Extreme science couponing

There is a show on TV called Extreme Couponing.  I have no idea what it is about (couponing, I suppose), but in the promo spots, the host looks blissfully happy as she tosses coupons up into the air.

How lovely would it be to be so happy about science purchases?  Where are my coupons for buy one pipet box, get one free?

Of course, if I tossed Fisher catalogs around with such enthusiasm, not only would my students have final confirmation that I've lost it, but I'd likely end up with a concussion.  Or two.


What would be your ideal coupon?

Science resolutions at a PUI

Happy last day of 2010!

Some of you might be super happy to see it go, while others had a fabulous year (hmm...I smell a blog roundup/carnival?).

Now is the time when we make our resolutions for the upcoming year.  My life is split up into three main categories, Teaching, Research, and Life.  (I'll save how they each make up my day for a later post...I don't want to freak out any of you considering PUI positions....it is the holidays, after all.)  Because of this, I always make resolutions for each area of my life.

In past years, my teaching resolution has been let's just get through this.  Now that I'm more established, I feel like I can start focusing on specific areas.

For research, I just want some damn publications.  To get publications, you have to just suck it up and write up your stuff.  While this might sound very easy, particularly to those of you at research institutions, I assure you it is not.  Doing research at a PUI brings in many new issues with respect to publishing.*  The pace of research is much, much slower.  Funding is a huge issue.  Just getting your institution to agree to matching funds can be a giant hurdle.  And how are you going to write a grant when you have two new preps?  Something I didn't expect was how intimidating it would be to submit publications under my new institution rather than LargeU.  Call me crazy, but work done at small PUI is viewed differently than work completed at Big Name Research U.

For Life, I usually resolve to keep a better balance between life and work.  Ha.  For 2011, I'm going to keep it more attainable.  I am going to read more (Any!!) non-work books.  I have a number in my head that I'd like to reach by Dec 2011, but I'm going to keep it there, for now.


Have you made any resolutions for 2011?



*while perhaps these issues aren't specific to PUIs, I never encountered them as a grad student.  Maybe this is because I wasn't the PI, but I believe it has more to do with institution reputation and the emphasis on research at R1s.

Grad school: best of times or worst of times?

It seems that each week I am asked to tell my Tales From Grad School to another Undergrad.  I am always honest about my grad experiences, which, as some of you know, boarded on the semi-awful to the what-the-hell-was-I-thinking awful.

Of course I'd do it all over again!

This past week, an Undergrad commented that he had thought grad school sounded like so much fun, but then after talking with all the profs, he wasn't so sure.

Oops.

Are you honest with your undergrads about your grad school experiences?  And on the scale of awful, where did (does) your grad school life fall?

Adjusting expectations at a PUI

I'm a tenure track professor at a predominately undergraduate institution (PUI).  Current grad students often ask me what's the most important thing I've learned about my job.  In my opinion, the most helpful thing I've learned in my first two years here is to adjust expectations.

I've adjusted my expectations about scholarship.  With my undergraduates only spending four to six hours a week on research, I have had to recalibrate with respect to research productivity.  Research tasks that would take me a week to accomplish might take my students all semester.  I don't anticipate submitting a paper before June.

I have also lowered my expectations about the strength of incoming students.  I've found that I can't take for granted that my freshmen are coming into college with the math and writing skills that I would expect.  More time is taken in the first semester to bring all students up to speed on written communication and problem solving.  Would it be awesome to just teach to the top 10% of my class?  Of course.  Would it get me tenure?  I doubt it.

Perhaps the biggest adjustment is to the state of funding.  My start up funds were not too terrible, but I can't bank them for next year.  I have to spend everything up and just hope I can get enough preliminary results to warrant a Big Funding Agency to decide that I deserve to be in the special top 13% group (or whatever the funding line is).  There are essentially no internal funds here, so I have to get outside funding.  This is a daunting enough of a task at a research institution, let alone at a PUI.  And so I've learned to not be surprised by the lack of internal and external funds here.  What if I run out of money next year?  Me stressing about the worst case scenario certainly won't help my undergrads be more productive.  All I can do is keep truckin'.



Now, should I passively accept subpar students or a paucity of funding?  Of course not.

But it certainly helps me maintain my sanity if I can adjust my expectations for the time being.

Smile-- you're on candid lab video!

Excimer over at carbon-based curiosities recently wrote about the lab sabotage scandal at UM.

The sabotage was ultimately confirmed by video from some hidden cameras. One was placed by a lab fridge and the other in the cold room.

After reading about the situation, two thoughts immediately popped into my head:

1. Wow, I'm glad the culprit got caught.

2. I wonder how many saboteurs do NOT get caught?

After stewing on the latter for a bit, I had to wonder about the hidden cameras.

There were times in grad school that I could have sworn that The Boss had us under surveillance. We as a group often joked about it.

But what if there really WAS a lab version of a Nanny Cam? Where would it go? A beaker wouldn't work, but the back of the hood has some possibilities. Or a pipet stand. Or one of the empty boxes that get stored on the top of the reagent shelves for three years for no good reason.

Just imagine the things a PI would suddenly be privy to. Happy data dances? Tears of frustration? Lab altercations?

What lab behaviors do YOU hope stay hidden from your PI (or from your students)?

Research with students

As many of you know, I am at a primarily undergraduate institution. I do all of my research with undergraduates.

While I have always assumed that the last statement goes without saying, I've recently learned that some of my peers do their research WITHOUT students.

Is this okay? Is it field dependent?

I always thought that it went without saying that the PI should, no matter what the classification of the school (or discipline, for that matter), do research with her students. Heck, even as a grad student I worked with undergrads.

So please tell me: is it okay or absurd to do research without students?

Press 'n' Seal for the lab

Press 'n' Seal is like the parafilm of the kitchen, only BETTER!! I love this stuff. Anyone use it in lab yet?

Journal clubs: useful or useless?

In grad school, my division did not have a journal club. I knew many, many (particularly bio-oriented research divisions) that did.

The grad students I knew were split pretty evenly with respect to their feelings about mandatory journal clubs. Some thought it was extremely helpful. Others....not so much.

Back then, while I had a vague sense that journal club probably had some value, mostly I thought it was a waste of time.

Now, I'm thinking of starting a version of a journal club with my undergraduate researchers. Is that sick or what?

So tell me. Are journal clubs useful? How were yours run?

Dangling the carrot: research with undergrads

Practically a lifetime ago, I posted about undergrads needing incentives to complete coursework.

I've found that the same is true for my researchers. Sure, some undergrads will be motivated to research just for the sake of doing the research. But, in my experience, most of my undergrads need an additional incentive for their lab work.

In grad school, The Boss would dangle the promise of a C/N/S paper in the hopes that that would motivate me. (It didn't. The best motivation was getting a graduation date. Duh.)

For some of my undergrads, the promise of coauthorships really excites them. I have another who is really motivated by the potential for travel to conferences. My newest student wants to accomplish a lot on his research project so he can be competitive for top graduate programs.

(And I should note that while The Boss made-- it turns out-- empty promises, I know that I will, DAMMIT, get some papers out, take my students out of state, and get them into the best grad programs. Dammit.)

What's the most effective carrot for YOUR researchers (undergrads, grads, or post docs)?

Balancing summer teaching with research

Here at PermaU (a primarily undergraduate institution), it is very hard to get any substantial research done during the academic year. My undergraduate researchers typically worked four hours a week when regular classes were in session. You can imagine (or perhaps know first-hand) how little can get accomplished in 4 hours.... by an undergrad.

Thus, the summers are the only time I can really move projects forward. If I want to have enough done before tenure, I have no choice but to work in the summer.

This summer I had two undergraduates working for 12 weeks. My summer class started in the last half of their research time. Was I able to balance two undergraduate researchers with my teaching responsibilities? Short answer: sort of.

It wouldn't seem that much different than the academic year, right? After all, I have undergraduate researchers in the fall/spring and even MORE classes to teach. In reality, the demands from both category are much higher in the summer. My research group does much more involved protocols. I also am working with underclassmen, so they have to be taught everything. The summer permits the time needed to learn (and repeat) lab techniques, dive into the literature, and really learn how to keep a notebook. (oh, the notebooks.)

My class also requires a lot more out of me. Typically I have off days in between lecture days. In the summer, I give two to three hours of lecture every day. The students are, in general, weaker as well. A majority of them are repeating the class after failing or withdrawing. Many of them hold summer jobs to pay for the class. All are burned out after the first summer class. Far more pep talks are required.

The key to maintaining my sanity-- and ensuring that we ALL had a productive summer-- was keeping lots of lists. I have a dry erase board in my lab, so each morning before class, I would meet with my researchers in the lab and together we would all map out the day's goals. Then I would help them list the steps to accomplish the various tasks. Sometimes this would require gory detail. Other days, I let them figure it out on their own. (Note that I couldn't let them do this every time, due to a few restraints we had from grant deadlines or the nature of the research.)

While I was in class, my students worked in the lab. They would go to lunch before I got out of class, so that left me a few moments to myself-- no class or lab students. I would meet with my lab group after they returned from lab to go over what they got accomplished in the morning. By the time the meeting was done, it was time for me to return to my summer class for the laboratory portion. After that finished, I met with my undergrad researchers again.

Rinse, repeat.

Frequent communication was the most important thing for me to keep my research going. What do you do--with undergrads or grads-- to make sure that the research ball keeps rolling?

The happiest I've been all summer

I think it says a lot about my current state of life that the following (all of which have happened in the last two months) did NOT make me the happiest I've been all summer:

• Getting a co-authored paper of previous work submitted
• Having Undergrad get through summer research with only three (very mild!) burns
• Making it through a (short) semester with no criers
• Receiving my first (teeny-tiny) grant
• Watching a movie with N.A. cell phone free

Want to know what really made this shallow assistant prof happy?

It's time to make it work! Tim Gunn is back on tonight! Love him. Want him. Must have him come live in my closet.

Begging, borrowing, and stealing in the name of research (at a PUI)

Starting a research lab at a PUI can be a challenging experience. Startup funds can be minimal, and sometimes you don't get them right away due to budget issues. (ahem) The consumables that you completely take for granted in grad school, such as acetone, pipet tips, centrifuge tubes, etc., become a Really. Big. Deal.

So this is what the first half of 2010 was all about: how can I beg, borrow, or steal various lab necessities in order to minimize the blow to my start-up funds.

Did you hear the one about the kid who traded up a cell phone for a porsche? Imagine if we did that in lab! I can see it now. I give my undergrad a Fischer click pen. Undergrad trades it for a TLC plate. The TLC plate gets traded for an NMR tube, which in turn gets bartered for a wash bottle. Eventually Undergrad makes it to a 1-mL eppendorf pipet. What to trade for next?

The possibilities are endless, especially given the random contents of most of my colleague's labs.

What a great way to solve my budget issues! Trade all the useless crap from professors long gone for stuff I need.

scientiae-carnival

Why flighttracker was my best friend in grad school

Professor in Training recently posted about how the mice react at the prospect of the cat going away.

I was in the first group of graduates of The Boss. The Boss was very hands-on (which was great at times, annoying at others, and occasionally prevented me from getting ANYTHING productive done).

When other PIs left town, their graduate students breathed a sigh of relief. Work hours were more relaxed. Group meetings weren't held. Kegs appeared in the cold room (that was only a one-time event, I'm told).

In our group, it was a HUUUUUUGE relief when The Boss went out of town.... at least while the plane was in the air. Once electronic devices could go back on, the barrage of email requests began. Is the manuscript draft ready? Make this figure for my talk. What is wrong with you?

Since the only time The Boss unplugged (and therefore left us alone) was when a flight was in progress, we all became fans of flight tracking programs. Other graduate students thought we were total freaks (true) for knowing the flight details of The Boss, let alone would track the actual flight for precise landing times.... but we relished our freedom. Flight delays were celebrated....with impromptu happy hours. We savored our beers all the more with the knowledge that we weren't missing emails or calls from The Boss.

A few months ago I received the saddest email from a former group member who is still in graduate school with The Boss:

Hi Unbalanced,

The Boss has wi-fi on the flight. Our safe time is no more.

~Coworker



On the plus side, now coworker won't need to panic when the flight tracker fails.

menacing machines

I think that it is pathetic that I can confidently use mind-boggling instrumentation in the lab, yet the prospect of using the weed whacker makes me desperately scan the radar for rain...any excuse to avoid having to attempt to edge my yard.




Guess it's time I serve myself a big cup of "suck it up."

Getting back into research

If you teach at a primarily undergraduate institution, then you know firsthand how challenging it is to get research done during the academic year. Resources are scarce, and most undergrads at a PUI can only commit a handful of hours a week in the lab...if that.

It's been so refreshing / stimulating / exhausting to be thinking about research again. With my research students on holiday for another week and a half, I have all day to myself to read, think, and write. The jump from very little research activity to fulltime lab work can be a bit of a shock to the system, as some of you have pointed out. For example, PUI prof wrote about her perspective in a recent post.


All I can hope for is a productive summer. It's hard enough to get funded in ANY research lab, let alone once just staffed by undergraduate researchers.*




*which is a post in and of itself!

Most wonderful time of the year (part 3)

Almost a lifetime ago, I though that the most wonderful time of the year was when I got to leave the lab to go to Home State for a few days. My favorite part was reverting back to solo driving, rather than sharing my commute:

No more playing avoid-touching-the-undergrad on the bus. (Duh, 'cause they're a little smelly and sticky. Seriously. There's this one freshman that always smells like bacon. Ugh)

A bit later, I decided that LargeU's Candidate Season, was the best time of the year. Squirming candidates? As long as it isn't me, sign me up! I wrote a trio of (very, very bad) haikus to commemorate the Season, including one I called "Haiku for an nth year":

Feeling guilty now.
Should really apply for jobs.
Just came for the food.

But now I've decided that the most wonderful time of the year is actually RIGHT NOW. Grades are submitted(!!!!!), and the undergrads are (mostly) gone. Summer classes don't start for a couple of weeks, so I've sent my summer researchers away to catch up on sleep or whatever those crazy kids do these days.

Today I sat in my office for four hours straight without interruption. With the door open! Ah, bliiiisssssssssss!

I'd better not get used to this....

List of Weekend Wants

Things I would like to happen by the end of the weekend (in no particular order):

1. sleep. SLEEP. sleeeeeep!

2. Catch up on my grading.

3. Think about research. Or not.

4. Write 23049803 reference letters. (Anyone else think that writing reference letters can really be teh suck?)

5. Get groceries. (Not that I mind PB sandwiches for lunch and dinner....)



As you can see, it's going to be a VERY exciting weekend.

Visiting Ass. Professor: Advantages (Part II)

(Part I, Teaching Advantages)

As a reminder, I went straight from grad school at LargeU to a Visiting Ass. position at TempCollege (a small, liberal arts school) to PermaU (a small, liberal arts school). They are all many miles and time zones apart.

Today I will address the research advantages (for me, for my chosen career path) to doing a Visiting Ass position.


Research

Keep in mind that most (do any?) Visiting Ass. positions do not require any research to be done. In fact, some places will downright discourage it.

You can take a break. There's no tick-tock of the tenure clock. No one expects you to do any research. You can take the nine months to regroup and recharge. I had no idea how burned out I was on 15 hour lab days until I got away from LargeU. I let two weeks pass before I even so much as clicked on an ASAP article feed. Then something unexpected happened. I started reading articles on subjects far removed from my thesis work. And most unexpectedly of all, I was actually interested in them. Not interested in a "oh, neat experiment" way but interested in a "oh, I think that could be followed up with X" or "wow, I should really try that" way.

I don't know if my situation was unusual or not, but in grad school perhaps because of lack of time or perhaps because of research snobbery (or maybe a combo of both), I just didn't typically find research outside of my project all that inspiring. Sure, I would attend (nearly) every departmental seminar, and I even frequently attended those outside of my college. I found other people's work interesting. I just didn't picture myself venturing outside of my research comfort zone. With my head clear, I was able as a Visiting Ass. to broaden my literature horizons and really think about research topics that I found interesting. My career goals did not include working at an R1 or even very tippy top PUI (and if they had, certainly I would have done a post doc!), so I knew I had the freedom to start pursuing areas in which I wasn't necessarily an expert.


You probably don't have time anyway. The reality of the first year at a primarily undergraduate institution is that you are, with only a few rare instances, doing completely new preps for classes in which there is an extremely high expectation level. (Maybe the high expectation level will only come from yourself!) Having research thrown into the mix could push you over the edge. At both TempCollege and here at PermaU, undergrads put in only a handful (as in four) hours of work a week during the academic year. Anything more is likely not going to happen; summers are for research. Would I have gotten research done at TempCollege if I absolutely had to? Probably, but certainly my teaching would have suffered.


Or maybe you DO have time! If you are so inclined, by all means do research during your Visiting Ass. time. It looks very appealing to hiring committees. It is very important to find out if your Visiting Ass. institution is open to the idea of you doing research and if they will give you any financial support. Most places will be supportive if you don't require any major purchases. Can you do projects with what they already have? Perhaps you can wrap up some data analysis from grad school? Can you run calculations while you are in the classroom?


(Stay tuned for more posts on the advantages and disadvantages of a Visiting Ass. job.)

sense of entitlement?

During my time here at LargeU, I've had the...ummm...opportunity to meet all kinds of graduate students. None irritate me more than those that feel that they are entitled to a Ph.D. And I'm not going to go off on a "a Ph.D. is a privilege" or any crap like that.

I just think that a Ph.D. requires a lot of hard work. For the sciences, this hard work roughly translates into slave labor as you balance 70+ hours a week in the lab and often coursework and often TAing. Grad school is not for the feint of heart. Grad school is not for everyone.

So I get really irritated when I hear / talk to / see Facebook references (yeah, yeah, I know) to fellow graduate students (that openly do NOT spend even 40 hours a week in lab OR have to take classes anymore OR TA) bitching about how they can't wait to get past this horrible thing called graduate school and out into the real world where they have no BS to deal with or hoops to jump through. These types of people are not working hard and merely using up grant money for their RAs (now at least they are conserving money by not spending it on lab supplies!!)

People like that have gotten kicked out of my research group. For a variety of reasons, other PIs in my department have been more tolerant.

To be clear, I don't begrudge those who can come in, do their 8-5 M-F, and get results. I simply can't do that. What I don't like to see are slackers that barely get by their classes, do a crappy job teaching, get virtually no research accomplished and then still get a Ph.D. from LargeU.

You know the type of grad student I'm talking about. I'm sure you can elaborate.

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." ~Ernest Hemingway

YoungFemaleScientist has a nice post discussing the PI-mentee relationship, describing it in terms of master and apprentice.

During my time at LargeU, several new hires were made. One was a senior hire (and a very, very famous one, at that). Multiple labs, a large conference room, and numerous offices were promised in order to bring in this established research group. Despite being a very Large U indeed, space here at LargeU is quite limited. As a result, other groups down sized lab space, shuffled offices, and, in a few cases, were relocated to entirely different locations on campus.

Research space here (and at most of your schools, I'm sure) is the hot commodity. It's a carrot that has been dangled in front of many a PI for various reasons over the years. If you are not productive as a PI (as judged on high by other faculty members)-- meaning no grants, no graduates, no publications, or some combination of the three, you lose your research space. In my <5 years here, I've seen at least nine faculty lose their lab space to some degree-- in some cases, completely.

In contrast, a few years ago a senior faculty member (and a very, very famous one, at that) semi-unexpected died. Although no plaques were hung or memorials dedicated, the lab and offices were locked and left as they were. Even more unsettling, the research posters are still hanging in the hall, despite the fact that all of the students have since moved to other institutions. I find it very strange that the lab space vultures haven't moved in on this prime real estate.

Could it be that the LargeU PIs have some unspoken rule about moving in on a dead man's space? How is this different then when they swoop in on lab space of a non-funded (i.e. dead financially) group?