Professor mamas 2011 - Page 5

[Dmitrizmom]

OMG...  I had to share or I might burst... I have an interview for a tenure track position at one of my alma maters!   Woot! 

[kerc]

WOOT!!!

[kaybee]

Originally Posted by Dmitrizmom 

OMG...  I had to share or I might burst... I have an interview for a tenure track position at one of my alma maters!   Woot! 

Great news!  Good luck with the interview!!!

[kerc]

WWYD, field people (like some of the geologists):

I'm scheduled to go tomorrow to the science museum (with a huge fossil exhibit) in big city 2.5 hrs from here. I can't actually drive a university rented vehicle because they haven't approved me as a driver ( despite having done the paperwork in early march). However I have 11 students, 3 drivers among them. So I'm renting 2 vans and off we go.

Fast forward to last weekend: I learn my SIL is gravely ill (in the ICU with pneumonia that isn't responding well to antibiotics). SIL/BIL have a 6 yo + a 1 month old. My out of state inlaws happened to be visiting me and they left early to go down and have been taking care of baby + big sister since about last Saturday. Neither is really a baby person and when we talk on the phone they sound at their wits end. One of us (DH or myself) is going down this weekend to help. The logical person is me to care for the baby (dh is not a baby person).  "Down" = same major metro area as my field trip.

WWYD: my department chair said it was ok to send students back on their own and just drive my own vehicle down tomorrow. I could spend the night and basically save myself 5 hrs in the car. But that means I send 11 students off to drive 140 miles without me in university vehicles.

[kaybee]

Kristin - Sorry to hear about your SIL.  That's scary!  I bet your in-laws will be thrilled to have you there to help out.

I have sent students to the "big city" in a van on their own and just met them there.  They are adults and should be able to handle it.  Just give them your contact info, meet them at the museum, lead them on their trip, and then send them home.  Your chair sounds fine with it, too.  You couldn't be in both vehicles at once anyways, and it's not like they have to drive some complicated roads to get there.  Honestly, we send our students out for a week camping trip en route to field camp, on their own, in university vehicles.  It'll be ok.

[kerc]

Originally Posted by kaybee 

I have sent students to the "big city" in a van on their own and just met them there.  They are adults and should be able to handle it.  Just give them your contact info, meet them at the museum, lead them on their trip, and then send them home.  Your chair sounds fine with it, too.  You couldn't be in both vehicles at once anyways, and it's not like they have to drive some complicated roads to get there.  Honestly, we send our students out for a week camping trip en route to field camp, on their own, in university vehicles.  It'll be ok.

That's pretty much what I thought. But there's a LOT of hand holding that goes on here ....  the biggest issue is fueling the vehicles before they return them. I trust one of the drivers and I'll just give her cash.

[Dmitrizmom]

Kerc - I think you're fine to send them home on their own.  :)

First final here is tonight at 5:30.  Just did the final proof and modifications on my exam about 10 minutes ago. LOL... 100 questions to be answered on a scantron sheet to make grading easy.

Still have to write the final for Anatomy which is on Monday morning... 200 questions in multiple guess, matching, labeling (with an obnoxiously large word bank) format.  Labeling is going to take up quite a bit of it, I think.

Final for Environmental Science is already written and exam isn't until Wednesday.  One last class with them and we're going to finish watching Avatar - they have to write a 1 page report on the environmental issues raised by the film.

Oh... my fun this week - I get to go talk to the 6th graders that the local middle school about the circulatory system.  I'm taking a couple stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, maybe my tuning forks and oto/ophthalmoscope.  We're going to do a conga line with colored stones to demonstrate movement of oxygenated blood out to the tissues and deoxygenated blood back to the heart and then the lungs.  :)  Hoping it works as well as I think.  I've got about 40 minutes per group (3 groups).

I interview next Thursday, and there is the potential that, if that doesn't work out, I might be considered at my current position for full time in 6 months to a year.

[RosieL]

Hi Ladies. This thread is brilliant - I'm getting insight into my future life, it seems, that I don't think I'd see elsewhere. I'm a first-year PhD student (and am trying to conceive). I have a dilemma that I don't feel I can talk to anyone about. I'm hoping you might have some insight and that you don't mind me joining in.

I am in a social science field working as a GA for Famous Professor. She and a couple colleagues have written two papers with a dataset they scraped form the web. One of the papers was rejected and the other is descriptive, not really A-journal worthy. I like the context they're working in, and I proposed an idea last year. They passed me up on my idea.

This year I presented the idea to another prof, who believes it's really interesting. Together we made it crisp and clear, and I can articulate it much more convincingly now. The prof I'm working with doesn't want me talking to Famous Professor about this idea because she and colleagues might be tempted to steal it. Yesterday, Famous Professor asked me point-blank what I'm working on with the other prof, and upon hearing the general idea (I didn't get to the core) she kind of warned me off her territory (the public dataset). At dinner last night Famous Professor's other grad student brought up their paper on the topic ans she shushed him right away. 

I hate this situation. I'm a really open person, and usually have a lot of faith that people/colleagues won't steal from each other. I wish we could all work together on the idea. I'm not sure why we can't, other than the author list getting too long. I'm also scared that I will look like the one who is wrong, by working on research involving their area of interest.

I don't have a direct question fo you, I'm curious if this is something that happens all the time, rarely, and whether you guys have any advice. I don't think anyone is being malicious here, but I do think that there's a reason Famous Professor is famous...she's ambitious and takes opportunities when they come.

[namaste_mom]

I would let them go back alone....

I live just outside of Tuscaloosa, one thing about a huge tornado roaring through and killing 200 people two days before class ends, no finals. Of course, that is sarcasm. My family and I were in the bunker of the department I work in (aka the basement). Thank goodness. I feel like that is the safest place in all of the city. The devastation is unbelieveable.

[kaybee]

Namaste - I'm glad to hear your family is ok, and my heart goes out to your community.  The pictures I've seen are frightening.

Rosie - Welcome!  I wish I had some advice.  The obvious thing to do in a perfect world is to have everyone collaborate together - your dataset, my idea, let's have fun with this.  But it sounds like there is bad blood already there and you are caught in the middle.  I have been one half of a situation like this before, with the other professor telling her students not to talk to me or get any advice from me (or have me as their co-advisor which they both wanted to do). Except that I was perfectly willing to collaborate, give the students advise w/o being their official advisors, and so on.  In the end, she left, so the situation kind of sorted itself out (and now I'm advising both students).  It was immensely frustrating to see the students caught in the middle (i.e. wanting to work/talk with both of us, but being told by prof #1 not to do it).  

One. week. left.

And I just got an extra bonus day.  I was supposed to be out in the field, in a cold rainstorm today.  We drove 2 hours north only to find that many of the roads were still officially closed for winter, and those that weren't had too much snow and mud to really be passable (esp. after the rainstorm hit).  So we bagged it.  

[kaybee]

Two more hours until my last lecture - yay!  Then it's just finals and grading.  

My sense of relief that comes with the end of the semester is now being overtaken by my sense of panic of all the things I need to finish before I head out for 3 weeks of field work in mid-June.  I wish the summer could just arrive with a sense of relief and not with panic.  As always, I am overbooked this summer.  It doesn't help that summer is also the time when my kids get to sign up for sports.  Now that the youngest is old enough for t-ball, we will be at the baseball fields 3 or 4 nights a week this summer.  

Good luck finishing up your semesters!  (And hang in there for those of you on quarters!)

[Geofizz]

Yes, I struggle this time of year - all you semester folks are looking at the end, and I've got 4 more weeks looming.

Class is going ok, though, with a TA who is doing much better than I thought she would.

I'm editing the second to last draft of my soon-to-be-done PhD student's paper, and nagging my other students to write.  Conferences next month (eeeek!).

My kids are DONE with school for the year.  DS is out of preschool in 4 more days of school (grrrrr), and DD has another month.  Summer will be tough to orchestrate as DS still isn't old enough for most camps that last more than 90 minutes a day.  We called and begged to send him to the grade 1-3 chess camp because it was The Only Thing On Earth he wanted to do this summer.  No dice.  Too young.  Kids that young are too young to learn chess.  Fine.  He beats me on a regular basis, but he's too young.  Got it.

So we've got a daily sitter who will have clear instructions to do anything but stay home.

[kerc]

Originally Posted by Geofizz 

So we've got a daily sitter who will have clear instructions to do anything but stay home.

Which IMO is just as important as camps are. Can s/he bring them up here? Rumor has it Kaybee's oldest is beating his way through chess club (but that he's also a nice winner). We are shopping for a 2 mornings a week nanny. We have a person in mind, but she doesn't have her work schedule yet from her other job.

I've spent my whole day in a department symposium. Some projects are better than others. My student is last. His project is good. His performance, well, that's another story.

Then 5 days of class + finals. Then on to more important stuff like writing papers and proposals.

I'm so pleased it is Friday. So.very.pleased.

[Geofizz]

Originally Posted by kerc 

Which IMO is just as important as camps are.

Of course, if it's more than doing the same thing every day.   The thing is, he wants to do chess camp.  Very, very badly.  My kids develop a lot of inertia, and our sitter isn't great about defeating it and getting them out the door, so I fear a summer of doing not much.

Department symposia can be great or horrid.  Often leaving little in between.

[Dmitrizmom]

Congrats on the ends of the semesters to everyone already at the end, and best wishes to those approaching the finish line. :)

I had my interview yesterday..  I think it went really well, but they have 1 or 2 other candidates to interview. I will know by the end of the month. 

[kerc]

Academic mamas:  how does future plans play into hiring for you -- would you hire someone (into a tenure track position) knowing they have plans to move to a bigger pool in 3-5 years? Should this even be a question?  (I feel like maybe female science professor has a blog about this .... just need to make time to search). I'm serving on a search committee and this question has come up as an ethical question.  I'm toying with it in my brain.

[Dmitrizmom]

A lot can change in 3 - 5 years.  Heck, a lot can change in 6 months!  It is entirely possible that the person in question will decide that they like the position and stay long term.  Or it is possible that you hire someone who has no other plans and things just don't work out. 

[Geofizz]

Agreed.  You cannot and should not make a hire based on what you think that person might do 3-5 years down the road.  The person may love it there and decide not to leave, the person may not be able to find a job in a bigger pond: the number of jobs might start to increase then, but the pool of applicants will be huge with a backlog of people with 5-10 years post-doc + pretenure experience, and the person might not be bigger pond material after all.

Other things to consider:  If the position is 90% teaching, then you lose the time spent on the hiring committee and the early career mentoring, but little else.  However, if the person is being hired to establish a university lab (not her own research lab), an instructional program, or other very long term project that cannot be handed to a new hire in 5 years, then it would be unethical for that person to take the job knowing they'll jump ship shortly.  Launching some projects/new curricula/new programs, however, are 3-5 year jobs, and it might be time for that person to move on after handing off the work to someone new.

[kerc]

Originally Posted by Geofizz 

Agreed.  You cannot and should not make a hire based on what you think that person might do 3-5 years down the road.  The person may love it there and decide not to leave, the person may not be able to find a job in a bigger pond: the number of jobs might start to increase then, but the pool of applicants will be huge with a backlog of people with 5-10 years post-doc + pretenure experience, and the person might not be bigger pond material after all.

I totally agree. There's the potential that this location/person might be a ho-hum position or there's room for lots of growth in how this position happens. I'm arguing that no matter who we hire we have absolutely no idea what happens in the future professionally or personally to make them stay/leave. Obviously we can do things to encourage them to stay...

There's essentially no start up $$ (the biggest in the science department for the last 5 years was on the order of $5-8k and that was to recruit an almost-tenured person to leave his job and move here).

[namaste_mom]

kerc= i do think about it but not a huge factor, going to a place without start up is a bigger issue imo. if you can hook a person without start up than, he/she wants to be there. sorry nak