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In the context of university-level service, I came across the record of a superb senior woman scientist. She is in her 80’s and not showing signs of slowing down. A few months ago, a different superb octogenarian scientist died, to everyone’s disbelief. Millie Dresselhaus was 86, larger than life and working as hard as ever. If you
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Whenever I attend a faculty meeting, it goes something like this: I tell myself I won’t open my mouth at all and will be a quiet, composed, respectable member of the faculty. I open my mouth. Words come out. I keep opening my mouth. More words come out. Some of them are funny and/or snarky. Who
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Faculty readers: How often do you travel for work? Include all trips (conferences, seminars, review panels, PI meetings, various advisory board meetings…) I seem to travel somewhere for work about once a month, and I feel it’s too much. I am really sick of it and will have to impose stricter limits on what I
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Recently, I lamented not submitting a polished single-PI proposal and instead going with what I felt wasn’t a particularly strong collaborative proposal as my one and only allowed submission within the annual unsolicited proposal window for a particular NSF program. I have several outstanding proposals to the NSF; of those, this collaborative proposals is the one I
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A lovely new review of “Academaze” in POSTDOCket, the newsletter of the National Postdoc Association, written by Hanaa Hariri! Thanks, Hanaa! http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/?page=postdocket_04175 The review calls the book “A Candid and Humorous Look at Life on the Tenure Track” “Academaze is insightful, inspiring, and entertaining.” Go read!
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I have a junior colleague (JC) who’s just phoning it in when it comes to teaching. JC’s been very successful in raising funds, writing grants, and advising students. JC travels a lot and is making themselves known. JC’s teaching evaluations are below average, but JC doesn’t really care. JC considers teaching a tax to be paid for the
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As I get older, I don’t have the work stamina that I used to. However, I can still work 8, 10, 12 hours per day on technical stuff (writing papers or proposals) and always come home fired up and ready for more. But working with people completely drains me and I can’t keep my eyes
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A student has been scoring in the 60s and 70s in a class where the average score on the tests is in the mid-70s. He’s not failing, but he won’t be getting a great grade, either. He doesn’t come to class or office hours. He submits homework only intermittently. He tells me that he’s too busy
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Creating PPT presentations is on my mind. (I don’t use PPTs in class, so this is not about lectures with PPTs.) Recently, I have witnessed a midcareer/senior academic who should be at the top of their game (mid-to-late 50s, lots of accolades on the CV) deliver an abysmally bad talk during a seminar in the context
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Often, as I read the external letters of evaluation written by experts in support of the tenure cases of stellar junior faculty, I wish these young professors knew how highly the senior colleagues thought of their work. Some of these letters are full of genuine praise and admiration. If you are an academic, it’s likely that you sometimes —
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