Small victories

It's the middle of crazy season.  Snow days, sick kids and recruiting (faculty and grad students) they make for a crazy mix.  There aren't enough hours in the day, add in vacation planning (summer already), summer camp scouting (again already?), and birthday party planning.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm going to make it through the week.  But then again, there are the small victories....

I like to scout out people that would make great colleagues (awesome science and nice personalities) at conferences and hope that I can build consensus to find a home for them in my department.  I did this 3 years ago and got to the offer phase, then my RU lost out to another school due to reasons well beyond my control.  Last year's attempt did not get off the ground.  But this year, I found a great candidate, hosted the seminar and navigated the awkward stealth candidate politics.  The faculty all like this candidate and they can't agree on liking much, so this is no small task.  Out of a large number of candidates interviewed, mine was the only one to get a clear nod of support.  I was flying sky high after the meeting.  Now to get the candidate to come... Again, largely beyond my control.  But, I hopeful that some other efforts in this regard will pay off.

Oh, and took part of the afternoon the same day to attend a school event for kiddo #1.  He was sooo glad I was there as opposed to sometimes, when he seems not to care either way.  Hooray for the good days every now and again.  We need them (and massive amounts of caffeine) to make it through.

Grant cycle woes

A close friend is in the down side of the grant cycle.  NIH R01 renewal just got scores that are not fundable and may or may not even be fundable in the revised version.  He went out on a limb by doing some really innovative work for the renewal and has preliminary data to back it up.  Still waiting for the reviews, so not sure why it wasn't loved yet, but likely too far from the original work.  It has me thinking about the downsides of being a PI.  If you are too conservative, it's incremental work that isn't worthy of another 3-5 years of funding.  If you are too innovative, it's too risky to be worthy of another million.

My observation of a year on study section is that it is so important to get the right reviewers but you have no control over this.  If you get the newbie ad-hoc who doesn't really know the field as your primary you could be in big trouble unless one of the other reviewers is willing to stick their neck out to correct this injustice.  It's a rough funding climate out there, especially with the current year's budget still not approved. I hate that I even know what CR (continuing resolution - when congress limps along approving a provisional budget for a few months).

The other part that is hard and in this case harder for this friend, is that to take this risk of innovation, he has put his eggs pretty much all in this basket.  Now without the renewal, he has to cobble together funding for students in the lab and his tech, well I'd rather not say what will happen, but soft money positions are the most vulnerable in tough time.  The friend will take a hit too, no summer salary.  You might think that doesn't sound so bad, but a 25% pay cut hurts no matter how much you make.  His spouse works too, so it won't be as bad but still not easy.  That's the ugly side of academia.  You might have tenure, so you can't be fired, but if you lose your grants your soft money salary disappears and you may have to up your teaching load if you can't pay for buyout of classes.  I guess he is lucky to be on 9 month appointment (75% hard money) for teaching.  Someone on 50-100% soft money would be out of a job.

The silly part is that in a year or two this PI will likely have funding again.  In the meantime the students will have been rushed to finish and the other lab personnel will have moved on to other jobs.  Now the PI is ready to roll again, but all the expertise he built up is gone and he has to start building it again.  It's really a huge waste of time. money and research that could be done instead of reinventing the wheel.  It happens all the time in academia today with funding for science and engineering being so tight.  There isn't any backstop (except maybe for students) for those rough times.  I watch the cycle happen in repetition this last year.  It hits the small to medium labs hardest.  They often operate off of 1-2 grants so they don't have any backup and these can often all end at the same time.  I was near the point about 18 months ago, but was lucky enough to get bridge funding and then a renewal.  It was scary and I worried most about the people.  What would happen to them and how would I rebuild?

We have to think about these issues both from the stand point of the people (students, post-docs, techs, PIs) but also the larger picture.  This is why so many people (especially women) don't want to go into science right now.  It feels so unstable.  Also, how does this affect us nationally and harm our scientific progress.  We lose so much expertise, time and money by operating in a short sighted boom and bust model.  We could make so much more progress if we had even funding.  I'm not suggesting funding for life (what would motivate us to work like dogs then?) but some backstop funds would be great.  NIH bridge funding is really helpful (thanks to my awesome Program Officer for helping secure this) but it doesn't fit every situation, and there are many who don't have NIH funding.   Not sure how to approach this from a structural standpoint, but it is an issue that seems to be getting worse in the last 4-5 years.

Sometimes it pays to be nice

This should be obvious, but in the world of academia where it seems like the self centered, selfish faculty members are the ones at the top of pile when it comes to research grant money and lab size, sometimes I wonder if all the service is really worth it.  There was a great article recently from the AAUP on the ivory ceiling and burden of service on female associate professors.  It reaffirmed what I already knew, I get asked to do more stuff because I'm a woman and I feel like I can't say no.  Don't get me wrong, I care about other women in the system (undergrads, graduate students, faculty, etc.) but what is the cost of all this service to my research productivity and my future.  It's something I ponder as I watch some faculty members who say no with reckless abandon and only do things that will clearly benefit them in the near future.

I've been a largely radio silent here due to the increased burdens of a new administrative role I have taken on in my department.  I could do the minimum and spend much less time on it, but that is not in my nature, and I see a lot of positive changes that can be made (if I put in the time).  It's still greatly a work in progress, but I think after 1-2 years it will get easier.  It's a difficult because this is a new role in the department so part of my work is to define the role and it's responsibilities/limitations.  I have several interesting observations based on my 6 months on the job: (1) senior faculty that would have walked all over me before are now more respectful because in some sense I control something that is important to them, and I could make it harder for them to get access to this resource (at least in some sense), (2) I need to shift my approach from trying to inspire respect from students (which I now largely have from this role) to conveying a sense of community and inspiration (trying to move beyond the rules and regulations to the higher educational goals of the program), (3) treating others with respect and being pro-active can be good for everyone.

I generally try to be a team player (sometimes to the detriment of my productivity) and helpful to others.  I feel like I'm finally reaping the benefits of this from getting favors when needed to just general kind words and support.  The synergies that can benefit both my department and others are starting to kick in and it is fun to see these things come to fruition.  I am also am realizing because role that the lack of contribution of some of the self-centered faculty does not go unnoticed.  They will get by on their research reputation, but the way they treat people does have consequences in subtle ways.  It does make me feel a little better in some ways.  I'm also using this opportunity as a training ground to see whether I'm interested in bigger roles.  The jury is still out on that accord, but I'm learning a great deal about the best ways to herd cats and how to you need to make sure the key players are on board before the meeting.

Treating others as we wish to be treated

I sometimes find it frustrating that people justify a history or traditional method of doing things as a reason for why it is best.  There are many historical events that we now find repulsive, Japanese internment, slavery, etc.  Yet some PI's choose to run their labs as though it were the 18th century.  If they are famous and well established, they may still be able to recruit a cohort of students that is willing to put up with harsh conditions in exchange for working in Dr. X's lab.  However, there is a growing subset of the student population that will no longer tolerate these conditions.  It is Dr. X's prerogative to choose how he runs his lab, by and large.  However, it does become an issue when Dr. X want to eliminate major part of the graduate program to fit his methods.  As many graduate programs in engineering and the sciences incorporate research rotations prior thesis mentor selection (as is common in the life sciences) this starts to become an issue, when students get to see first hand what life is like in Dr. X's lab before they officially join the lab.  I can't argue with Dr. X's success, which is undisputed, but I wonder in 10 years if there will be anyone left willing to work in the sweat shop.

I take a different approach.  I focus on results and progress.  I want students who are self motivated and work toward a goal.  I don't like to micromanage and everyone is happier when I don't.  (I get a little high strung when I am in micro mode, just as my first grad student.)  As long as you are making progress and communicating problems, I'm happy to let you run loose.  I don't worry about your hours (my students often are using equipment on other parts of campus).  I try to lay out deadlines ahead of time (reasonably) and then let you figure out when to get it done.  If you choose to go on vacation for 1 week during the 2 week period, you might be working some late nights to finish.  But that is your choice, as an adult.  I also encourage students to plan their own calendars for thesis writing and determine a reasonable defense date.  It generally works.  My lab is more laid back, but the students still publish a 3-5 papers from their thesis work.  It's not for everyone and there have been students that switched labs or quit graduate school.  But all in all I works, and it fosters the type of people I would like to have as future faculty colleagues.  In general, it may be less efficient than micromanaging, but in the end getting a PhD is about learning to be an independent researcher, not a work horse for the PI.  I used to think I lived in a department of people who agreed with this statement, but after some recent discussions, I'm not so sure any more.  Your thoughts on lab cultures and mentoring styles and how to shape those with positive departmental policies?

What decade are we in?

I am aware that gender-based discrimination does occur today.  However, I assumed that most of the time it was restricted to inappropriate comments and other more subtle acts.  Recently I attended a meeting where the gender pay equity results were presented for my university.  It turns out that women are paid less then men regardless of school, rank, and year post-degree (and some other time correction factors).  This data was 1 year old.  I was shocked!!! Now depending on the school and department you may not be able reach statistical significance (given small departments and small number of women in many cases)  but when the residual difference between men and women is always negative in every model for every school, that is a problem.  And when the residual difference has tripled in the last 10 years, that also seems like a bad sign.

The big question is what to do.  We are a private university and salary info is supposed to be secret.  We aren't supposed to share it with others.  I will preface this by saying that my school actually had the least difference (percentage wise) thanks to a great previous dean who corrected problems.  My chair is very fair and tries to have a standard rate for a given rank (corrected for time at rank).  Also, having a spouse at the university gives me localized data.  But as a university how do we fix this?  Clearly the chairs are setting the salaries so they have control, but how do we hold them accountable when the data is private and often cannot be release on a department level to the public given the number of individuals at a rank?  Deans should be overseeing this, but clearly this is not happening.  This is just part of a climate problem at our university but this is a clear sign.

What as women can we do to change this?  Seek guidance for our professional societies?  Set up to model based calculator to guide negotiations for women on campus?  Riot in the street?  And why does this happen?  Do women just settle for less?  Do the chairs push them harder to accept less?  Are we less likely to get outside offers to push our salaries up?

How can it be 2010 and well educated, highly-qualified women are still paid less than men?

Looking ahead

So as I am regrouping from some of my service work for the year and glimpsing the end of the semester, my thoughts turn toward the future and a question I think about now and then.  So now what?
I received tenure a few years ago and was so thrilled to make it over the bar.  I was almost more thrilled when my spouse also joined me on the other side.  Now that the afterglow has worn off, what's next?  The big next mark for me (other than renewing my R01) was clearly promotion to full at some point.  It's not as all consuming as getting tenure, after all they can't fire me (without good cause) even if I don't make it to full ever.  But, on the other hand there are many  people who stall out at Associate and are become the permanent Associate.  Not the end of the world, but not what I want either.   So I'm thinking about what I need to do for promotion to full.

I have talked to a couple of senior faculty type that are involved in this type of promotion including my chair.  The comments include making sure to increase my international exposure.  Not sure how to do this except through international travel, but of course this is challenging with small kiddos at home.  I do have an international conference that I am giving an invited lecture at this summer, so hopefully this will help.  I'm on the board of directors or similar governing boards for 2 societies in my area of research/field (figure this should be good for visibility).  I am also joining an NIH Study section in the coming year.  I figure the timing should actually be somewhat beneficial in that I will get to see lots of grant in the new format.  My chair is really focused on publication metrics, but he did share his formula for evaluation here, so that is helpful.  Of the recent cases that were promoted to full from my department (each has a somewhat strange career path) I have already passed on or the other in many of the metrics, so I'm just about in the pack by most measures here.   The other big component was what has advanced in my research since tenure.  Actually a lot since I have had several students graduate with their PhDs since tenure, so here I'm feeling like I have a good story.

I feel that there is a lack of mentoring at my institution (and many others) after tenure.  While pre-tenure mentoring is more important, we are not completely mature the day after tenure.  So, it's been a little harder tracking down the metrics for promotion to full.  I also only was present for 1 of the 3 tenure cases that went up since I got tenure due to travel or conflicts, so even the whole department discussion is still unclear to me.

After getting to full, where to I want to go.  Leadership (chair??, research center director?), administration (probably not, given what I have seen at my institution) .  Focus more on research or mentoring??  Interesting thoughts, but now back to the details of the end of the semester.

Any newly (or not so newly tenured) folks out there with sage advice??

Are we part of the problem?

The AAUW release a report recently called "Why So Few?".  It seeks to identify reasons for the gender gap in STEM fields and offers some potential fixes.  I was excited by the possibilities, but somewhat disappointed by the short chapter with limited recommendations.  I should preface this conversation by saying that I'm serving on a committee right now looking at ways to improve enrollment and retention of undergraduate women in STEM fields, so this was of interest to me.

This week, there is an editorial piece on the report on the Chronicle website "Are Women Partly to Blame for the Gender Gap in STEM Fields?".  It is a thought provoking article that I agree with in some respects, such as how the AAUW report doesn't really offer any new suggestions.  It also got me thinking about whether I was part of the problem, and discouraged women from entering careers in academic STEM fields.  After all, it is hard to make it through the tenure process, and it is hard to balance working with having small kids.  I think tenure is hard for everyone, not just women (although it does fall during our prime reproductive years).  I also think that being a working mom is really hard, no matter what your job is and in fact we have luxury of having a more flexible schedule than many professions (lawyers, physicians, etc.).   I can't do everything at home, but I can do a lot, and much of my work can be done between 8 pm and 2 am, just as well as 8 am to 2 pm (except for the effect on my sanity).  But are women keeping each other down at times rather than being advocates for others?  

This is a delicate balance for me.  I would love to have another female faculty member in my department.  DESPERATELY!!!  But, I don't want someone who is not qualified or would not contribute to the department.  I'm not willing to give someone a complete pass on quality just to get a warm body in here that would likely not succeed.  But, do I go too far sometimes to make sure that when we do get another woman, she will meet the bar?  Am I subconsciously too hard on women candidates I'm not sure about?  I'm a big supporter of the good ones, but they never seem to accept the offers.  Food for thought....

What about students?  Do I let them see the sometimes grim reality of the challenge of being a faculty member a little too openly?  Does it discourage them?  I think this was definitely the case for my first doctoral student.  She is at home with two young kids right now.  I think this is totally the right decision for her and I support her on this.  But did my struggles in the early years turn her off to a faculty career?  I hope not, but I fear it may be true.  

I certainly did get turned off in graduate school by the harshness of a few female faculty members.  They had surely been through a lot to get to where they were, but rather than convert that experience into trying to ease the path for others it was more of a "I went through it so you must too" type of hazing.  This is what I want desperately to avoid.

I think the truth is that we just need to be more open and more flexible about what constitutes success, a career path and. acchievement.  Definitions of fields, milestone, research are all opening up more with interdisciplinary research anyway.  People don't all follow the same path from undergraduate to graduate school to post doc to faculty position.  Theey may detour for work, family, or just adventure.  This all makes them richer people.  I love that more and more women in my field are having kids pre-tenure.  It's become the norm rather than the exception for women faculty that started in the last 10 years.  Amazing, because 12 years ago I could count on 1 hand the number of women faculty I knew who had kids pre-tenure.  And, I don't think there is a big drop in the % of women getting tenure, so while I'm not goign to lie and say it's easy, it can and is being done.  

Here's the other myth, the being a stay at home mom (SAHM) is easy.  Frankly, it's really hard.  I have lots of friends that are SAHMs and that is just as hard a job for no pay.  I get to hang out with grown-ups (or almost grown-ups) all day and only have a few hours that can possibily have tantrums (from my kids at least).  So it's hard being a mom, whether you work outside the home or not.  Kids are hard just when you think you have them figured out they change on you.     The whole working vs SAHM battle is another battle I just don't get, in that it is so counter productive to helping women.  

Anyway, I'm going to try to think about ways to make sure I'm helping encourage women, rather than discouraging them.  Let me know if you have suggestions from your experiences.  

Post Spring Break Hangover

OK.  I really wish that I did have a hangover from Spring Break because it would have meant doing something fun.  Instead I had a toddler with hand foot and mouth disease that resulting in 2 missed days from daycare and 2 more days of very picky eating (due to mouth sores).  Despite all this he has gained a pound recently so I guess he didn't starve too badly.  All this was really not conducive to finishing my spring break to-do list or taking a personal sanity (read clean out the clutter at home) day.   And now it's back to classes with nary a holiday until after finals.

On the bright side, despite the craziness that was my break, I did finish my grant and successfully defeat the e-submission system to get my grant submitted (read department admin hitting submit 50+ times and me clicking it once in the evening).  I could do a whole post about how unhappy I am that NIH chose not to grandfather grant being resubmitted.  It's really hard to response to reviews while cutting your grant length by 50%.  6 pages is too short for a grant proposal.  I hope the reviews can be considerate about the lack of space for methods.  I think the new format is actually helpful for providing info so that reviews can find it (e.g. significance and innovation), so I like this part (once I got my tooting your own horn hat on).  However, I'm still struggling to figure where to put the background info, or in other words I realize I'm not the only person in this field and that I am building on the work of others.

Also completed, book chapter (submitted), grading for my class up to date (as of last night), and planning on the way for the next recruiting weekend (Friday).  I did manage an few hours of me time after a eye exam/dilation put an end to grant writing one afternoon.  So really with the sick days, not too bad on my checklist.  Also did get the kids spring clothes washed and pool shoes ordered.  Now it's on to prepping for the guest lectures in another class this week and the 3 manuscripts that need to get submitted, as well as the paper reviews that are due soon.

One other interesting article from the NYTimes regarding the state of women at Harvard in the last 5 years. It's hard to fight the attitude/concern that women are being hired as tokens when the numbers are so small.  I think the key is that making life more balanced benefits everyone not just women.  Men these day have spouse who work frequently too.

Reset

The last two-three months have been really crazy due in part to an important leadership role in a university service.  All in all it was a really valuable learning experience in regard to how things really work at universities (or at least my university).  I'll share a few take home messages from this in a generalized form: (1)  if you are asked to chair a committee only agree to do so if you have major input into the make up of the committee (probably the most important part of reaching a favorable solution/recommendation), (2) the real action should happen outside the meeting (you should be talking with the key players on the committee making sure they up to speed before the meeting), don't blindside people with big proposals in a meeting and expect them to be on board, (3) get a mentor/confidant, especially if you are new to a leadership role (find someone outside the direct impact of the outcome so they can give you advice not colored by their personal stake, and it has to be someone you can totally trust and share details with so you can bounce ideas off them or get suggestions when things get tough), and (4) work your connections/relationships/networks to get a favorable outcome (this is how things work in reality, not some idealized neutral system so use the system to your benefit to get information or share it when needed with key players).

Overall I'm happy with the outcome of my assignment and it has fit within the best case scenario window identified at the start.  It's a little anti-climactic, but I think that is just exhaustion.  It took a lot more time, and mental energy than I envisioned when I agreed to do the job, but because of my personal stake in the outcome it was worth it.  I also learned a lot about working with people and finding the things that will make them cringe or get on board.  However, it has made me realize that being a good leader is a lot of work, and that's something I'll file in my head for consideration down the road.

Now it's back to the daily grind of teaching, grants, papers, my regular service obiligations, graduate admissions and recruiting, etc.  I'm trying to focus on aligning my time allocation with my priorities research, papers and grants because I find that graduate recruiting and teaching are overwhelming me right now.  I'm trying to follow some tips on this from an article I read in Inside Heigher Ed (thanks Aurora for the tip).  Started tracking my time yesterday and I'm realizing that the ever urgent nature of teaching and appointments seem to suck much of my time.  Tomorrow I'm going to take a writing day to try to focus on getting this in balance (and getting a good draft of my way overdue book chapter).  Also need to regroup and focus on the expectations for promotion to full professor.  (I fear this means ramping up the travel again.)

I'd love to hear your tips for aligning your tim alocation with your long term career goals.

Leaky pipeline

Here is another article in the Chronicle today about the pipeline at Penn.

The main point was that just putting women and minorities into the pipeline as starting assistant professors is not sufficient.  Without some changes in the way academia operates, we will continue to lose more than our fair share of women and minorities along the way and the impact on the full professorship and administrative roles will still remain far lower than those hired at junior levels.  Has some very interesting comments about the role of pay, time (read domestic responsibilities), emotional resources, and recognition on women and minorities.

The best line was "we need to model livable lives for our students".  This for me was the kicker when I though about going into academia.  I looked at the female faculty in the department where I did my undergraduate work (granted a major pressure cooker) and thought, I don't want their lives.  Many of them were single or divorced and childless.  I don't want to say that those things are bad for everyone, but for me they were deal breakers.  I didn't want a job that meant not being able to sustain a marriage or a family.  So modeling a life style that others might want (and actually having it too) is key to getting more women and minorities into STEM.  Making tenure and beyond a more "sustainable" process will make life better for everyone in academe.

Breadwinners

Great article today about women breadwinners (in the Chronicle) and how they still don't make as much money as men (in the same field with the same education).   You can argue that women in some fields are younger (assistant prof versus full prof), but here's the rub:

"When compared with men's pay at the same level of educational attainment, women's pay is even more unequal: Women earn only 67 cents to their male counterparts' $1. That difference remains steady at every level of education.."

 Why is this?  Some of the arguments focus on how women are likely to be in lower paying specialties (primary care physicians versus surgeons), but I think it is more than that.  It may also be too that women are more interested in qualify of life (work/family balance) than money so they opt for situations that give them more flexibility rather than more pay.  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?  I think it is bad that women are underpaid and don't have opportunities to advance!  On the other hand, I think that if women are truly choosing family time over more money, that is OK if that is what they want.

There are certainly situations where I see very successful individuals (research superstars, administrators, etc.) and I think wow that person is amazing.  Then I think, but on the other hand I don't want their lifestyle (too much travel, working 24/7, etc.)  I don't want to do bad research or not have any opportunities for leadership/advancement, but I don't want to give up evenings with my kids or be gone all the time.  Travel is something that appeals to me less and less.  Whether it is missing the family, the prep work required for the house to run smoothly while I'm gone (not to mention childcare if spouse is gone too), missed work, and the joys of flying these day I would rather not travel too much.  I obviously go to some conferences, give some seminars, and serve on review panels but I try to work on saying no.  How will this impact my earnings long term, hard to say.  I've been a co-breadwinner my whole career.  Sometimes I have made more money and sometimes my husband has made more than me.  Really for us the big issues are affording a house in a good (close) school district and being able to pay for high quality childcare.  But, would I take a job for double the money that cut my kid time in half, probably not.

Ah well, back to making the most of my last 3 week days before the semester starts...

Tentative syllabus - check
First round of edits on two papers from former students - check  (need to do second round on 1 paper)
Grant reviews - started
Book chapter - lit review in progress
Regulatory protocol - submitted
Major service work - moving along nicely
Paper reviews - To be started (need to work on saying no!!!)
Annual review - almost done
Lab freezer - former students samples - sorted/removed

Fairly productive break all in all, but my to-do list seems to be growing rather than shrinking.

Why did I go into academia?

I'm going to leave out some details here, but I'll give you some my reasons for why I went into academia.

1. I like to be more or less my own boss.  Sure I have a department chair to answer to and the university in general, but I'm largely my own boss.  I get to decide what science/engineering topics are cool and what research questions to explore.  As long as I find funding for them, I can study what I want. 

2. I get to choose what service activities to be involved with and I try to pick things I feel are important to my research, quality of life, or my community.  I've joined committies because I feel the cause is really important and I feel like I have made a difference (particulary for women), and well I like to have a say.

3. I have a pretty flexible schedule.  There is a lot of work to be done and with daycare hours I'm more limited to time the kids are in daycare or asleep.  But, I can with the except of classtime move things around on my whim, as long as I keep up with the never ending list of things to do.

4. I can think about research problems that can improve the lives of people.  I can stop to think about why and what the mechanism is.  I don't alway have to be thinking about a product that needs to role out or the bottom line. 

5. I get to hang out with really smart people (even if they are somewhat socially inept) and it's expected that I will always be learning something new.  More over the sharing of knowledge openly is encouraged. 

6.  I get to mentor/teach students and watch them mature into engineers/scientists.  I love hearing about where my former advisees and lab assistants have ended up.  What they learned that is helping them now and what they wish they had known.  This part of my job gives me great joy.  I love giving advice about where to go for graduate school. 

7. I also enjoy interacting with people from other schools/fields.  It's interesting to learn how different things can be in the humanities.  I love learning about new points of view (as I did when I lived abroad) and it makes me see my own field in a new light.  (e.g. the humanistis jaws drop when I tell them our normal teaching load is 1/1.)

There are many frustrating days and I sometimes lose sight of these things, so I am trying to remember the good parts of my job.  I also don't mean to imply that academia is the only place to find these things, although I think the student aspects are somewhat unique.