It’s interesting reading some blogs written by current grad students and postdocs in which they disagree with their PI’s way of managing his/her lab and swear they would do things differently if/when they have their own lab.
I, too, had these same thoughts as a grad student and then as a postdoc and had high hopes of being able to concentrate more on the people in my lab but the reality of being a junior TT faculty member brought those hopes crashing down to earth with a thud.
With annual reviews and tenure/promotion looming on the distant horizon, the pressure is on from Day One to fill the lab with productive people and to work them to death cranking out data, publishing and getting grant funding. There’s also teaching, tons of useless committee responsibilities, grant writing, manuscript reviewing, blah, blah, blah, sucking time that could be spent with the lab peeps and helping to develop their own ideas for fanfuckingtastic projects.
The pressure on junior faculty (particularly in the sciences) to publish and get funded is immense and, as much as we want to nurture our lab peeps and look after their interests, our immediate priority is to watch our own backs and make sure we stay on track ... otherwise EVERYONE is out of a job.
Sure, you could try to buck the system as an assistant professor. Take on a couple of promising peeps in the lab, pay them what they are really worth and let them mature as scientists at their own pace. It’s what we would ALL like to do. It just isn’t practical or possible in the current system and at the assistant professor level, you have neither the time nor the money to do this.
Does this make me part of the problem? Undoubtedly, yes.
Is there anything I can do in my current position to remedy this situation? No. Not really. Not if I want to keep my job. And if I’m out of a job, everyone in my lab will be on the street.
Is there anything I could do if/when I am able to become an established PI and gain tenure? Maybe. But probably not.
A day out
20 hours ago
Current grad student here: Reading these blogs helps a lot. Otherwise I'd have no clue.
ReplyDeleteThere are some circumstances in which a trainee's personality doesn't mesh with the personality and management style of the PI. I think this contributes to some of these feelings of "If I was in his/her shoes, I'd do things differently." However, I agree that much of it is a failure to know and understand the reality of the system. It's frustrating from a postdoc's (and, I imagine, even more so from TT faculty's) standpoint that so many people acknowledge the problems with the system but don't know or are not in a position to change them. *sigh* Maybe we're all doomed to commit the 'sins' of our PIs.
ReplyDeleteTake on a couple of promising peeps in the lab, pay them what they are really worth and let them mature as scientists at their own pace. It’s what we would ALL like to do. It just isn’t practical or possible in the current system and at the assistant professor level, you have neither the time nor the money to do this.
ReplyDeleteI obviously can't speak to your specific situation, but this is not true in the general case at "R1" universities. Assuming you have been given a sufficient start-up budget, the way to give yourself the best chance of "reaching escape velocity" as a new assistant professor is to hire bright young post-docs, pay them what they are worth--i.e., the NIH NRSA pay scale--provide them with the intellectual and physical resources they need to pursue their own interests within the broad outlines of your research program, and get out of their way.
This is, of course, a very frightening thing to do, but it is an illusion that micromanaging is gonna work better.
The outlook need not be totally gloomy!
ReplyDeleteFirstly, if you TALK to your peeps, explaining the constraints on your time, sharing the schedule of deadlines etc., you're offering them the training opportunities PGs and PDs often say they lack (an advantage of being in a small group is that numbers are small enough that you CAN show how everyone fits into the bigger picture, talk to them etc. - PP's oft-repeated comment about only being able to lead 6-7 people works in your favour, as you can lead all of a small group). Being ignorant of what's going on often leads to the most resentment, the feeling of being treated like a slave, whereas you need to build a team which you lead.
Secondly, you CAN do something after tenure, and indeed before tenure, as your confidence grows and your 'leeway' (your safety net in terms of papers, money/time/resources etc.) increases - allowing people to do side projects, encouraging them to prove things to themselves, letting them help you with stage-appropriate and career-plan-appropriate tasks are all things that need to fit into the gaps of your basic schedule, but needn't, indeed shouldn't, be the only thing your peeps are doing - you pay their salary! I find that once I've hit my minimum-paper-count or data-count for a year or whatever research epriod I'#m working to in that project, it's healthy to choose to then spend a month or so on something tangential or unusual or risky - but it takes time and experience before you know what your minimum-per-period is and therefore how much leeway you have for risk, development, that sort of thing. Having a break, taking a longer view, can make you feel pessimistic, but it is possible to change things, at least a little.
1. What is a postdoc really "worth"? Is $40K/yr sufficient renumeration for someone who has >10 years of college education behind them? I'm paying my postdoc slightly more than the NIH/NRSA scale even though I'm not required to do so but it's still not a great wage.
ReplyDelete2. When you only have the budget to hire one postdoc, giving them sufficient time and money/resources explore their own ideas really isn't feasible in terms of short term productivity. Every time one of my lab peeps picks up a pipette it costs money and reduces the funds left in the pot so I need to make sure I'm getting the biggest bang for my buck right now. Perhaps when I get enough funding to be able to expand my team that might be possible but right now I have shit that needs to be done and have hired a postdoc who can make it happen - luckily she is extremely bright and has already meshed some of her own ideas into the project and if we can get fellowship funding to cover her salary I'm happy for her to pursue her own ideas further.
Funny you should blog about this since I've had a commenter giving me hell about it lately. And I don't even HAVE my own lab, so I find it kind of amusing to be arguing in the completely hypothetical world where what I think actually matters to anybody (ha!). But maybe you'll be glad to note that this person is saying the same thing you are.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm more with CPP on this one, but I also think it's maybe more common to go to the other extreme than I would have previously thought. I've spoken with an alarming number of faculty who think they should spend all their time writing grants, and that the best way to "Train" people is to leave them completely alone and not even answer their questions, just force them to figure everything out on their own.
There has to be a happy medium if you want to keep recruiting new students and postdocs. If you get a reputation from the outset of being a bad advisor, you won't be able to get any more students for a long time. Students talk to each other. So do disgruntled postdocs.
I've seen this happen, and I've had to listen to said advisors complaining about how they can't recruit anyone and they don't know why. I wanted to say, but did not say, the following.
Newsflash: don't be so self-serving that your "trainees" hate your guts, because it will have expensive long-term ramifications. More expensive than not getting grants. You still need people to do the work. You can't do it all yourself.
I'm not a micromanager and, even in the short amount of time I've been in my current position, I've managed to get a great reputation that has left me with more people wanting to join my lab than I have the money to pay for.
ReplyDeleteMy point is more that I would like to be able to give more of my time to my trainees, beyond the large amount they already get, and would love to be able to give them carte blanche with their budgets and research scope but I am limited in both time and money right now.
So far, I am close to being the PI I wanted to be but there are limitations that prevent me from taking that extra step towards being the Amazing PI I know I can be.
When you only have the budget to hire one postdoc
ReplyDeleteAgreed that having a start-up that provides only enough funds to hire a single post-doc puts you in a severely restricted situation.
PiT-
ReplyDeleteAs another new PI with a finite startup budget and resources, I am with you 100% on this. I just hired a very talented postdoc with excellent ideas but unfortunately I can't give her free rein on most of them. The hope is that once we have established a safety net with a defined, publishable project that will give her (and me) a mostly-guaranteed paper or two, there will be better chances to expand the lab's funding so she can take on riskier projects of her own devising.
I feel a little bad that I can't give her more leeway seeing that I did my own thing throughout my own postdoc. But then, I was in a well-known, lavishly-funded lab and she is (sadly) not.
Happy new year from a fellow PiT!
Sometime lurker and grad student here: thanks for your honesty, PiT. I am not totally unsympathetic; you have to put your interests first – I get that. As a grad student, however, I have to put my interests first, too. So in all honesty, and forgetting your own self-interest for the moment, would you ever advise a grad student to join the lab of an untenured prof? Especially if that student had other (tenured) profs to choose from?
ReplyDeletePerhaps things are better after tenure, as JaneB suggests. Are you pessimistic about this stage because by then, you think you’ll no longer give a damn?
Interesting post, as one of those soon-to-be doctorates with her own lab (and one of those grad students who swears she will do things differently). I think you make a lot of really good points. However, some advisors really are pretty awful, and I don't want to do what they have done to me....
ReplyDeleteDepends on what you're looking for in a PI/mentor. As an untenured junior faculty, I'm looking for bright, motivated students who'll learn quickly and be relatively self-sufficient but also very productive. I need data, publications and graduated students/funded postdocs and I think this would be a great environment for the right person. Therefore, my interests are also closely linked to that of my trainees as I can't succeed unless they do so it's imperative that I do everyone within my power to make/help that happen. More senior/tenured PIs, however, have the luxury of time and, perhaps, greater funds and the sense of urgency is not always as apparent.
ReplyDeleteCheck out this post by PP - it is geared more towards choosing a postdoc lab but he has a lot of points that apply to grad students too and sums it up better than I could.
I think I'm pessimistic more because funding lines are getting tighter and university budgets continue to shrink yet the pressure to produce publications, funding and graduates is increasing. Something's got to give at some point. I'm just not sure that the situation will be much better if/when I get tenure as I'll still have to get funding so that my research can continue as tenure won't pay for lab personnel, consumables or reagents.
Interesting post. I'm at a PUI, so lately I've been DREAMING of having a post-doc to get some stuff done (and maybe help train my undergrads).
ReplyDeleteI started commenting but my comments got long so I made a post over here. The post got long too...
ReplyDeleteThe post got long too...
ReplyDeleteGee Jane, that's fucking surprising! AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!
Haha - JaneB's comment made me laugh out loud, too!
ReplyDeleteFine, I'm verbose. It's a handicap at times... :-) I save my limited precis abilities for grants and papers where word counts REALLY matter!
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting reading some blogs written by current grad students and postdocs in which they disagree with their PI’s way of managing his/her lab and swear they would do things differently if/when they have their own lab.
ReplyDeleteAs you nicely elaborate upon, the reality upon becoming a prof is perhaps a bit different and less ideal than imagined. Despite this, I think the exercise as a trainee of "disagreeing with a PI's way of managing the lab" is quite a useful one. Yes, there are some traps into which the trainee will also fall upon acquiring their own lab, but there are also some lessons to be learned in grant management, people management, and experimental design. I'm inclined to think that observing behaviors that I *don't* want to imitate is more important than learning about what I do want to imitate.
observing behaviors that I *don't* want to imitate is more important than learning about what I do want to imitate.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree and this is what I have done/am doing. But there are limitations that dictate what you can/can't do as a PI and unfortunately that sometimes impacts how you run your lab. That being said though, regardless of your budget or time constraints, there is no excuse for treating lab peeps poorly or not encouraging them to come up with their own ideas.
Methinks that PhysioProf was perhaps trying to bait some of the postdocs in the audience regarding what a postdoc is worth. To avoid derailing the conversation entirely, I decided to post a couple of thoughts on the subject here.
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