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Kathryn W. Tosney
Professor of Biology
The University of Michigan
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Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology Dept.
830 N. University
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
email: ktosney@umich.edu
telephone: (734) 764-9964
lab phone: (734) 763-8089
fax: (734) 647-0884
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STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL
IN ACADEMIA: a lecture
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This talk is one I have given at National meetings and at various Universities
by invitation from graduate student or postdoctoral associations.
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This one-hour talk reveals one survivor's perspective on a scientific career in Academia. I examine career structure from graduate school through tenure and discuss how the demands, expectations and rewards evolve as you progress through each phase. Your goal is to become an independent, respected investigator--and, of course, to win the grant funds and tenure that let you continue your independent, respected investigations. It should then come as no surprise that criteria for tenure are designed to assess excellence in just these qualities: independence, reputation, and research. But in practice, the criteria may appear opaque, arbitrary, or realistic only in sad retrospect. For instance, it is possible to both publish AND perish. The good news is that you can make sense of your system. This talk explores how--and why--one academic system works. The information revealed is not designed to serve as the first and only truth; instead it should form a baseline, to stimulate you to learn how your own system works.
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