Off Topic

A reader writes about her frustration with the prevalence of Women In Science (WIS) events that turn out to be about how to get out of science or, at least, academic science (research), and frustration with the number of workshops and other WIS events that focus on babies babies babies (primarily anxiety about the possibility that babies lead to "career suicide").

"There are very few events about how to do good research at the top competitive levels, the psychological travails of an academic lifestyle" ... "even something about common sexist gaffes (e.g. asking about your husband's job at your job interview) would be helpful ... I went to one .. event early on in my position here, as I work on an area .. with very few women and I like the XX companionship, but it turned out to be a networking event for women looking to get out of research. I still haven't been back."

and

 

"Is this problem [having babies and a career as a scientist at a university] just so big that it eclipses the other ones we could be having?"

This reader provided a very long list of workshop titles to prove her point about the workshop obsession with work-life balance (= having a career and children) and leaving academia.

Has anyone else had this experience of being overwhelmed by an emphasis on opting-out or baby-anxiety topics?

I would hope that there could be workshop theme balance, such that topics included how to find non-academic careers in science as well as how to succeed in a research career in science. Women-in-science events at the university where I had my first tenure-track job were extremely important to me when I was getting started, and definitely included discussion of the topics the reader mentions as being of interest to someone pursuing a research career at a university. If there had been a major emphasis on getting out of research/academic, I would have felt even more isolated than I already did.
 
The topic of babies is clearly a critical one for many women, but it's too bad if this overshadows (or eclipses) everything else. I don't just mean that for women who don't have children (now), but for all women in science. The baby issue should be part of the discussion, but there are many important topics.

I don't mean to minimize the challenges of having children and a career as a professor at a research university, but I hope that in most fields it is easy to encounter -- in real life and in blogs -- examples of happy, successful professor-moms, so that early-career scientists can see that babies ≠ career suicide.

Another hope of mine, perhaps an even less realistic one, is that it wouldn't always be women talking about careers-and-babies, but that more men would be involved in these discussions. It is still common for FSPs who are invited speakers at other institutions to be asked to have a "pizza lunch" or whatever with female students and postdocs, typically to talk about work-life issues.* Are any of you in departments that routinely invite men to do the same?

For those who share the experience of my reader in not finding WIS workshops that focus on topics relevant to women who want to stay in (academic/research) science, blogs can help fill the gap to some extent, but there's no substitute for talking with others -- sharing stories and experiences, getting and giving advice and support, laughing and expressing anxiety. If you can't find that in workshops sponsored by a particular group, perhaps you can create your own mini-workshop or social-professional event, somehow getting the word out and seeing if there are others interested in discussion of similar topics. Alternatively (or in addition to this), see if you (and like-minded women) can get word to the relevant organizations for WIS and let them know what topics would be of interest to you.


* Not long ago, something rather cool came out of one of these women-lunch discussion things that I did years ago at another university. One of the women who attended my discussion later became a high school science teacher in the region where I live, so, when one of her students became interested in my general field of research, this teacher got in touch with me and we arranged that I would meet the student and introduce her to some undergraduates and professors involved in advising the undergrad program in my department and I thought this was a great, albeit unexpected, outcome of having what I remember as rather bad pizza while being quizzed about the usual work-life issues by anxious young women.

Think Different?

Not long ago, I spent some time with a very diverse group of academics: professors and administrators from the sciences, engineering, humanities, and the social sciences. It can be interesting to experience academically diverse committees and workshops like this one. Even if the overall experience is boring (that is, the doing of the thing that we are tasked to do and have outcomes and deliverables for the stakeholders etc.), but I like the people (well, most of them) and I am fascinated by glimpses of how other departments and disciplines operate.

Anyway, at this particular event, a group of us were sitting around drinking hot or cold caffeine and discussing what our priorities are in our daily work life. We were not talking about work-life balance (with or without cats); we were talking about work-work balance. That is, when faced with several (many) competing work tasks, all of which, in theory, need to be done now, which ones do we realistically do now and which ones do we do later?

This is what blew me away: when discussing two very specific examples that I will vaguely describe below, the physical scientists and engineers prioritized one thing and the humanities and social science faculty prioritized the other.

These particular examples involved whether we would deal first with a possible crisis involving undergraduate students or whether we would respond first to an urgent request from an unnamed upper-level administrator. The scientists and engineers opted to (hypothetically) wade into the student crisis and try to sort it out, but the others (hypothetically) opted to respond to the administrator first.

I hasten to point out that those who prioritized the administrative issue emphasized that they nevertheless were concerned about the students. We all agreed that both these issues were important and should be dealt with as soon as possible, we just disagreed about what should be done right now and what should be done immediately-after-right-now.

Why the difference, I wondered?

A couple of weeks after the incident, I told a colleague of mine -- a former upper-level administrator -- about it, and his explanation was that it was not so much cultural differences among disciplines (and definitely not degree of concern for students) but rather a function of the specific personalities of the administrators involved. That is, the humanities and social sciences faculty have long had very demanding and aggressive administrators, whereas the scientists and engineers have had more "flexible" administrators in our part of the university. We STEM people may therefore feel less pressure to give an immediate response to an administrator if we have another urgent situation to deal with at the same time.

I had never thought of it that way before, but it makes some sense. And, if my colleagues is right, it is a rather dramatic micro-illustration of the effect of administrative personalities on the operation of the units for which they are responsible. I suppose that can be good or bad, depending on the situation.

There's a Dean For That

Deans Deans every where
nor any .. (something something something)

As I traipse through my academic existence, I keep finding new Deans I didn't know existed. Over the years, in my routine professorial existence, I have encountered the Usual Deans -- deans of collegiate units within the university and the various deans who have responsibilities for students, money etc. These Deans are typically "familiar" people, in the sense of having been long-serving faculty members; many of them were former department heads. I don't mean "familiar" in the sense that I (or most faculty) know them well, but they are familiar in the sense of having followed a similar career path as many of us faculty (before they veered into administration). They are typically well respected (and well paid) for the important jobs that they do. I have been fortunate to work with excellent deans and associate/assistant deans over the years.

However, many of the Unusual Deans that I have been encountering recently are a bit less "familiar" in this way. Some of them veered into administration very early in their careers, and some are deans of "unfamiliar" (to me) things, like programs I didn't even know existed. Many (most?) are in the humanities or social sciences, so are exotic to me for other reasons.

This familiar/unfamiliar, usual/unusual designation is of course highly subjective (FSPcentric), relative to my own existence, and in no way implies criticism or a negative opinion of these exotic (to me) deans. I do, however, find myself wondering, from time to time: why does that position require a Dean? The more deans I encounter, the less sure I am what the title even means anymore. According to Wikipedia:

In academic administrations such as universities or colleges, a dean is the person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both.

I suppose one could spend a bit of time pondering what, exactly, "significant" means, but this definition is, ultimately, a bit unsatisfying in that "specific area of concern" is vague, although I can see that this is the part of the definition that refers to Deans of Students, Research Things, and so on.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter, I suppose, whether someone who has significant authority over a specific area of concern is a dean or something else, except that, at my institution, Deans of Whatever tend to have higher salaries than professors. I think that can be a source of unhappiness among the hard-working professoriate, especially if there seem to be a lot of these rather exotic dean-people, deaning in highly specialized areas of concern.

Tenure Times

A mid-career reader wants advice about writing a letter as part of the tenure evaluation of a candidate at another institution. In particular:

.. I don't know what the usual length, format, etc. is, and if/how tenure committees "read between lines" for certain cues, i.e. what do I need to do so that I send the intended message without inadvertently compromising it?

I have touched on this topic before, but I don't think I have ever discussed the specific information of length, format etc. My earlier posts on this topic started in 2007, then skipped a few years, then picked up again in 2010 with not one, not two, not three, but four posts on this general topic, then decreased to one in 2011.

Here are my answers to the reader's questions, although of course I hope that others will provide alternative information and suggestions from other disciplines:

Length: One page is too short, but how far you go beyond one page depends on how much substantive information you can provide -- this may or may not be a function of how well you know the candidate and/or the candidate's work. I think it may also be discipline-dependent. In several of the physical science and engineering fields with which I am familiar (and for which I have read external letters as part of the tenure evaluation), 2-3 pages (single spaced, on letterhead, 11-12 point font) is pretty standard, unless someone has really detailed knowledge of a candidate, in which case the letters may be slightly longer (but not by much). In a few other fields, however, very long letters seem to be the norm. For example, I have seen some astoundingly long letters for candidates in the math department. In these letters, the evaluators provided detailed descriptions of every article or other type of work produced by the candidate, in some cases taking us through proofs step by step. Some of these letters have lots of equations and read like lectures. I am not sure that happens in m/any other discipline (?).

Format/content: The request-for-letter cover-letter might provide some clues as to the desired format. Do they want you to address specific questions or topics? If so, you can do this if you want, using the questions as your framework for the letter. Or you can ignore the specific requests and write what you want. One thing that is good to address up-front, even if you are going to be a loose cannon with the rest of the letter/format, is how well and in what capacity you know the candidate. This sets the context for you letter, and is important information for people who will be reading the letter. If you don't have any other specific guides about format and are wondering what to write next, you could pick out a few publications (articles, conference proceedings, or whatever is most relevant) and explain why these are interesting and/or significant.

Something I do look for in the cover letter is whether those requesting the letter want me to comment only on research or also on other things. I may not feel that I have sufficient knowledge of the candidate's teaching and service (the typical 'other things' besides research), so I may not provide an opinion about this, even if asked, but at least I will know what the expectations are. This can be important, for example, if the request is strictly for comments on research/scholarship, in which case you may want to avoid mention of how great this person was on the organizing committee for the Science Conference Workshop Panel Thing. 

I wouldn't worry too much about the reading-between-the-lines issue. Some people do this no matter how you write the letter, and there's no point in getting psyched out about something you can't predict. I have seen letters that I thought were an unambiguous endorsement of a candidate -- letters packed with strong positive statements and substantive examples -- only to have a fellow committee member say But if they really thought X should get tenure, they would have put the word "very" in front of "spectacularly outstanding pioneering genius superstar".

So, don't worry about it. If you want to send a mixed message with both positives and negatives, just be clear about this and about your final opinion (Do you endorse this person for tenure or not?). If you want to be entirely positive, use lots of awesomely positive adjectives. And if you think the candidate does appallingly bad and pointless work, I am sure you can find some equally awesome adjectives to convey that. If you think they are mediocre, say so.

Probably the biggest pitfall -- in terms of sending a message you don't intend -- is if you compare the candidate to so-called peers. You may be asked to do this, or you may want to do this even if not asked. I refuse to do this because I think it is nearly impossible to do it in a fair way, and I have seen a few examples in which a letter-writer wrote X is a spectacularly outstanding pioneering genius superstar just like Z at Other Great University and I therefore support X 100% for tenure at Your University, only to have a committee member say But I think Z is an idiot..

If X is greater than or equal to Z, and Z is an idiot, then X must be.. some answer that depends on who is doing the math. Yes, I realize that this is contradicting my previous suggestion to forget about predicting what letter-readers might do, but I think this particular issue -- that of comparing people -- is a real mine-field.

Is anyone freaking out? Please don't. These are outlier examples that occur and are typically stomped on by the sane faculty members, who, believe it or not, have outnumbered the others in every case with which I have personally been involved in STEM disciplines. That is, I have not seen the outcome veer negative because of irrational read-between-the-liners.

My main advice is: just write a sincere ~2-page letter that has substance to it (examples, incidents) and an unambiguous statement of your opinion at the end and/or beginning of the letter.

What They Don't Tell You in the Non-Existent Training for this Job

File this under: I had no idea students did this.

In my so-called normal professorial existence, students considering applying to my department for graduate school and possibly wanting to work with me send me an email with various bits of information and assorted questions. I have written about this fascinating topic at length before.

But did you know that some students do this?: They go straight to the person they perceive as the 'top' (for example, a head/chair or other administrative leader of a unit/department/etc.) and explain their interest in graduate studies. They may or may not be interested in that person's particular field of research (most of us are, after all, still professors who teach and advise), but they seem to want to make contact with the "head" -- not the director of the graduate program, not the administrative assistant responsible for the graduate program, not the potential advisor/s (although some may write to these individuals as well) -- to announce their existence, their intentions, and to Ask For Things (advice, confirmation of their self-stated outstanding qualifications for graduate studies, etc.).

This surprised me, although maybe it shouldn't have. Does it surprise you? Is this normal behavior in your program or field?

My usual approach to these things is to be as non-judgmental for as long as possible. Some of the student email I get in my normal professorial existence can be classified as "clueless" (I am somewhat sympathetic to these, as I consider myself to have been among the clueless at the applying-to-grad-school stage of my life). But never in 57 million years would it have occurred to me to write to an administrator (other than the graduate director of a department) to introduce myself and lobby for admission.

Yes, I know it is best not to psychoanalyze a student's motivations in sending one of these emails, but that's what we do in blogs.. sometimes. Also, it doesn't really matter what I think about these students because I don't make the admissions decisions, even if some students seem to think that I do.

Pecking Order

While perusing some books and articles on academic administration, I tried to set myself a little challenge that would help me keep reading and not either fall into a boredom-induced stupor or fling the book/e-reader across the room because the author makes so many unjustified and insulting assumptions. And that challenge was to see how far in the book/article it took for me to find something, anything, that was interesting or useful to me.

For some of these books/articles, the challenge is never met and I wonder if this is more a reflection of my administrative inadequacies than the apparent boringness of the reading material, but in one book (by C.K. Gunsalus), I found one thing that perked me up for few moments, a few chapters into the book. And that was a statement that every member of the faculty and all of the "secretaries", as well as most of the grad students and other staff members in academic departments knows exactly what the "pecking order" of faculty is; that is, a hierarchy of sorts, based on I-don't-know-what, but indicated by various "intangible" things.

The intangible items that are listed are a bit bizarre and (along with the mention of "secretaries") made me check when the book was published: the Dean's sherry party? getting your own name on letterhead? etc. But let's ignore that and focus on the "pecking order" concept.

Without defining it or its basis any more than I already have(n't):

Do you think your department has a "pecking order" (and are you faculty, staff, or a student)? If so, what do you think the basis for it is? Research awesomeness? Personality? Other?

And what are the consequences? (salary, office/lab space, invitations to sherry parties)

Is this a bad thing, a neutral thing, a good thing?

I suspect that your comments will make for more interesting reading than any of these guides to academic administrating.

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new*

To: femalscienceprofessor@gmail.com

How come you are so fixated upon your gender.A female professor in science is nothing new.Should I state that I am a male professor and include that in every e-mail really?
Sent from my iPad

Yes, please do that.




* Samuel Beckett, male writer