue to cling to this idea and argue that everyone -- faculty, staff, researchers, grad students, adjunct/contingent faculty, technicians, lab managers -- needs their own, assigned space, even if it is shared space (and ideally not a cubicle farm).

I think there should also be collaborative, flexible space that people can go to as needed. This can be scattered about: shared within or among research groups and in other spaces generally available to students and visitors etc. I like that idea. I just don't like the idea of not having any other place to go to when someone wants to be (semi)alone and quiet, or have a private conversation without having to check if a huddle room is available.

I am quite sure that eventually this unassigned-space idea will disappear from the project in question, although it has persisted longer than I expected.

Am I being a dinosaur about space?

Review Or Else

In a correspondence published in Nature not long ago, the associate editor of a journal grappled with the fact that some prolific authors are apparently not doing their share of reviewing. Let's assume that the review-slackers are not doing major reviewing for other journals. Let's also assume that the associate editor is not sending these authors review requests for papers quite far outside their expertise (I got one of these requests just the other day; I can't even imagine what combination of keywords and/or hallucinogens might have resulted in my name turning up as a likely reviewer on a topic so far from anything on which I have ever worked, much less published).

With those assumptions in mind, we are left to consider a person who accepts that others spend time reviewing their manuscripts but who is not willing to take the time to review the work of others. What, if anything, to do about this imbalance?

I have touched on this and related topics before without proposing a solution. In the Nature correspondence, the associate editor of a journal wonders whether a solution to the problem (described as: "the biggest consumers of peer review seem to contribute the least to the process") could be that "journals should ask senior authors to provide evidence of their contribution to peer review as a condition for considering their manuscripts."

There is much that is appealing about that idea, although in practice there are some likely complications (perhaps these could be dealt with in a flexible system). My preference, however, would be for a system that involved carrots but no sticks. I don't think we want to force people to review manuscripts just so they can accumulate enough reviewer points to get their own manuscripts into the system. That does not sound like a good recipe for thoughtful, thorough peer review.

Another reason for avoiding a system that would automatically reject the submissions of slacker-reviewers is that some of the slacker's co-authors would likely be innocent victims in such a scheme.


Is it possible to create an incentive system that is fair to all, is consistent with the philosophy of peer-review, and encourages more authors to contribute their time (thoughtfully and objectively) reviewing the work of others?

[I am ignoring in this discussion the fact that some people resent volunteering their time to feed the bank accounts of certain big publishing companies that profit from the federally-funded results of uncompensated authors and suck dry the meager budgets of university libraries, though I know some people have strong feelings about that.]

In my previous post on the topic of slacker-reviewers, I explained that I try to be as efficient as possible with the contributions of authors who are diligent reviewers. They don't get any sort of preferential treatment in terms of likelihood of acceptance of their manuscripts, but I do try to move things along for them as best I can, at least for the parts of the process I control (for example, how quickly I get to the manuscript once it is returned by reviewers). I don't know if that is enough of a "perk", but I hope it helps a bit.

I don't like slacker-reviewers, but I always try to remind myself that I don't know what their reviewing history is with other journals, I don't know what else is going on in their life, and I certainly don't want to do anything to harm their co-authors. It is not fair that some people are consumers of and not contributors to the peer-review system, but maybe we don't really want such people reviewing our papers(?).

Excuses Excuses

To those who read applications for academic positions of various sorts: Have you seen a recent increase in supplementary statements explaining possible shortcomings in an applicant's record? I saw a remarkable number this year, but that could just be a random event.
Over the years, I have seen a few, such as when a serious illness or other major life event affected an applicant's academic program or career progress. I am not talking about that sort of extreme event; I am referring to the more routine type of event and explanation, such as low grades or exam scores.

I am actually quite sympathetic to (slightly) imperfect records. A few years ago I wrote in a post about how I had an incomplete grade for a course taken during study abroad as an undergraduate. I was never able to figure out why I got the incomplete or how to make it up, and the "I" automatically changed to an "F". The "F" looked anomalous compared to the rest of my record and I don't recall explaining it in my graduate applications.

When I see these "let me explain my bad grade/score" statements, I sometimes muse about what I would have written had I supplied an explanation for my F. I hope I would have kept the explanation short, provided only the most relevant facts, and didn't insult others (as one recent applicant did to explain some of his F's -- he is actually smarter than the students who got A's because they were mindless sheep).

So: If you have seen "routine" excuse/explanation statements in applications recently, what do you think of them? How do you distinguish between a convincing explanation and whining? Do you know it when you see it? I suppose it depends, but any comments would be welcome.

The Second-Most Disturbing Thing I Have Seen in an Application (Recently)

Dear applicant:

I just read the supplementary statement that you attached to your application. I am sorry that there are some aspects of your application that fell short of your (and possibly our) expectations. I am completely sympathetic to your concern that your hard work over many years may not lead to certain opportunities because of these possible shortcomings.

Nevertheless, I think you should know that many reviewers of your application do not want to hear a detailed account of your episode of acute gastrointestinal distress at a critical moment in your academic life. It's not just that we are squeamish and cranky (although some of us are indeed both of those), but we have a dislike of excuses such as this one, even if it seems (unfortunately) quite authentic in its detail. I wish I could unread your statement.

The Most Disturbing Thing I Have Seen in an Application (Recently)

Memo to applicants for any job, position, whatever:

Do not try to convince the reviewers of your application of your tenacity and determination by describing how you obsessively pursued a young woman who repeatedly turned down your advances and invitations. This is disturbing. The fact that you did not give up in the face of obstacles is not an admirable quality. Leave her alone, if you have not already done so.

Now They Want To Talk?

Let's say there is a US University that has a long history of (1) not hiring many women faculty, particularly in some fields; (2) not tenuring many women; and (3) not retaining many women, even those who have or would have been awarded tenure. Owing to an environment that is so toxic for women in some departments, even some of those who might have been (or were) tenured will leave if they can. 

Now imagine that a female faculty member who is extremely accomplished gets another offer and decides to leave. This woman spent years at the famous place being bullied and disrespected, and is looking forward to moving to a department and university where she will be valued and respected.

Upon announcing her resignation, suddenly people at her (soon to be ex-) university want to talk to her -- senior faculty, administrators, others in positions of power. People who were not interested in helping her when she needed help. She doesn't yet know exactly what they want to talk to her about, so she is thinking a lot about what she might say. Presumably they want to know why she is leaving.

Should she be completely open and name names of those whose behavior is the reason she is leaving? If she has documentation of abuses, should she distribute this?

How likely is it that these administrators etc. will do anything constructive with any information she gives them?

Can one departing person do anything to change a persistent negative environment for other women?

These administrators must know there is a problem, so if they were going to do anything substantive, wouldn't they already be working for change? And if they aren't doing that already, why do they want to know more details about why one woman is leaving?

Or can it really be that one departing woman could be the 'tipping point', even if that should have occurred many years ago?

Does anyone have any advice for this woman, who is in fact a real person at a real place considering this very real situation? 

Fake Review Contest : A Summary

Today's post refers to recent posts involving the so-called Fake Review Contest, even though most of the reviews ended up being not-so-fake; they were, or were based on, real reviews that their contributors had received. Alas.

A possibly-interesting exercise, though not necessarily an uplifting one, is to see how many of the 21 submitted reviews resemble real reviews you have received. I estimate that I have received reviews similar to about half of the contest entries. I hasten to mention that this is over the course of more than 20 years of publishing papers and writing proposals; such reviews are rare, in my own experience. They do tend to be the memorable ones though.

Anyway, in the Fake Review Contest, every entry got at least one vote. Yay, everyone wins, but some more than others. Late-entry #21 (This work disagrees with several unpublished results and is unsuitable for publication in this journal or ANY OTHER ONE [sic] on the planet) is the vote leader. 

It is clear, however, that #9 (Dear Editor, In the future please waste your own time) also resonated with voters, as did #14 (These authors would be well advised to wait until my paper is published, and then they can cite it) and #17 (vague review Sent from my iPhone).

And at least 5 other entries have so far received double-digit numbers of votes.

I recently found myself writing a review and striving semi-valiantly to avoid being one of Those reviewers -- the kind who object to how their own published work is presented, who appear to be quashing an attempt by others to publish competing ideas, and who come across as patronizing and hyper-critical snobs about technical aspects of writing. I am not sure if I succeeded in avoiding those things, but perhaps one positive effect of compiling a list with so many examples of mean and unhelpful reviews was to remind me to be constructive, detailed, and as objective as possible in my own reviewing. I recommended that the paper be rejected, but at least I explained carefully and (I think) politely why I came to that conclusion. Now it is up to the editor.. a friend of the authors.

 

Fake Review Contest : The Vote

Is it time to vote on your favorite (define that however you want) entry in the Fake Review Contest, even though many of the entries turned out to be real (disturbing)? You can review the entries in their entirety by scrolling through recent posts, or you can refer to the handy list of excerpts that I have included in this post. The poll is below. You have to choose one.

1. if this paper had been better, I would have read it and loved it

2. [this paper] is filled with dangerous ideas crammed into a package with a mundane exterior

3. plagiarism example

4. Why didn’t the author [insert thing that is indicated clearly in the title]?

5. I don’t know anything about the topic of this paper but I’m going to review it anyway

6. Since the author is a woman, I had lowered my expectations accordingly, but the author did not even meet those.

7. something is wrong somewhere

8. There was no point in my reading the entire paper because .. the authors assert with no supporting evidence that the world is round.

9. Dear Editor, In the future please waste your own time.

10. The experiments seem to be toys

11. I couldn’t help but noticed that my work is not cited in this paper

12. If the authors had high-quality data, interesting ideas, and an understandable discussion and conclusions, I would write a positive review. In the absence of those items, I regret that I must hate this paper.

13. one of the authors is the nephew of [someone important to me and so] this is a definite accept

14. These authors would be well advised to wait until my paper is published, and then they can cite it.

15. Presumably you are doing something smarter than what you describe, so you should explain that.

16. Mad Libs review (The authors describe how they (phrase from abstract) etc.)

17. vague review Sent from my iPhone

18. However, I don't think the method is correct in principle. 

19. Although we made you do two revisions which cost you time .. we still will not accept your paper [for political reasons]

20. This paper is transformative and should be published immediately with only minor revisions.

21. This work disagrees with several unpublished results, and .. is unsuitable for publication in this journal or ANY OTHER ONE [sic] on the planet.

Which is your favorite?
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pollcode.com free polls<

Late Entry - Fake Review Contest

21.  PI (another real review, alas)

This work disagrees with several unpublished results, and in its current form, is unsuitable for publication in this journal or ANY OTHER ONE [sic] on the planet."