Taking Back My Summer

Noteworthy progress. In my last post, I described my failure to protect summer vacation/personal time in favor of a long list of commitments. Although most of these commitments are productive and/or enjoyable, their combined requirements do not leave a great deal of time for much-needed relaxation and not working. I'm happy to report that the tide has turned somewhat, just before the next wave of the workload hits. How did this happen, and how can I maintain balance for the remainder of the summer?

Blogging (and otherwise disclosing) helps. Once I acknowledged that I had only myself to blame for my increasing (rather than decreasing) stress, I stepped back and looked at the calendar. I took stock of what I had accomplished to that point in the summer, and how much time was left to work on the rest. I felt relief from realizing that the balance looked much better than I expected. I also asked myself what really needs to be finished this summer, by when, and whether these goals are realistic; what will I lose if I fall behind on X? Finally, I looked ahead to the 2015-2016 academic year and accepted that I cannot take on any additional commitments until next summer. And I started saying no in advance.

Travel helps. My reality-testing process received the assistance of two recent road trips. One was a four-day, combined work/leisure trip. This split left me able to feel good about getting some work done with collaborators in addition to not working and catching up with graduate school friends. Importantly, I made the 2.5-hour commutes alone, so I had time to myself to think and space out as needed. I came back tired from a strange sleep schedule, but more relaxed than I have been in a while. 

Downtown Ludlow

The second trip was more hectic: PA --> VT --> MA --> PA in four days, celebrating a wedding and an engagement. The wedding was lovely and afforded several unique opportunities. I'm not a country girl, and getting away to rural VT was a new experience. Actual country stores that are not operated by Cracker Barrel? I just wish I'd had more time to explore; I was there for less than 24 hours and it rained most of the time. But I also got to reconnect with more graduate school friends, which always leaves me feeling grounded. Then on to MA. As I'm the matron of honor* for the engaged couple (wedding in August of 2016), and as I live several states away from the action, I made an effort to fulfill some role expectations during the trip. As far as I can tell, it worked out well for everyone!

Our resort in Ludlow, VT

During this four-day excursion, I did not work. I checked email only sporadically. I responded only to urgent messages. Very unusual for me. But very healthy. And nothing went wrong without my replies. 

This is your life moment of the week. I returned to work today feeling less stressed than I have in a while, and I was able to complete tasks such as cleaning out my email inbox and writing this post. I also met with our Office of Sponsored Programs about a grant and upgraded another short trip I'm about to take. And I'll end the workday with an exercise class that makes me feel great. This is more like the summer I had planned.

*Matron? Really? Sounds so old....

First Summer as Faculty: Planning Gone Wrong

Failure. I've written a lot about success this year. It's time for a confession about failure.

As a new faculty member, I've had a great year. I've been incredibly fortunate and more productive than expected. But for me, the downside of fortune and productivity is that it feeds on itself, adding fuel to a motivational fire that was humming along already. In the current academic climate (i.e., the intense need for productivity in order to receive promotion and tenure), isn't motivation a positive? Sure. But there is a point of diminishing returns.

Continuing to present and publish while teaching three courses, running a large lab of undergraduates, and volunteering for service work is rewarding, but it's a lot to track at any given time. (Sub any combination of teaching/research/service here. It's a lot.) Because I'm already not so good at achieving work-life balance, I started my summer planning early. I promised myself that I would take it easy this summer. Work on a few projects at a leisurely pace, TAKE A REAL VACATION, and eventually prep for fall. Sleep in. Work from home a lot. And just relax in general. The thought of having a summer like this kept me going through the gray, hectic days of Spring semester. 

Then it started. In January, I saw an NIH Request for Proposals that fit a planned project, and decided to shoot for an October submission. (My first as PI. Reasonable.) I need pilot data for the proposal, and I had planned to run a "small" study in the Spring that would support the application. Then I realized - quite at the last minute - that my institution offers competitive "grants" (stipends) for summer research. So I pulled together an application in March. I also applied for an NIH training program, which required two written applications and a phone interview between January and March. 

Because I don't have graduate students or a research coordinator, the small pilot study took a considerable amount of my time. The opportunity arose for a second (very small) pilot, currently underway. Students requested RA work for the summer. I got the summer grant and got into the training program. And I'm traveling for two weddings.

Each of these experiences has paid off, but has appropriated a chunk of the summer:

• Pilot study - finish data collection June 6th
• Summer Grant responsibilities - analyze pilot data and draft a paper by the end of June, travel to State College and Philadelphia to meet with collaborators (June/July)
• NIH training - in Brooklyn from July 18th to August 1st 
• Student RA supervision - ongoing

And August? Make major progress on the grant application, revise one course, and complete a brand new prep. Classes start the 24th.

How did this happen? This isn't some sort of humblebrag about what a great workaholic I am. I'm frustrated and disappointed with myself. I had PLANNED to take a break, and I'm only now realizing how much I need it. I dread the idea of starting Fall semester without one, as I can see myself burnt out by the third week. I'm on track for major failure.

My face these days.

What are my options? I've come up with: (1) continue to push through while frustrated, with sounds like a recipe for disaster, (2) take a long vacation in August and sacrifice some prep time, (3) work in smaller breaks that maximize work and rest, and (4) give up, and waste the great opportunities I have.* Right now, I'm leaning toward #3, though I haven't figured out quite how to do it. 

For example, I took a long lunch break yesterday (90 minutes) to socialize with colleagues. It was great, but I got back to my office feeling acutely stressed about work. That seems backward. I went for a run, took the evening off, and got some extra sleep. I still feel stressed today, but I've made some progress, and I can see a way forward. The way includes booking next year's summer vacation now, so that I don't have any excuses. And I'm working from home on Friday :)

*What other options do you see, and how have you managed summer overcommitment? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

#NewFaculty: First Year Review (Part 1)

I'm back! It's been a long semester, full of new course prep, student presentations, conference travel, and yes, some meaningful research productivity. I admit that staying on top of everything has been more challenging this semester (Spring, my second) than last. As flexible time has diminished, I've wondered what a typical day will look like in years two and three - when I also have academic advisees and increased service obligations. Yet I do have the sense that I've built a strong foundation for managing academic life, which will ease the way for adding to it in the next few years. The following is a start to what stands out when I look back on the first year.

Optimizing and protecting time. Teaching schedules change from one semester to the next. When you teach 3+ hours in class on each teaching day, the change has an impact. It's possible to set yourself up with an effective, efficient way to work in prep time and research time when your classes are in the morning, and to find that simply flipping your schedule doesn't work very well when your classes are in the afternoon. So cognitive rigidity doesn't work, unless you're able to secure exactly the same schedule each semester. (If so, I envy you.)

What does work? Some tried-and-true methods such as scheduling time for writing and actually being unavailable during that time. During my first semester, I left my office door open whenever I was in, to make sure everyone knew I was here. (Some of them do pay close attention to this.) Before students and colleagues knew me, this didn't promote a lot of drop-bys; but that lasted only a few weeks. 

Now that I've established my schedule and I've made it absolutely clear to students that they need an appointment to see me, I keep my door closed for significant portions of the day. I get in early, so my door is closed for the first 2-3 hours I'm here. I get writing, administrative tasks, and course prep done with very few interruptions. And I'm not afraid to say no to requests for meetings during these blocks of time, especially on teaching days.

Finding colleagues who share and/or complement your skills and interests. This is critical at teaching-focused institution, as time for research and writing can be scarce. When other faculty have suggested that I "really should talk to Dr. X - you have similar interests," I listen. I make time to meet Dr. X and I share some of my work in the conversation; I also mention the skills or interests that might set me apart from other faculty, so that Dr. X knows that I might be useful in a particular area. (I find that a love of data analysis comes in handy.) Ask for feedback on your ideas and offer some to them. For example, I asked my university-assigned mentor to collaborate on a grant application, and it seems to be mutually beneficial thus far. 

Some of the most fortuitous meetings are due solely to luck, like mine with my mentor - the assignment was random. But you can increase your chances. One of the best ways to increase the odds is to go to meetings and other university events. You get seen, you get known, and you can steer yourself toward opportunities. Think like you would at a conference: "How can I effectively network?"

Does this take time out of an already busy schedule? Can it seem to take over all of your flexible (i.e., writing) time? Absolutely. But many ECRs focus only on the losses, and think they have to go to every event. Be choosy! Go to the events where like-minded people tend to be, and where you'll learn something useful even if Dr. X doesn't show. (If you don't know this information, ask ahead of time!)

The first year certainly can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to stay that way. Next time, some additional ways that you can stay in control of your time and research productivity.

#AcWriMo - Academic Writing Month 2014 (Part 1)

It starts! November 1st marked Day 1 of Academic Writing Month - a month-long effort to set goals, work toward them, and hold yourself accountable. You can read the history and full instructions here; in brief, you set writing goals, identify your plan for accomplishing them, and check in each day using the publicly shared accountability spreadsheet. Many academics say that this burst of community-oriented writing invigorates them and increases their productivity. As this is my first year participating, it's a good time to (1) discuss goals, and (2) reflect on how to improve my writing process.

#1: Goals. November already is a busy month for me, so setting goals wasn't terribly difficult. Here are the ones I included on the accountability sheet:

• Finish and submit a teaching enhancement grant (i.e., a proposal to earn extra money for teaching equipment and other resources)
• Put the final touches on two nearly-done manuscripts, and submit both
• Complete requested major revisions to my dissertation manuscript, and resubmit
• Complete my first year faculty self-report (i.e., a summary of what I've done so far/why my institution should rehire me for year two/goals for next year)

The teaching grant and the self-report have hard deadlines, which are early and late in the month, respectively. (At the time of this post, I've already submitted the teaching grant. Hooray!) In the middle, I have two manuscripts that require a few hours each, and a set of major revisions that will take several days (at least). 

My plan is to focus one hour per day on writing, either all at once or split up into chunks. It's not much every day. But considering that teaching prep takes a good deal of time, and I have endless stacks of exams to grade this month, an hour every day will be an accomplishment. Writing here, counts, as well :)

#2: Process. I realized long ago that being a great writer takes more effort than I've been willing to give. For example, this excerpt from an advertisement for Hands On Writing sums up my process while in training (red = my edits):

This is how I (unrealistically) thought I would improve my academic writing back at the start of my PhD. Please feel free to laugh:

• I write something. I send the first un-revised draft to somebody (usually) more senior than me asking for feedback. 
• I will go to “track changes” and accept all of them automatically (so I save time). 
• Write some more and re-do the feedback accept-all-changes step. 
• Rarely - When the reviewer says it is good enough, read the document, try to find the 13498986 differences with my first draft so I can  learn some lessons for next time I have to write. 
• Forget everything quite a lot the next day.

I internalized some basics, like how NOT to use a colon and striving to keep sentences short. And my academic writing has improved dramatically over the past few years; I can tell when I read others' writing and I find ways to improve clarity. But I wonder how much better my writing would be today had I paid more attention to the process during training. 

These days, I still rely on others' feedback. I'm rubbish at finding the holes in my own logic and even worse at spotting typos. So a good friend and I trade documents and give each other comments, which has been helpful. I also include my undergraduate students in the process, by encouraging them to compare early- and late-stage cooperative pieces and asking them to proofread for me. And I read as much as I can. I often read about writing, of course. 

But I've also recommitted to reading books, for several reasons. One of which is that staying immersed in others' writing helps me stay in tune with what writing should (or shouldn't) look like. I'm partway through David Quammen's Spillover (about zoonotic diseases) and William Deresiewicz's Excellent Sheep (about problems with higher education). Both informative and timely for entirely different reasons. (More to come on these, I suspect.)

It's Day Four of #AcWriMo, and I'm going strong. Fingers crossed that we all keep it up!

The 50-Minute Lecture

50 minutes. Depending on the activity, this could sound like a lot. Actually, having 50 minutes of uninterrupted reading time, or 50 minutes to go for a run, or 50 minutes to watch an episode of House of Cards sounds luxurious. But in the context of teaching a subject you know well, it's nothing. Nothing! It amounts to consistently running out of time and having to cut from your carefully-designed slides. Which throws off the schedule and gives students an excuse not to read ahead. And leaves me considering whether to leave material out completely or expect that (undergraduate) students learn it on their own. 

Let's figure out why 50 minutes is so difficult. Well, the first few minutes are occupied with housekeeping, announcements, collecting or returning homework, and students coming in late. (The last is something to work on.) So 45 minutes at best. Any review takes up another 5 minutes. (I do this once per week in my 100-level class.) So as not to bore students to tears, I try to craft learning exercises, which take up 10 minutes at the very least.* Add or substitute one video clip with any discussion whatsoever (5 minutes). For example, today we covered psychotic disorders in Abnormal Psychology, and I worked in some Ryan Gosling. Effective, but time-consuming.

That's 20-30 minutes of actual lecture. How many slides can you get through in 30 minutes? I can get through 10, if it's a really good day (i.e., if students have read and there aren't any tangential questions). How many do I have prepared for each lecture? Minimum is 12, mean is 14. Compounded over a week, that's almost a full lecture behind.

So what goes wrong? Well, most students don't read, so we waste time with me waiting for them to answer my questions. (Sometimes they don't even seem to have opinions about concepts like identity or friendship, which is beyond me.) Maybe I should pick out only one or two main concepts, and cover those in detail. Maybe I should give more quizzes to ensure that students are reading, so that I don't feel any pressure to review everything important in class. Something needs to change; my midterm evaluations were quite positive, but it seems as though we've gone downhill since then. Though I'm not yet sure how much is me and how much is middle-of-the-semester laziness.

Based on several sources of recommendation (e.g., word of mouth, student feedback, this recent article about using PowerPoint in the classroom) I've started breaking up even non-wordy slides to make sure that each one is visible and useful. My "lecture" style relies heavily on eliciting responses from students; I naturally pause at least once every 2-3 minutes to ask students for factual information (from the readings) or their opinions about concepts. What keeps my prep time down is that I don't plan out these questions in advance. Keeps the lecture conversational, but likely wastes a lot of valuable time.

I need resources. What else do you recommend as a source for tips on planning lectures? I regularly read research/academic writing sources, but I haven't found the treasure trove of teaching wisdom yet. Share your favorites in the comments.



*I admit that sometimes I dispense with this.

Underway

Week 5. Five weeks into my first semester, and it's starting to seem.... normal. I'm beginning to settle into the weekly routine of teaching, office hours, research, and lab meetings. Extras like department and union meetings, coffee with colleagues, working through sticky professional situations, and student inquiries can make or break a productive week. 

But as many seasoned academics recommend, I'm learning to see the big picture.

For example, 2013 was a rough year for publications. The main paper from my dissertation and my first paper on postdoc each were rejected by multiple journals, and other papers were VERY slow-going. It wasn't until this summer that submissions really picked up, and I'm happy (and grateful) to report that I recently received three revise and resubmit invitations. (Three rejections, too, but that's still a marked improvement.) 

The R&R invitations coincided with the first few weeks of classes, of course, so I haven't turned them around as quickly as I would have six months ago. And I came very close to being frustrated with myself for not doing any revision last week, which was a difficult and stressful week all around. Why? Each paper has a deadline, of course, but those aren't for a few weeks yet. But my first year review occurs at the beginning of December (yes, after three months on the job), and I have to submit my report before Thanksgiving. Wouldn't it be great to have a paper acceptance - or at least, revision submissions - listed as completed during my first few months?

In addition, one of the recent R&R invitations was for my former undergrad research coordinator's first first-authored manuscript, so I have quite a bit of mentorly pride about that one. And it's motivating me to get my new undergraduates going on their own projects ASAP. Two are assisting with a conference submission (due in two weeks), and two will have an independent study with me next semester to prepare for their senior theses. That will look great on my report! Plus the new course I'm creating for the university and prepping from scratch!

Wait - I've only been on the job for five weeks?!? What am I getting myself into?

Fortunately, I realized something important that has buffered against the worst of the stress and guilt that can come from an "unproductive" week. (And by "unproductive," of course I mean that I've prepared for my classes, given exams, and participated in meetings.) I've worked for more than a decade to acquire a faculty job. Which I have now. In a place where research productivity is fully supported, but no one breathes down your neck abut the number of papers or grants you have. I don't need to keep up the same pace that I had over the past eight years. I need to get out of the trainee mindset.

I don't intend to stop being productive, certainly. Having acquired a job doesn't mean that I can just sit around now. But I need to think long-term and pace myself, so that I don't burn out. (I used to think that I'd never burn out. Ha!)

So far, my first year report will include:

• Midsemester evaluations for three courses
• Two guest lectures and an extracurricular seminar
• Creating a new course
• Supervising six RAs and three TAs (two RAs on a conference submission with me)
• Two IRB submissions, data collection for one project underway
• Attending one conference (four posters, one as first author) and submitting to two conferences (four or five abstracts total, three as first author)
• Three R&R invitations and resubmissions, one new submission
• Two external grant submissions (one as co-investigator and one as consultant), one internal teaching grant submission
• Participation in new faculty mentee activities and union meetings

This needs to be enough for three months of work. My goal for this weekend is to plan when to work on projects and papers that are not on this list, with emphasis on intersession and summer. And to add me-time goals to this list, like training for a half-marathon that will happen in April, and taking a real vacation. 

Somehow it always comes back to vacation.... Leave me some suggestions for my first real one in ages.