So... I've been unmasked

And that unmasking was in spectacular fashion, might I add. Some of you may have caught the tweet, which was poorly phrased but I think got the point across. We have a tradition of a student-faculty roast where the students get a chance to poke fun at the faculty. Well, the students decided it would be hilarious (and it was) to recite all of my tweets, especially the ones about me drinking and writing proposals, or me drinking and grading papers, or me drinking and working on lecture notes. I'm pretty sure the rest of the faculty either thinks that I'm an alcoholic or well on my way to being one.

It turns out that the students found out about my blog almost immediately upon my arrival to SnowU and they all had the intelligence to resort to blog/twitter stalking me without actually following me. The fact that they held off for two years was pretty impressive. But now that I've been unmasked, I've been hesitant to blog more. So this brings up the question: How does a tenure track faculty member express their thoughts/musings/opinions about their current position, but not in the manner to upset their colleagues?

I've been mulling over this question for some time now, hence my reluctance to blog. The pile of work I have to do isn't helping either, but I digress. I know of a couple of  people that blog under psueds and they have managed to keep things under wrap decently well. I guess it is quite timely that I attended a seminar today on Big Data and how all sorts of public repositories for pictures can be used to mine just about everything about a person so I shouldn't be shocked to find out some undergraduates discovered my blog.

I guess going forward I'll have to walk a finer line about what I post and don't post, as well as the type of topics that I broach . For posterity's sake, I'll state again that the opinions expressed here are those of my own and not SnowU, and I'll stay away from singling out individual students and faculty, or particular one-off events.  

New versus Junior

DrWife said something very interesting to me, which I thought warranted a blog post. First, some background. 

Yesterday, I was part of a large planning meeting involving multiple universities on a research consortium where I am the greenest person in the room. Unlike most junior (emphasis will make sense shortly), when I'm asked to be part of a meeting, I actively participate, give feedback, ask questions, etc. I really dislike just sitting in the corner, acting like another n00b prof, where its seems like I'm either too timid to join in or too worried about pissing people off while I'm untenured. I figure that if I'm asked to be a part of a meeting, then expect me to be participating in that meeting. Otherwise, it's a waste of everyone's time.

The problem with this philosophy is that I have a tendency to either 1) get dragged into tangential arguments, 2) end up putting my foot in my mouth, or 3) get "worked up" where I can't let things go. (Number 3 I know is going to be my downfall in the future unless I can get a handle on that.)

Well, in the course of the meeting, I did overstate a few things and realized that I was going down a path that was going to get me kicked out of the consortium, regardless of whether my point was correct or not. 

Later in the evening, I was filling in DrWife on the details and she said something that was pretty profound, at least to me. "Remember, you're the most junior person in the room by a long shot. It's not like me at my SuperAwesomeSauce Company. At SuperAwesomeSauce Company, I may be a new employee, but I'm not a junior employee. Academia is still a hierarchy. You may be part of the faculty, but you're junior faculty." (emphasis is mine)

Her statement really hit home, hence my post on it today. I'm not sure what do or say, if anything, about it. I feel like I am a contributing member on both of my faculties and I feel like I'm doing all of the things that a faculty member should do (research, teach, service). But I'm a junior faculty member as opposed to a new faculty member....

Why a Postdoc is basically needed in Academia

Today, over at Engineer Blogs, I discuss why a postdoc is pretty much mandatory to succeed in academia. In a nutshell, YIAs are, in my opinion, supremely biased towards faculty that have had long postdoc stints which screw over faculty such as yours truly who didn't postdoc.

Diversification in STEM Fields

One of the reasons I started blogging was to share my tenure track experiences with others. And like all other bloggers, you start reading other blogs and get a lot (well, sometimes) of useful information for what other tenure track faculty did in certain situation. Underneath all of that info though, there is an undercurrent always discussing the topic of diversification within STEM fields. This isn't just limited to blogs but in real press as well.

In February's OPN (pay link), Professor Ursula Keller at ETH Zurich tackles the topic by proposing that senior faculty (both male and female) need to be the main advocates for diversification. Professor Keller also states that we need to change the present working culture, something which I think is nicely summarized by GMP's post on Work-Life Balance. The thing is, I'm just a n00b at all of this (no seniority) and I have no real insights into how to effect change because I am a stereotypical, white male engineer.

This same exact question was asked by Hermitage: "What would you like to see from tenure-track and not-yet-tenure-track menfolk? How can they pitch in?". [For details see] However, the respondents didn't really come up with any profound ideas (not trying to offend...), but rather stuck to basically saying stop being an asshat. There were other items mentioned like try to disassociate the sex of the author when reviewing/judging/commenting and to speak up when you see an obvious case of sexism.

But what else can someone in my situation (young, male tenure track engineer) do to not perpetuate the norm?

In a professional world, I don't think someone should be characterized as a humorless bitch, nor is asking is it that time of the month. On one hand, I'm actually shocked that faculty members would ask that but on the other, I can't say I'm surprised - we can be asshats for no reason. But is that essentially the list of things a male faculty member can do to help?

1. Treat female faculty members (and other minorities for that matter) as just "normal faculty". Their record should speak for themselves, not their outward appearance.
2. Maintain professional courtesy even when women/minorities aren't around.
3. Just work based on the work, not the authors.
4. Try to more vocal about your work-life balance.

The first three to me seem like they should be a no-brainer. I'm married to a female engineer with a PhD so I don't need any other justification for woman's competency in engineering (and all STEM). But I think the 4th item on the list can really go a long way to making a difference. That's especially the case for my situation because I'm in academia (flexible working environment) whereas my wife works in industry (structured working environment). I expect I'll be doing my fair share of dr's visits (like today!) and staying home with a sick child, and so on.

But that brings me to a grand question that I can hopefully get some answers from the blog'o'sphere.

Are male faculty members that have female partners in STEM fields better allies for diversification than those whose partners are not and does that make for a better work-life balance?

The Unknown Adversary

When you get that initial letter (or email in my case) that states you're getting a tenure track offer, it's essentially life-changing. As you can barely restrain yourself in your office chair (or in bed checking your iphone at 3 am...), you want to rejoice in pure happiness. There's fireworks going on in the background. You're having delusions of grandeur thinking you're going to hit 9 out of 10 proposals. You're going to be an awesome teacher with near perfect reviews. Blah blah blah.

Fast forward a few months. You're settling into your new position. Working on your first proposal. Finishing those last few papers that you need to do otherwise you'll never get them done. Oh, and then DrWife reminds you to finish submitting your relocation reimbursement. So, you collect your receipts and head to the department administrators who will undoubtedly help out the new guy. You're handed a folder with a bunch of papers from the interview and hiring process. You start browsing the paperwork as you're chatting with the secretary when you notice something very peculiar.

There's a misplaced piece of paper in your folder with the information of another interviewee of the university; someone they've passed over. You can help but look at the name, address, and current institution. And it turns out this is someone that you've met before and has a "name" in your field...

And then it dawns on you. There are a lot of people that submitted for this position and you're the one that got it. But it doesn't stop there. There are also people that you probably know and they were passed over for you. And eventually you'll want to make a splash in your field and undoubtedly some of the people that were passed over may resent you for it. Killing your proposals, negative comments in professional societies, etc etc.

So that begs a few questions. If you're in academia, do you eventually find out if other people applied for the position? And if those persons reveal themselves, have they been good sports about it? Or should I expect some backlash during some of my proposal reviews, paper reviews, etc etc? If you're out in industry, how does it work out there? I have no clue if things are as tight-knit as they can be in a specific academic field.

Low Hanging Fruit, Salami Style

Today, over on Engineer Blogs, I discuss my dilemma with low hanging fruit and salami slicing for publishing in academia.

Classes taught within your discipline (General)

Today, over at Engineer Blogs, I discuss Classes taught within your discipline, specifically for ME. Over the next few days, I'll add to in here so check back if you're interested.

Abuse of Power

If you've been following my twitter account (@profgears), undoubtedly you've seen a flurry of tweets about student expectations, terrible advisors, and politics of publishing. This stemmed from GMP's post the other day over at Academic Jungle and DrugMonkey's post on the subject clearly in GMP's camp. DrugMonkey's post heading The Care and Feeding of your PI: a tip for grad students and postdocs should tell you all you need to know about their position on the matter.

I clearly disagree.

As a grad student, you're not there to serve a professor at their beck and call. As a professor, you're not there to wipe the nose of your students. Both should have expectations and duties that are clearly laid out. I've already discussed this a few weeks ago. The professor (or PI, or whatever you want to call them) is supposed to be the student's professional mentor. The prof is supposed to be the student's guidem helping transition from a student to being a autonomous researcher.

This clearly breaks down when there is a lack of communication between both parties. For instance, the prof expects the student to publish as many papers as they can before graduation. But you'd be surprised how many students don't know that and how many profs don't tell their students that. So you have a prof that's expecting paper drafts and a student wondering what to do with their data. The student tries to schedule meetings but the prof has little time to discuss it. Months go by. Still no paper. There is increasing frustration on both sides.

Inevitably, a downward spiral happens and things turn to shit. The prof did a bad job of mentoring their student, yet from the prof's perspective, their student is a slacker. The prof thinks their student isn't working enough and so the student gets even less time than the minuscule amount the prof already gives them. The student gets frustrated because their mentor and career guide doesn't respond back to them and now the student starts worrying about graduation deadlines and whether they are even going to get a recommendation.

At this point, both are in the wrong because they didn't communicate with each other. But the professor is always in the power position and it should never be abused. And it sure sounds like some Profs/PIs do abuse that power by holding graduation and recommendations over their students' heads. Those are the same Profs/PIs that are supposed to be mentoring their students. That's a terrible situation to be in if you're the student because the one person you're supposed to go to for advice is giving you shitty advice and guidance. In the odd chance that student makes it to the next level, how likely is it for them to mimic their advisor's behavior? I say that's highly likely and I sure as hell don't want to be that kind of prof.

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On the topic of publishing and who gets coauthorship, it's very hard to describe in 140 characters. My general feeling is this. Anyone who contributed to the writing, data gathering, interpretation, and oversight should be a coauthor. However, everyone one of those people should be capable of writing a significant chunk of the article. That doesn't mean only the person who wrote the article should be the sole author.

Here's how you test it. Ask each person if they could write the draft. If someone says they could probably get 60% of is done, that's fine (that's a significant chunk). If they said 10%, they don't belong as a coauthor. That's what the acknowledgements section is for.

In practice, most groups aren't that strict because everyone needs more papers to be considered successful. But if I adhered strictly to that, I'd be missing my prof on every paper. And for me, when I'm in that same situation, I want to be involved enough to always pass that test. Otherwise, I would and should expect my student to submit it without my name on it because I haven't contributed enough. But if it comes to that point, then there's obviously something else going on in our advisee-advisor relationship and there's a bigger problem at hand than coauthorship on a paper.

Giving everyone an A is a terrible idea.

A few days ago, Cherish the Scientist tweeted out an article (@mareserinitatis) on how Everyone Should Get an A. David MacKay brings up a few interesting points in the article. These are largely centered on two themes. The first is the rate at which a student learns in conjunction with their starting position. If everything is linear, this is the classic Y = mX + b where Y is the level you’re trying to obtain, m is the rate at which you learn over time, X is the time it takes, and b is your offset starting position. (Yes, whenever you use an equation, you should explain the variables…). The second theme is there should be a minimum obtainable threshold that students should achieve. Thus, if students are “forced” to achieve an A to graduate, they should be allowed to take longer. The first issue is persuasive but has a problem when applying it to real life. The second argument, on the other hand, has some serious holes.

I don’t have any hard evidence for this but the thought process should fit match most anecdotal preconceived, prejudiced notions. Your b value when you begin in college is a very important aspect. If students took more AP classes, generally they’re going to start with a higher b. The same could be said if your parents were highly educated and/or come from an upper class economical situation. Students who aren’t fortunate to be in those situations often have much lower b values and generally have other issues to contend with once they get to college. Working a job on the side to support themselves comes to mind.

In principle, if you could test a student’s knowledge in the beginning and in the end of a course, and come up with a slope-o-meter, that would be a good to obtain an accurate picture on how someone learns. That would be very good for assessing the effectiveness of a teacher and identifying the potential of the student. This, in theory, could go a long way towards helping the educational system improve how it is educating its students.

There is one slight, 800 lb gorilla sitting in the corner of the room. Life doesn’t work like that.

Figure 2 in MacKay’s paper shows a prime example of this. Let’s assume you have some miners trapped in a coal mine and instead of it being exam-time, it’s actually people-are-going-to-die-time. Who do you want deciding where to drill the hole? A, B, or C? If it’s my life, I’m going with A because they, at this given point in time, know more than the other two. Sure, eventually B and C will surpass A. But now you’ve got a bunch of explaining to do to a family on why their loved one died.

Look, it sucks that B and C started out in a more disadvantaged position. It can certainly be argued that is a combination of social, economical, and educational factors. And yes, society as a whole should strive to correct those. But if we’re talking about university and graduate level education, you have to draw the line at some point. This brings the second theme, allowing indefinite time to finally get your A.

If you’re allowed indefinite time to get an A (or whatever you want to call the achievable mark), you’ve just given no incentive to learning how to get stuff done. This is a huge problem at OldEuropeU where the students are allowed to take a class as many times as they want to get a passing grade (6 out of 10 BTW, not even an 8 or 9). In an educational system that is nominally free for the students, that’s a huge overall tax payer drain. I have colleagues that took 10+ years (in a 5 year program) to get a BS and a MS and they spent that whole time in school. They didn’t take time off for work or family or whatever. They just spent too much time partying. If they were in the US system, they would not have been engineers after year two. They would have failed more than the allowable amount of classes, had an insanely low GPA, and would have been kicked out of any ABET engineering program. I’m sorry but not everyone should be an engineer just because they want to.

In the real world, you have to deal with meeting deadlines. It sucks. Everyone hates it. And it’s a shame that we don’t have a culture of saying “No, we can’t move on because this thing isn’t ready yet. We haven’t learned enough to make this product fully do everything we wanted.” Everything from software (security flaws), to baby strollers (safety recalls), to cars (stick accelerators and faulty air bags), to food (E. coli and salmonella poisonings) has their issues because of deadlines. But, unless you’re going to change how the world works, people cannot be afforded indefinite time to do everything. Nothing would get done then.

So no, I don’t think everyone should get an A.

The Dreaded User Facility

Today, over at Engineer Blogs, I discuss how User Facilities at universities are stifling academia.