I mentioned to my partner (not an academic) that we had a lot of young professors in our department. His immediate comment was " do you worry that having a lot of young professors somehow devalues the title?" In recent years, we have seen the public derision of the two main school exams in the UK - additional grades have been added to the top end of both GCSE (16) and A-level (18) to discriminate, and there is anecdotal evidence that students gaining a C in maths a-level in recent years would have failed the maths a-level 20 years ago. It is certainly true that at university we have to spend longer teaching basic maths concepts that I studied at A-level. So, does having more people at any given level (including being named Professor) automatically devalue that level of attainment?
Our discussion also included whether potential business partners would prefer to collaborate with older professors on the grounds that they fit the stereotype better. At the moment, the UK has a "celebrity physicist" in Prof Brian Cox who "looks like an ex-boyband member and way too young to be a real professor" (quote from various members of my family). Does being a young and female professor reduce my chances of being taken seriously? If anyone has experienced this, how did they respond?
Wednesday 27 July 2011
Mirror mirror
I am in reflective mood. The combination of my recent promotion, my annual staff development review and the relative quiet of the university summer vacation have conspired to promote thoughts about questions such as "What kind of professor am I?","What legacy will I leave?", "What do I aim for now?" .
I would say that I am generally on the more reflective side of the population anyway, but some specific circumstances make significant personal development necessary now.
My department has a somewhat unusual demographic. As well as several what you might call "old school" professorial staff, we have a rapidly growing number of professors (myself included) who have been promoted in the past few years and were under the age of 40 at the time of promotion. This means that instead of the traditional view of promotion to Professor being something obtained at the end of a long and distinguished career, we have 25+ years of "Professor-hood" to maintain and manage. In addition to this, the role of Head of Department rotates through eligible staff every few years, so it is more than likely that we will each take at least one or more turns before we retire. In addition, much of the activity I have undertaken until recently has been targetted at not only advancing scientific understanding in my field, but also at building my CV to get to this point. Whilst there are "zones" for professors with different skills and experiences, and therefore some career progression goals laid out, these are opaque and in some circumstances virtually impossible to plan for (e.g. making it to zone 3 is only possible if you are made a Fellow of the Royal Society).
To assist with answering these questions I am embarking on "project me", which will define (or rather re-examine) my core values and activities in my new role. My line manager (who thankfully is on the same wavelength) suggested reading biographies of a wide range of scientists and academics and identifying desirable traits and potential role models from amongst their ranks, as well as looking at my peers with "role model" glasses on. I am still slightly uncomfortable with looking at "real live" people in this way so intend to start with the biographies. I am re-reading Georgina Ferry's biography of Dorothy Hodgkin which I first read many years ago. This will be followed by Brenda Maddox's biography of Rosalind Franklin, and biographies of Ada Lovelace and Rosalyn Yallow. I am also interested in the new biography of Mary Somerville. However, I fear this concentration on female scientists is too exclusive - there is absolutely no reason why the traits that I might discover that I value should only be found in women. So this is an appeal for suggestions of biographies of male scientists - preferably those more interested in collaborative work than sole endeavour. I'd love to hear of any that you have found useful.
I would say that I am generally on the more reflective side of the population anyway, but some specific circumstances make significant personal development necessary now.
My department has a somewhat unusual demographic. As well as several what you might call "old school" professorial staff, we have a rapidly growing number of professors (myself included) who have been promoted in the past few years and were under the age of 40 at the time of promotion. This means that instead of the traditional view of promotion to Professor being something obtained at the end of a long and distinguished career, we have 25+ years of "Professor-hood" to maintain and manage. In addition to this, the role of Head of Department rotates through eligible staff every few years, so it is more than likely that we will each take at least one or more turns before we retire. In addition, much of the activity I have undertaken until recently has been targetted at not only advancing scientific understanding in my field, but also at building my CV to get to this point. Whilst there are "zones" for professors with different skills and experiences, and therefore some career progression goals laid out, these are opaque and in some circumstances virtually impossible to plan for (e.g. making it to zone 3 is only possible if you are made a Fellow of the Royal Society).
To assist with answering these questions I am embarking on "project me", which will define (or rather re-examine) my core values and activities in my new role. My line manager (who thankfully is on the same wavelength) suggested reading biographies of a wide range of scientists and academics and identifying desirable traits and potential role models from amongst their ranks, as well as looking at my peers with "role model" glasses on. I am still slightly uncomfortable with looking at "real live" people in this way so intend to start with the biographies. I am re-reading Georgina Ferry's biography of Dorothy Hodgkin which I first read many years ago. This will be followed by Brenda Maddox's biography of Rosalind Franklin, and biographies of Ada Lovelace and Rosalyn Yallow. I am also interested in the new biography of Mary Somerville. However, I fear this concentration on female scientists is too exclusive - there is absolutely no reason why the traits that I might discover that I value should only be found in women. So this is an appeal for suggestions of biographies of male scientists - preferably those more interested in collaborative work than sole endeavour. I'd love to hear of any that you have found useful.
Monday 11 July 2011
Happy Holidays...
Well, that's it. One week off and no more leave in the diary until the University closes for a few days at Christmas. That's depressing.
My fellow blogger FSP writes that her summer season is frantic with travels and work. Mine is more stay-at-usual-desk-and-work. Admittedly campus is a very different place during the summer, but I can't quite work out whether I like it or not. Our term finished 2 weeks ago, and I was on a "British = cool (temperature)" beach last week, so this is the first real week of "quiet". Campus seems to have exhaled and collapsed as the students left. Some departments are empty - although mine is just quieter than normal. We still have MSc students and grad students to supervise. I still have some teaching admin to do since we have a fieldcourse running in September that needs organising. However it is undoubtedly true that there are less interruptions to the working day, and there is a chance that I can tick some long term goals off the to-do list. However, this opportunity merely reveals that I excel in procrastination and somehow manage not to acheive my "personal scholarship" list even in the summer. There is also the nagging feeling that a university without the vast majority of its students is somehow less of a university. Perhaps all those years of explaining the lack of a summer break when people assume we are like school teachers (OK, I know many of them work in the holidays too but...) are finally getting to me.
My fellow blogger FSP writes that her summer season is frantic with travels and work. Mine is more stay-at-usual-desk-and-work. Admittedly campus is a very different place during the summer, but I can't quite work out whether I like it or not. Our term finished 2 weeks ago, and I was on a "British = cool (temperature)" beach last week, so this is the first real week of "quiet". Campus seems to have exhaled and collapsed as the students left. Some departments are empty - although mine is just quieter than normal. We still have MSc students and grad students to supervise. I still have some teaching admin to do since we have a fieldcourse running in September that needs organising. However it is undoubtedly true that there are less interruptions to the working day, and there is a chance that I can tick some long term goals off the to-do list. However, this opportunity merely reveals that I excel in procrastination and somehow manage not to acheive my "personal scholarship" list even in the summer. There is also the nagging feeling that a university without the vast majority of its students is somehow less of a university. Perhaps all those years of explaining the lack of a summer break when people assume we are like school teachers (OK, I know many of them work in the holidays too but...) are finally getting to me.
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