You Got a Junior Faculty Position: Now What?

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00:00:13.10 Hello, I'm Avery August at Cornell University
00:00:16.00 And what I'm gonna talk about today is
00:00:18.26 how do you get set up in an independent carreer
00:00:22.13 as a faculty member
00:00:24.23 So you got your first faculty position, now what?
00:00:28.17 Well, first, congratulations!
00:00:32.01 It's great, it's very difficult to get a faculty position these days
00:00:35.06 where there is some things that I think that you
00:00:36.13 should be thinking about
00:00:38.00 very early
00:00:39.14 So that you are off to a good start
00:00:41.06 in a successful career in science
00:00:44.16 First, don't wait until the official start date
00:00:48.08 I know you are all excited about
00:00:50.11 starting as an assistant professor or assistant investigator
00:00:54.06 or senior scientist
00:00:56.07 but you need to be thinking very strategically about
00:00:58.24 how to get your life started
00:01:01.28 First, before you start
00:01:05.04 as soon as you have accepted that offer
00:01:08.14 start to get your regulatory approvals
00:01:11.14 Now, you've been working in the lab as a post-doc
00:01:14.09 you know you need regulatory approvals for working with mice
00:01:17.27 for working with recombinant DNA
00:01:20.06 radiation safety, chemical safety, human samples
00:01:23.25 all these things need approval, prior approval
00:01:27.01 before you start working
00:01:28.12 and so what you want to do
00:01:30.07 is to get started in all of these approvals
00:01:32.28 before you actually start your position
00:01:35.05 so that when you start your position
00:01:36.21 all these things are in place
00:01:39.27 So, what you can do then, is find out
00:01:43.18 if you can get access to the regulatory approval system
00:01:46.09 at least four to six months before you get started
00:01:49.14 This might mean you need to get into the system
00:01:51.21 and get your email address set up
00:01:54.22 or some way of getting access to the regulatory system
00:01:57.26 most institutions will be flexible in allowing you
00:02:00.11 to get access to this system
00:02:01.27 so you can start in your approvals
00:02:03.12 because as you probably know
00:02:05.02 it can take up to six months
00:02:06.16 to get approvals for some things
00:02:09.05 The second thing you should think about
00:02:11.02 is to start to get training in other paperwork done
00:02:14.09 most of this can be done online if possible
00:02:16.17 so you can be in San Francisco
00:02:18.22 and starting a position in Chicago
00:02:21.15 but you still can do this online
00:02:24.14 The other thing you should do
00:02:25.22 is get on the phone, and consult with the offices
00:02:29.12 that is responsible for these regulatory approvals
00:02:32.21 they are usually very helpful
00:02:34.20 and are very willing to work with investigators
00:02:37.05 to get them through the process
00:02:38.09 particularly first time you're doing it
00:02:41.03 because this would be very important
00:02:43.18 so once you receive your regulatory approvals
00:02:46.17 you can start shipping reagents
00:02:48.14 and two of the most important things you can ship
00:02:50.16 are your reagents that you're using
00:02:52.08 that you can store
00:02:53.28 in -20 or -80
00:02:56.05 and, your animals that you can start
00:02:58.06 your breeding colonies
00:02:59.05 so if you can find someone
00:03:00.13 who can act as a contact person at your new institution
00:03:03.00 you can start to ship these things
00:03:04.29 you will have your animal protocol approved
00:03:07.01 if you get your regulatory approval
00:03:08.25 and so you can start your breeding
00:03:10.09 so that by the time you get to your institution
00:03:13.06 you will have animals that
00:03:14.14 with luck
00:03:15.11 you are ready to start experiments with
00:03:19.12 The next thing you wanna do
00:03:20.01 is start to think about in writing grant proposals
00:03:22.11 obviously, you've done very well
00:03:24.10 you've got in a faculty position
00:03:26.12 but now you have to get funding for your work
00:03:28.29 and so what you want to start to do
00:03:30.11 is, what is the process that you need to do
00:03:33.10 at your new institution to submit a grant proposal
00:03:36.07 you can write it
00:03:37.13 but you need to be able to submit it
00:03:39.18 And so what you should be doing
00:03:40.23 is talking to the staff
00:03:42.12 in the office for sponsored programs
00:03:44.04 at your new institution
00:03:45.22 You should find out from them
00:03:46.26 what are the requirements for submitting grant proposals
00:03:49.01 how far ahead of the time do you need
00:03:51.01 what type of budget they need
00:03:53.14 You can also ask them to perform searches for you
00:03:56.08 to find funding opportunities
00:03:57.17 private foundations, other government agencies
00:04:00.14 that would fund the type of work that you do
00:04:03.13 and you can do all of this
00:04:04.20 before you actually get there
00:04:06.00 so that you can start targeting
00:04:07.11 the types of grants that you will be writing
00:04:09.10 to fund your work
00:04:12.08 So, you've done all that
00:04:13.27 you've shipped your animals
00:04:15.02 your colonies are going great
00:04:16.19 your reagents are all ready, your lab is set up
00:04:20.05 now you are starting, so what do you do?
00:04:23.19 Well, you should try to get some students
00:04:26.07 so you should join graduate programs
00:04:28.14 in some institutions, this can be as simple
00:04:30.19 as sending an email
00:04:31.29 to the director of the graduate program
00:04:34.05 in other institutions, is a much more formal process
00:04:36.15 where you actually have to apply
00:04:38.14 do a research talk and be voted in
00:04:40.19 by members of the graduate program
00:04:42.13 so all of this parameters you should find out
00:04:45.10 you should familiarize yourself
00:04:46.18 with the teaching program
00:04:47.25 what are the courses that are taught
00:04:49.12 by your department
00:04:51.01 even if you are not teaching in those courses
00:04:52.23 you should have an awareness
00:04:54.04 of what that teaching program is
00:04:56.25 and, you should talk to recently appointed faculty members
00:05:00.03 what have been their experiences?
00:05:02.15 what sort of hiccups did they have?
00:05:04.03 so that you can get ahead of that curve
00:05:06.05 and start to act proactively
00:05:10.28 Most importantly, you need to start
00:05:12.28 adding people in your lab
00:05:15.04 so hiring people
00:05:17.04 is one of the most important things that you will do
00:05:19.28 to get started on a successful career
00:05:21.29 as a principal investigator
00:05:25.07 so, first thing you should do
00:05:28.00 is take a deep breath
00:05:29.17 and temper your expectations
00:05:31.20 because you are probably going to be the best
00:05:33.12 person in your lab for some time
00:05:36.06 and as you look for people
00:05:37.21 it's unlikely you will find someone
00:05:39.12 exactly like yourself
00:05:41.27 The right person is really important
00:05:44.19 you're not gonna hire a plumber
00:05:46.02 to work in your lab
00:05:47.29 So do you recruit a post-doc?
00:05:50.15 first, do you recruit a student first?
00:05:53.00 or do you recruit a technician first?
00:05:55.09 each of these different individuals
00:05:57.19 have different experiences and different things
00:05:59.16 they bring to your lab
00:06:01.12 a post-doc comes well trained
00:06:03.25 probably ready to jump into experiments
00:06:06.22 the student, you have to train a bit
00:06:08.28 before he'll actually be ready to do experiments
00:06:12.15 whereas the technician, in the right environment
00:06:16.10 can help you set up your lab and get started
00:06:21.05 and so, what I would suggest is you recruit
00:06:23.24 an experienced technician, preferably one that
00:06:26.04 has been at the institution for some time
00:06:28.07 who knows the institution
00:06:30.04 who can help you navigate this new institution
00:06:32.05 because you're new, and if they're new
00:06:34.19 and that can also be an issue
00:06:36.28 so you hire a technician and they can help you
00:06:39.09 do all your ordering, they can help you navigate
00:06:41.19 other regulatory issues that you need
00:06:44.10 help you connect with other labs
00:06:46.03 with other technicians
00:06:47.20 and then, perhaps you can recruit a post-doc
00:06:50.21 can come in and land on her feet
00:06:52.12 and get started on experiments
00:06:54.13 and so by this time now you've joined
00:06:55.26 the graduate program
00:06:56.28 and now you can recruit students
00:06:58.24 and get started on your lab
00:07:02.16 Now, you should be thinking about promotion and tenure
00:07:05.00 even though you've just started
00:07:06.19 time goes really fast
00:07:09.11 so you should be really thinking about
00:07:10.14 what do you need to get promotion and tenure
00:07:12.27 so you should be speaking to your department chair
00:07:15.14 what is it that required to get promotion and tenure
00:07:18.14 in your department in your college
00:07:20.11 speak to your associate dean for academic affairs
00:07:23.03 as a post-doc you probably don't know
00:07:24.09 who that person is
00:07:25.28 but that person is very important for navigating
00:07:28.06 and shepherding your tenure package
00:07:30.07 when you get there
00:07:31.00 so you wanna talk to that person and find out
00:07:33.06 what the experiences in the college
00:07:35.29 importantly, start to build your dossier
00:07:39.24 you should get a copy of someone who's recently been promoted
00:07:42.18 to see what a successful dossier looks like
00:07:45.03 and you should be documenting everything that you do
00:07:47.10 when you're doing
00:07:48.17 don't wait for four to six years later
00:07:50.24 to try to remember what you did in your first year
00:07:53.08 if you give a talk, document it
00:07:55.10 when you publish a paper, document it
00:07:57.05 If you give a lecture in a class, document it
00:07:59.10 so it builds over time
00:08:01.03 so by the time you are ready to submit your dossier
00:08:03.21 you have everything documented
00:08:06.06 So you have to publish
00:08:08.00 so you need to be pacing your publications
00:08:11.11 you can spend a lot of time
00:08:14.04 on a few papers that will give you a Nobel prize
00:08:17.02 or you could spend a lot of time on a lot of papers
00:08:20.08 but that will demonstrate that you've published a lot
00:08:23.28 the important thing is the balance of
00:08:25.28 the quality and quantity
00:08:28.09 you wanna be able to publish important work
00:08:30.09 able to establish yourself in the field
00:08:32.01 and get your tenure
00:08:33.20 but you want to publish enough of it
00:08:35.09 that you've shown that you're productive
00:08:37.21 so be wary of focusing only on that big paper
00:08:40.04 that will take you
00:08:41.19 four or five years to publish
00:08:43.10 and they not get publish until past
00:08:45.15 the date when you come off the tenure
00:08:47.12 in which case you come off the tenure
00:08:48.17 with no papers
00:08:50.07 you also don't want to spend too much time
00:08:52.09 publishing small papers that you don't really make
00:08:54.06 an impact in the field
00:08:55.10 until when you come off the tenure
00:08:57.03 nobody knows what work you've done
00:08:59.00 so again, balancing quality with quantity
00:09:02.12 but importantly, you wanna show productivity early on
00:09:05.03 within a year or two of getting you in your lab
00:09:07.11 you wanna have a few papers out
00:09:08.14 so that people know that you've established
00:09:10.07 your independence, and you can do this on your own
00:09:14.02 To do this, you need to manage your time
00:09:16.27 need to reserve some time for thinking
00:09:19.00 and writing
00:09:20.07 if you're teaching make sure you set
00:09:21.22 scheduled office hours
00:09:23.28 so that students don't drop in every now and again
00:09:25.24 and interrupt your writing
00:09:27.18 and also, you need to meet regularly
00:09:29.17 with the members of your lab
00:09:31.01 set aside specific meeting times
00:09:32.24 to meet with them in addition to your lab meeting
00:09:35.06 that way you are able to mentor
00:09:36.29 and interact with your students
00:09:38.20 in a one on one way as well as
00:09:39.28 having lab meeting
00:09:40.23 but reserving time for yourself
00:09:42.22 so that you can be writing and thinking
00:09:46.15 importantly, you need to understand how funding works
00:09:49.24 you should serve on an NIH study section
00:09:52.15 the NIH center of scientific review
00:09:54.27 is very happy to allow new investigators
00:09:57.29 to serve on a study section on a ad-hoc basis
00:10:02.15 so that they can see how the process works
00:10:04.13 it's very different from how you imagine it
00:10:06.14 and it's really eye opening
00:10:07.22 in the way you write your grants
00:10:09.15 and in the way you approach getting funded
00:10:13.29 you need to budget wisely
00:10:16.09 they will give you a starter package
00:10:18.13 you will have money that looks like
00:10:19.15 a lot of money to spend
00:10:21.16 but remember, you'll also have to get your own funding
00:10:24.27 so you need to make sure
00:10:25.24 you pace yourself
00:10:28.02 starter funds are usually unrestricted
00:10:30.12 and they can provide you
00:10:31.04 with more than within grant funds
00:10:32.21 so you wanna try to preserve that
00:10:33.21 as much as possible
00:10:35.09 so you wanna pace your spending
00:10:36.25 pay careful attention to how much
00:10:38.08 you're spending each month
00:10:40.02 check your burn rate
00:10:41.18 check your running cost
00:10:42.17 how much does your animal colony cost?
00:10:43.27 you can't breed all of this animals
00:10:46.08 because you would have to pay for them
00:10:48.10 and get a monthly report
00:10:49.22 of all your available funds
00:10:50.26 that way you know each month
00:10:52.16 what you've spent and how much money you still have
00:10:56.15 so at most universities you have to perform some services
00:10:59.08 so you will have service duties
00:11:01.16 and in particular a lot of those service duties
00:11:04.26 (...) displaced on the underrepresented faculty
00:11:07.25 within departments
00:11:08.23 because there are usually one or two of you
00:11:11.15 and there might be students that
00:11:13.14 would like to be mentored
00:11:15.19 or students that just come to your office
00:11:17.00 and want to interact with you and to get advice from you
00:11:21.21 and so it's really important that you manage that time
00:11:24.13 so first thing you should do
00:11:25.10 is find out what is expected
00:11:26.28 for untenured faculty
00:11:28.27 discuss with your chair the expectations
00:11:32.04 for you as an underrepresented faculty member
00:11:34.19 in terms of integrating that service
00:11:37.00 with the service expectations
00:11:39.17 you should carefully choose those
00:11:41.03 that also satisfy your teaching and your research
00:11:44.10 in some cases, you can advise summer students
00:11:49.00 who are from underrepresented groups
00:11:51.10 and that can be considered part of your service duties
00:11:54.08 and also integrated with your research
00:11:57.12 learn how to say no
00:11:59.17 I know that you will feel that
00:12:01.19 you need to meet whatever student that comes in
00:12:03.23 who wants to speak with you
00:12:05.06 but is important that you manage
00:12:06.29 those interactions
00:12:09.21 you can set times when you meet with students
00:12:11.16 just as you do for teaching
00:12:13.19 and most importantly, for official service requests
00:12:17.00 make sure that you run those past your chair
00:12:20.16 and if you are not sure
00:12:21.27 just ask whoever is asking you to do something
00:12:24.10 to ask your chair first
00:12:26.07 and that will usually take care of it
00:12:28.07 but it's most important that you protect your time
00:12:31.11 and even more important
00:12:32.27 that you manage your sense of responsability
00:12:37.00 in terms of giving back to your underrepresented students
00:12:39.27 with the fact that you need to establish yourself
00:12:42.23 get your lab going and become an independent investigator
00:12:46.22 so that you can be successful
00:12:48.08 for a very long time
00:12:49.24 and serving as a mentor to those students
00:12:54.12 so for more resources
00:12:56.02 these two websites provide some really good information
00:12:59.06 as to how to make this transition
00:13:01.19 and how to manage all of these things
00:13:03.21 that I've just discussed
00:13:05.03

This Talk

Speaker: Avery August

Audience:

Researcher

Recorded: July 2015

Talk Overview

Avery August offers practical advice for those starting their first junior faculty position. From obtaining regulatory approvals to hiring people for your lab, he discusses the things you should do before and soon after starting a junior faculty position. August also suggests that you understand the expectations for tenure and service at your institution and that you manage your time, budget and responsibilities. With these tips, you are on the road to building a productive lab.

This video was produced and brought to you by iBiology in partnership with the National Research and Mentoring Network (NRMN).

Speaker Bio

Avery August

When Avery August was a teenager, he moved with his family from Belize to Los Angeles. Unhappy with high school in Los Angeles, August quit and instead completed his GED. He spent two years at community college before transferring to California State University in Los Angeles. Supportive mentors at CSU gave August a chance to… Continue Reading