A reader of the blog recently wrote me the following question:

I noticed in your bio you list your past experience as including a stint as a non-TT faculty member, and I was hoping you could detail a bit more about what that position entailed (rights and responsibilities, degree of independence) and offer some advice on how to make the transition from that to TT.

So, I’ll oblige.

Indeed, my first faculty position was a non-tenure track position. In my case this was a faculty position in title only (i.e. I was not was not yet independent), and was awarded to me basically so that I could submit my own grants. I had no service responsibilities, neither did I have any rights. In my institution truly ‘independent’ non-TT positions (where you are not reliant on another PI for space, salary etc) are incredibly rare. More usually- those on the non-TT faculty track remain employed in their postdoc lab… and are simply elevated to grant submission status.

If independent non-TT positions in my institution are rare, then folks who successfully move from non-TT to TT positions in my institution are vanishingly rare. DrMrA is federally funded tenured faculty in another college in the same institution- and that wasn’t a darn bit of help. The only thing that made a difference, was moving on to a full-scale job search, submitting about a billion applications all over the country. I had quite a few interviews, and a number of respectable offers. I did not have a federal grant at the time.

Times have changed since I was converted to TT, so how this is going to work is a bit of a wild card. The national academic job market right now is DREADFUL.  Why does this matter? Well, fewer jobs advertised, means fewer jobs you can apply for … a huge number of candidates means that short lists are stacked with AWESOME candidates… and all this translates into fewer offers for you. And even if all you want is to be promoted to TT faculty in the institution where you are currently non-TT, you need those competing offers.   I think you get the picture…. Go on the job market anyway.

Anyway- what happens if in all of your grant writing and submitting as non-TT faculty, you land a large federal grant… let’s just say, for the sake of discussion, that you are awarded an R01. Congratulations, you are in a strong position to get a TT job, but in a year where the academic job market is practically non-existent. NOW WHAT?

My own personal opinion on this one is that you might do several things.  First, go out on the job market for every job that you might be qualified for. Second, make back up plans that include working on the assumption that you are going to be staying where you are for a while and you want to have the most productive possible time. Make a mental list of what you absolutely cannot do without in the next year, and figure out who you have to talk to, to make those things happen. It seems like you might need independent space- lab and office, for yourself, any personnel you need to hire to accomplish the goals of your grant, and for equipment that you might need (everyone needs a refrigerator and a couple of freezers, and all these things have a footprint).  What else might you need, animal housing space, administrative support…?

How about promotion to the next step up on the non-TT ladder– I suppose this is a personal choice but I’m not sure it is something I would bother with. It isn’t going to make much of a difference in your job search, and I’m not sure what it gets you in your home institution.  How about a raise? Again- at my institution those on the non-TT are being paid by their post-doc advisor or off their own grants- so asking the department head for a raise isn’t something that would be very successful here. This probably varies from institution to institution.

Would my list of wants be extensive or conservative?  I suppose my lists are always extensive- just based on the criterion that if you don’t ask, you won’t get. But at the same time I would always remember that in my non-TT status, the department didn’t owe me ANYTHING. I was not an independent member of the department, whose salary was being paid, and whose career they were invested in with actual startup $$. In some ways, although it seems counter-intuitive- on the non-TT once you have a grant, and the department is ALREADY getting something of your indirect costs (IDCs)- they don’t have very much incentive to convert you to tenure track. Why? What will they gain- they already get your IDCs.

At that point threatening to leave and take your IDCs with you, plane ticket and competing job offer in hand, is the only approach that is very motivational for departments to convert you to TT. I suppose with that thought  in mind, I would plan to spend the year generating as much data, writing as many papers, and making myself as marketable as humanly possible.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post about a lot of cryin’ on the part of senior male faculty about the rate at which their young female grad students were dropping out of science after finishing  their Ph.D.s., coupled with an inability on the part of said faculty to educate themselves to recognize the reasons behind this phenomenon. In private, I did my best to provide the resources to these potential allies so that they might better understand this leaky pipeline… and on this blog, I implored said faculty to get off their asses and do something about that… think outside the box, become an ALLY. I offered a few suggestions, …. turns out you don’t even have to think very far outside the box.

This week I received an email from a colleague, it read:

Dear DrdrA:

I am organizing XYZ meeting, and I was wondering if you could help me out. I was looking over the schedules from previous XYZ meetings, and I was struck by the fact that the list of keynote speakers looked like this:

2008   Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2007  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2006  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2005  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2004  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2003  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2002  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2001  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

2000  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

1999  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

1998  Great Scientist, Woman, Ph.D.

1997  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

1996  Great Scientist, White Guy, Ph.D.

I am sure you can appreciate the paucity of women and minority keynote speakers at past XYZ meetings, and that is so obviously wrong.  I wonder if you could help me identify some great women and minority candidates who might be interested in giving the keynote talk at this meeting.

Thanks for all your help!

Senior Faculty Ally.

HOLY COW!! I couldn’t make up that list fast enough.

I’m totally thrilled that this colleague looked at the data, realized the overwhelming bias in favor of white guys (no offense to you white guys), thought about it, and took the next step to try to even out the balance. So, to add to my previous list of all the ways to encourage young women to stay in science… how about choosing EXCELLENT WOMEN SCIENTISTS and EXCELLENT MINORITY SCIENTISTS as your keynote speakers from time to time. And for all you women (and/or) minority scientists out there, how about making a mental or actual list of excellent women and/or minorities in your field that might be keynote speaker candidates… so that when an ally asks for your assistance, you are ready.

I’m fielding a couple of questions to be turned into blog posts, but this is going to take me a little time to get them into a readable format, so bear with me a little bit.

While I’m swamped I’ll just report a little on my family life. We got 3 notes home in the daily folder from school last week, reporting behavioral issues from LittleA. She had lots and lots of behavioral/disciplinary issues in Kindergarten a few years ago- these were mostly developmental in the sense that she is a bit young for her class and the personality match between her and her teacher was less than optimal. Those incidents were enormously stressful for me at the time, and actually we almost moved her from public to private school.  She’s been very VERY well behaved at school for the last two years. Until last week.

Note #1.:  LittleA was behaving loudly in the bathroom.

Ok, so we had a talk about keeping our voices down in the bathroom at school.

Note #2.:  While writing sentences at recess (25 of those ‘I will behave properly in the bathroom.’ type sentences), LittleA was having a great time, and was behaving too loudly with her friends (who were also writing sentences).

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Seems to me you want your kid to take their punishment with a good attitude- on the other hand, you might think they would have learned their lesson the first time. LittleA told me that she actually liked writing the sentences, and it improved her penmanship. Another set of sentences was ordered.

Note #3:  Please talk to LittleA about cutting a friend’s hair at school.

OH SHIT.

How do you teach people in your academic sphere about gender bias without waving a copy of various books on the subject in their faces and expecting them to actually READ them? ‘Cause- you know, it is pretty darn rare that you can get your colleagues to purchase, or even crack open your copy, of Virginia Valian’s fine book: Why so slow? Hmmm. I think there might be a new approach for this one…

I found this website for the Gender Bias Learning Project this morning, and I promptly started playing Gender Bias Bingo, and taking the little pop quiz. I’m in education, so I’m all about pop quizzes. And because many times I feel like I need an instruction book to navigate some of these biases, the GBLP has also provided a section on strategies for surviving gender bias, complete with short video presentations from some relevant experts. I haven’t watched many of them yet (meetings, manuscripts, and experiments all day), but I will later.

If you find this site useful, pass it on (and I’ll tweet it!). I think this is a great, and quick way to educate about, and teach people to recognize gender bias, in a simple, straightforward, and relatively time sparing way.

If you were looking for an answer to that up there, you’ve come to the wrong blog. I’m totally messing with you. PSYCH!

Seriously. I’m banging my head against that one, and I was reminded of my frustration about this in a post put up a few days ago from my blogging brother-in-arms Drugmonkey. I’ve been ruminating on that particular post for about three days now. At issue is a whole lot of grant money being spent to develop a web-based social networking technology for scientists.

I SO agree with DM that spending buckets full … entire banks full of federal grant dough…on inventing a whole new system so that scientists can network with each other seems pretty looney. The technology for people to network with each other across the web is out there, and I know that if you are reading this blog- it is highly likely that you are savvy to this already. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, FriendFeed, Linkedin, …and Google for EVERYONE (and others I am undoubtedly  forgetting, and I’m not linking I know you people can use google to find those web addresses)!.  These sites have this networking thing DOWN, tons of users, and been out there on the web for quite some time. My gosh, if you can find your mother’s uncle’s ex-wife’s daughter’s third husband that you lost touch with in 1980 on Facebook… surely you can find (and network with) that guy you met at the Gordon Conference that works on the importance of the 52nd amino acid in your favorite protein. Right?  Maybe he could have all his protocols and all his clinical collaborators listed on one of the sidebars? So that inventing a web networking tool for scientists thing… kind of seems like re-inventing the wheel to me already….seems smarter and faster to adapt existing networking technologies to ‘fit’ scientists…

But here is the problem with scientists and social networking- it is just like DM said they don’t understand or see the usefulness of it. Mention that you use Facebook or Twitter or Google Reader even (and that’s not even networking!) or heaven forbid… that you BLOG-  to your faculty colleagues, and you’ll be met with a bunch of blank stares.  This will be rapidly followed by comments on how your faculty colleagues would not want to, or have time to, read on Twitter about that ham sandwich XYZ person ate for lunch. I hear myself explaining for the 16 thousandth time that I’ve never read about what anyone ate for lunch on twitter… it DEPENDS if you follow the kind of people who post about their lunch, or not. You could always follow the kinds of people who post interesting techniques or papers that you care about… I’m just sayin’..

Anyway- your faculty colleagues have this mind-set not because they are not smart or savvy or whatever… simply because they aren’t convinced of the usefulness of social networking, or other kinds of web-based communication, like this to their career/project/lab etc. I’m telling you though- if there was a place on the web that I could hang out with a bunch of glycobiologists that work on O-antigen, or techie geeks who do biology in high throughput with robots and computers, or people who develop databases and tools to handle large quantities of various kinds of data… you wouldn’t be able to drag me away. I’m totally down with those topics and I want to talk to other people who are too. Web based social networking can connect me to all of those different kinds of people quickly and all at once… and that works infinitely better for me than having to contact people that might have the right expertise one at a frickin’ time.

So- if you all are sold-… how do we sell the other 99% of the scientific community on the uses and benefits of web based social networking to them. This is our challenge.  I say we all write editorials and opinion pieces for our society publications… to do a bit of re-educatin’

P.S.: And as an aside- we shouldn’t forget those ‘networking’ areas directed specifically toward scientists… even journals have their sites… like Nature Network…like PLOS (you can set up an account here and have a profile, but it is not really networking… far as I remember) and the PLOS blog… and even the societies are getting in the game now-… the American Society for Microbiology has its own site now called ASM Community,

P.P.S:  There is a brief related Post over at NeuroScoop.

P.P.P.S: Sorry for the lack of proper linkage in this post… I’m tired!!

Candid Engineer has a post up (since yesterday) about her recent experience at the Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position Workshop (at Rice)… her post is an excellent summary of what should be in your application package, plus other collective advice. I think generally the posts I have written on this topic, the posts Comrade Physioprof and Drugmonkey have written (I’ll find the links for y’all I just can’t do it this minute), and Candid’s post of yesterday all echo the same bits of wisdom again and again.

Dear Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine:

A couple of days ago I noticed that you posted on your website an old list of 50 ‘must-read’ blogs written by women in science and engineering, borrowed from another (?perhaps dubious?) website.

First, let me say- THANKS for noticing that there are many of us women (and our allies) out here in the blogosphere talking about issues related to being a woman in science/engineering/medicine etc! I think it is totally cool that you have picked this up- we’ve been having conversations out here for some time now, and between all of us we have quite a following. Many of us are the only woman in the departments that employ us, and this can be very isolating. Online communities, blogging, and social networking sites let us get together from all over the world and discuss relevant work and work-life balance issues in an immediate way.   Having legitimate and esteemed organizations such as yours, notice and promote us- goes a long way toward toward publicizing and increasing participation in these conversations. Promoting this venue and listening to the  conversations that occur here should spur some creative thinking about, and implementation of, innovative policies to increase the participation of women in STEM.  At least a girl can dream.

Second, I’d like to encourage you members of the CWSEM to go out there into the blog wilderness, and actually read some of our blogs, if you haven’t already. Check out the blogrolls on each of our blogs (mine is right down there on the right side of your screen!), and come up with your VERY OWN  list of blogs written by scientists, engineers, and doctors- both men and women, that discuss issues related to gender balance, family friendliness, navigating academia, grantsmanship, career development and the like. Then post YOUR favorites on your site!  Listing your own favorites will be infinitely more credible than posting a list you dragged up and parroted from somewhere on the internetz. Seriously.

I’ll be looking forward to seeing your very own list, I’ll keep my eye on your website!

Most Sincerely-

drdrA

See that witch pumpkin on the far right?

I carved that son-of-a-gun.

AFTER 3 glasses of wine.

In the dark.

I know my way around sharp objects, but in this case it is a miracle that I still have 10 fingers.

A mom’s got to do, what a mom’s got to do.

It is the small victories.

]]> http://bluelabcoats.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/mom-heroics/feed/ 8 drdrA 1742 http://bluelabcoats.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/cwsem-picks-up-list-of-50-must-read-blogs-written-by-women-in-science-and-engineering/ http://bluelabcoats.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/cwsem-picks-up-list-of-50-must-read-blogs-written-by-women-in-science-and-engineering/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:43:22 +0000 drdrA http://bluelabcoats.wordpress.com/?p=2385 ]]>

Apparently the list of the the 50 must-read women science bloggers that was posted months ago on the Phlebotomy Technician School website has caught the attention of the  Committee on Women in Science, Engineering and Medicine, a standing committee of the National Research Council (NRC).  The CWSEM  has re-posted this list of the top 50 ‘Must-Read Blogs’ written by women in science and engineering on its very own website. To quote from the PTS site that was re-quoted by CWSEM:

Women have long played an important role in scientific developments and discourse, however, this role has historically received relatively less recognition and coverage as compared to their male counterparts. Over the last few years, however, blogging has opened up a way for leading women in science to bring to light the important improvements women have made, the struggles they still encounter, and the strategies they set up for their work to be recognized.”

All I have to say is that’s pretty cool and… !WOOT! girls- we hit the big time! We may have started out on the PTS website, …. but we’ve been discovered by the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine…

I’m going to poke around a bit on their website… between manuscripts!

Not really. I just don’t like what journal club has become. It has become a boring recitation of a paper. Period.

Without any general overview of the subject and context from other related literature.

Without any enthusiasm for the subject, or understanding whether or why the topic is important.

Without explanation of important terminology and jargon- indeed sometimes without the understanding of the presenter of what the jargon means.

Without participation and discussion from the non-faculty in the audience.

Without the audience coming prepared by reading the paper… and gosh, we don’t even have to go to the library and photocopy it ourselves anymore.

I’m sick to death of it, and I’m not taking it anymore.

First, for all of you that are making an effort, I applaud you. Seriously. This goes for presenters and active participants alike. It is tough to get up there in front of an audience and present something that maybe isn’t your primary area of interest, give the background, learn the jargon- explain someone else’s work in a coherent and constructively critical way. You are only at the beginning of your training, your business is going include doing some permutation of these tasks every single day of your research career. Good on you for embracing this opportunity.

Second, for those of you that just show up- you have taken the first step and I applaud you for that- but journal club is yours to improve and learn from. You need to take the next steps now- READ the paper and ASK QUESTIONS.  Now don’t even tell me you were too busy to read the paper- you won’t find any sympathy from me on this one. I’ll bet you a million bucks that you and I don’t even measure busy on the same scale, and I read the paper in advance, and I looked up the jargon. This REALLY is not that time consuming, you could probably fit it in between PCR reactions.

Third- there is this issue of participation. I know you all are frightened to look like fools in front of the rest of the audience- but you are going to have to get over this one. Journal club is a fairly friendly, audience restricted venue- if you can’t test your participation skills here- where the hell can you test them?? At a Gordon Conference… or maybe at a Cold Spring Harbor meeting…?  Trust me on this one and test the waters of active participation at journal club at your home institution in a more limited venue.

And what is the absolute worst that can happen if you do participate?? You could get slapped down once or twice?! I KNOW that this is hard, and it feels bad… but I promise you that it is extremely likely that tomorrow no one except you will remember whatever thing you said- and you’ll be one question closer to confidence in this area.

Finally- don’t do this because you ‘have to’ or because I told you to. Show some intellectual curiosity about your chosen field…