New Scientist Sabbatical Advice, Part 1

I am a fan of reading the material on the margins of my chosen field of organic chemistry. So, I subscribe to The Scientist. (It's free) It is very biotech which teaches me some new stuff, but there is also interesting Pharma stuff too. In the August issue there is an column in the Careers section on sabbaticals. There are some useful tips for people planning sabbaticals. Since you have the link I won't quote it but I will add my two cents.

Tip: Don't forget your students

I could not agree more that students can languish when the cats away. I have come to know another sabbatical faculty member who scheduled weekly visits to his students so they would not drift while he was gone. Not only was this not effective, they did not bother to show up for the meetings, sending e-mail that they had nothing to report.

The tip in the article is to have a create a mini-group of colleague faculty members who would meet with your students. In some cases this could work well, but in smaller campuses with diverse faculty expertise this might be hard. I came to the realization that many laptop and some desktop computers have built in cameras that enable video conferencing. All my students have them. I was the only person in my group that needed to update. This allowed for scheduled meetings for face-to-face video conferences. I still have trouble with students reporting that they have nothing to report, but that have to show up to the video conference to do it.

Tip: Say no

First, never do a sabbatical on your home campus unless you want to try out administration careers. With no classes you will find yourself on every committee and pulled into every problem, since you have all that free time.

Second, be aware that the same technology that allows you to keep in touch with students allows your department to pull you into departmental grants and repair of instruments. You are on sabbatical, that's your job this semester/year. If the department needs you to work on other issues they should contract with you for the work. Nothing stops the calls for you to come fix the mass spec like telling the chair that your hourly is $75 door-to-door from your sabbatical location.

My on sabbatical colleague seams to be indispensable in his home department, yet is the lowest paid Professor in the department. His sabbatical would have been a good time for him to get his department to reconsider his value to the department.

This is my last sabbatical week, so I have to get back to the hood.

T.S. Hall

Furlough Friday

You would think that I would be posting more given that my campus was on furlough last week. But as I am trying to finish up my sabbatical I violated the rules and worked on Friday, albeit on another campus.

I Know! Some of you are now angry at me for demonstrating to the state that they can just cut my pay and I will accept it. Sorry, but if I am going to spend future furlough days working on my vitae and looking for another position I need some more publications.

The entire furlough foolishness as taken on an absurd quality that makes my head spin. The faculty have been told that if they go to campus and are caught working in their offices or labs on a furlough day they will be charged with trespassing on state property and will be escorted from campus. We have also been told that we may not check e-mail or voicemail on furlough days. I wonder if the university will just shut down the e-mail server and cut off the phone service. This seems more effective then making the Chairperson monitor the faculty. Plus, if the Chairperson is monitoring our accounts to make sure we are not checking e-mail are they not working on a furlough day?

The university has instructed us to not work on furlough days, but to assign work to the students to make up for the loss of class time. But don't I end up grading that work? I guess so long as I don't grade it on a furlough day it's OK with the university. I sure hope the lab students don't get busted in an unfortunate misunderstanding resulting from their performing organic synthesis in their kitchens on the furlough lab days.

Perhaps I should spend the next furlough day organizing a on-line job fair to bring together campuses outside California with California faculty who are ready to bring their expertise to other college and university systems. I am just saying, if I can't work at my job I have to find something useful to do.

TS Hall

Volume and/or Value

Recently I was listening to a discussion of the healthcare problems of the country when one of the speakers commented that some of the problem in the US is caused by a system that pays for volume of patients seen and not the value of the healthcare received. My immediate thought was, "Welcome to my world". I have always thought that the problems of healthcare and education are in some ways similar. In both cases we demand the latest and best technology but don't want to pay the cost of staying on the cutting edge.

I feel that value is really the name of the game when it comes to education. While politicians and administrators tend to push degrees conferred after four or six years, the real measure of an education is the intellectual and practical skills the graduate has acquired.

The challenge is that it is very difficult to measure true value in education or in healthcare on a quarterly basis business cycle. Do you pay the doctor based on the number and percentage of patients in good health on January 1, April 1, July 1, and September 1. Does the faculty member get paid a percentage of each former students income?

To really solve the problems of higher education we need to focus on the value generated in the activities. Value to the student and value to the society that provides the lions share of the resources invested in the activity.

A colleague from a nearby university told me today about one of his fellow faculty members who upon seeing his section size go from 75 to 150 students said that given the workload he saw no option but to lower the standards, give memorization based questions, and pass more students in order to get tenure. As a taxpayer and an educator who cares about education and the future of my student and my society I wanted to scream. This tenure-bound faculty member has checked the wind and recognized that it blows in the direction of volume and value be damned.

T.S. Hall

Summing Up, Part 2

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I have been trying desperately to finish up lab work before I need to return, like Cincinnatus to the farm.

Today I will as promised comment on the good parts of my sabbatical experience.

Working in the lab space of a long time friend and faculty member at an R01 research university has allowed me to work with graduate students and postdocs and on high end instruments that I do not have to upkeep and repair. It has also provided time to reflect on my career and on what I value. (On the topic of evaluating values, readers might check out this week's ACS Careers Blog post on Evaluating Your Values.)

I have not worked with PhD candidates or postdocs since I was one back in the dark ages. I had forgotten the excitement about the science these folks bring to a research program. Their spirit and youthful exuberance certainly made my own lab work more enjoyable. For my part, other than offering a careers worth of anecdotes of lab experience, I was able to give some perspective from a faculty members point of view and some hopefully helpful advice about building a career.

In the lab I have made some not insignificant discoveries about the chemistry I have pursued for several years. These unanticipated results provide the questions that will support a new research grant, which will hopefully be funded. The data for the papers is not yet complete, hence my low level of blogging. Even as I did not get to the chemistry I intended, the new direction has been challenging and intellectually rewarding. I have gained a new set of colleagues and intellectual resources. Between the folks on my sabbatical campus and these future faculty I should be able to find instrument resources when I need them.

One of my fears in returning to my home campus is my ability to maintain research momentum after this focused lab time. In this aspect, the opportunity for reflection a sabbatical provides has become a positive. My R01 colleague recently pointed out that I have become a research perfectionist in an unhealthy way. Not submitting small studies because there are still unanswered questions. Being in the type of program viewed as "the minor leagues" and "inferior" to "real" research programs can make us desperate to prove ourselves with a big and beautiful paper or grant. If we are so obsessed with proving ourselves, our research becomes desperate and more subject to the hindrances those of us at PUI and MCU programs must deal with. My friend points out that I have good science hidden in files of work I don't feel is complete. So as I return to my own lab I will be focused on good small science that periodically is tied together in a nice big picture full paper.

Lastly, for now, walking away from my campus has allowed me to recognize that there are some things that I don't want to go back to. I can't do everything and trying to dilutes my resources to the point of my not moving forward the things I value most. My research will take a higher priority and some of the service work will have to be shared with others. I have become a believer that those faculty who are inclined to service should be supported to provide that service to move the teaching and research components of the department forward.

TS Hall