Here are some positive recommendations for new faculty, but older
faculty could probably benefit from these as well:
1) Require students and postdocs to contrive, design, conduct, complete,
and publish at least one unit of work (a paper) independently whereby
they are the first and corresponding author and the professor is not one
of the authors. This is the best test of their training - because this
is ultimately what they are trained to do. Also, allow them to be
corresponding author on other papers when appropriate.
2) Don't "hire" more than 2 students and 2 postdocs at any one time.
You cannot properly "train" more than this many at a time without
farming out these (and other) duties - which is not appropriate.
3) At the beginning of a project, iron out what each potential author
will do, and the order of authorship - that includes collaborators and
all authors on the paper and write a contract that everyone signs (or at
least the people in your lab). This contract can be revised, and the
author line of course depends on completion of each person's
responsibilities. If the research changes course, one person isn't
doing their part (maybe by no fault of their own - maybe they have other
more important things to work on at the time), have a meeting with all
authors and discuss changing the author line and responsibilities.
Every paper in a lab should have such a contract - at least when
trainees (students and postdocs) are involved.
4) For students and postdocs, but especially postdocs, strongly
recommend they (and help them) apply for their own independent funding
(where they are the PI on record) during the latter part of their time
in the lab - funding that they will hopefully use at their next
independent/stable position. This, of course, will: help them get
their next position (and thus not linger as postdocs forever), allow
them to begin putting serious and detailed thought about what their
research plans are, and get them use to writing and submitting grants.
If your institution doesn't allow postdocs to be PIs of grants (mine
doesn't), then help them work around that rule - promote them to
non-tenure track position or something where they can submit their own
grants or communicate with the institution's grant office on any way
this can be achieved.
Here are some things to consider about the suggestions which have been
made so far:
1) As I understand it (at least in biomedical sciences) it is typically
faculty who drag their feet on the publications their students are
involved with. I've heard quite a few students and postdocs tell me "we
have a great paper coming out, but it's been 1-2-3 years since I left
that lab and I still can't get <lab boss X> to submit it". This is
actually a giant can of worms - and all I'll say is that these people
should have independent projects that they contrive, conduct, and
publish without their lab bosses - then they can submit themselves
without having to wait.
2) Does anyone have any recommendations for FACULTY to be sure they are
keeping up with their teaching and mentoring responsibilities? I think
no.
3) It's your lab/office - its cleanliness is your responsibility. I
don't think it's even ethical to hold up someone's degree because they
didn't dust the shelves in your lab/office yet.
By the way: This seems like a strange topic considering: There don't
seem to be new faculty hires anywhere anyhow! Other than existing
faculty applying elsewhere to negotiate a better deal or because they
didn't get tenure, or the plethora of trailing spouse hires (which I
find extremely egregious and unethical, if not technically illegal in
some cases) - I am not aware of any legitimate "new" faculty hires -
whereby a postdoc or student applies to an ADVERTISED position at a
place where they don't know anyone, or don't know the chair or anyone on
the search committee already, and actually gets the job because their CV
and interview are the best of the bunch.
.... I could go on, but I have work to do. :)
Aaron T. Dossey, Ph.D.
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
David Inouye wrote:
I had an interesting discussion last week with some ecologists who are
relatively new faculty members about what kinds of advice they would
offer to other new hires. Two ideas that they contributed were:
1) Tell your graduate students they will have to clean out their
office/lab space before you will sign the form certifying completion
of degree requirements for graduation (or you may end up having to do
that job).
2) Require Ph.D. students to have two manuscripts (one for M.S.
students) submitted for publication before you will sign the form
certifying completion of degree requirements for graduation, to ensure
that they have taken the next step beyond writing the dissertation.
Other ideas?
David Inouye
Dept. of Biology
University of Maryland
