Originally posted here.

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This is a posts that I kept remembering to sit down and write, only to forget yet again. I was reminded of it as I read this post by mathbionerd, to which I arrived somehow by tracking the good news that Dr Becca of Scientopia and Twitter fame had indeed been approved for tenure — congrats to Dr Becca!

The post is about boundaries between the PI and the graduate students/postdocs in a research group.

I have junior colleagues who meet with students at all hours, so 6-11 pm or weekends are not off limits.
Many PIs seem to have their group over for barbecue or holiday celebrations. Some PI take their groups to camping trips. Recently, I found out that the members of one research group are all expected to participate in certain 5k races, which really didn’t sit well with me.

In my view, any activity that is organized by the PI is not truly voluntary for students. There is always a power differential, and a student may feel like they have to attend even though they rather wouldn’t. For instance, late afternoon/evening/weekend meetings with the PI would have been a deal breaker for me in grad school as I had a kid in daycare; mandatory participation in activities like running 5k races isn’t everyone’s cup of tea or withing everyone’s physical abilities, and seems unfair to expect people to do.

Therefore, my students know (we have a document on the group website delineating what I expect and what they can expect from me) that I will not require their presence outside of 9-5 M-F. No late meetings or weekend meetings. When someone is about to leave the group, we go out to lunch during the week, somewhere close to work and I pay for everyone. I occasionally order pizza for the group for minor celebrations (again, during the week, and I pay). No one from my group has ever been to my house and I don’t see why that would be necessary. I don’t want to put the students in a situation where they have to do something they don’t want to because they think I might be upset if they refuse, even if I most definitely wouldn’t be. Our relationship is professional and as such benefits from solid boundaries between personal time and work time.

I would be delighted if my students all hung out without me, and I think there are some nice friendships in the group, but it’s all student-led and I have nothing to do with it. Maybe bonding experiences, like group barbecues and hikes and races, do really contribute to bonding, but this potential benefit is overshadowed (for me) by not wanting to impose on the group member’s personal time. Also, I certainly don’t expect them to spend their own money on the activities I require and they aren’t 100% free to refuse, such as the aforementioned lunches to say farewell to a group member.

I know that, once people join the “real world” they will likely have company retreats and perhaps intrusive managers who won’t respect personal time, which I think is all the more reason for me to be nonintrusive.

Dear readers, what is your attitude on group activities or other meetings requiring one’s presence outside of regular work hours?