A little over three years ago, back on my original blogspot blog, I wrote a post titled How Many Papers for Tenure? [I reposted it here when I first moved to Scientopia.] This remains, I believe, my all time most read post.

Now I haven't paid much attention to my old blog for a while, but recently went back there to look for something I had written. Turns out the How Many Papers for Tenure? post had garnered a couple more comments. I was struck in particular by one:

Anonymous said...
Impact Factor and Citations are far more important. Quality over quantity. But quantity doesn't hurt.
Saturday, December 31, 2011 3:44:00 PM EST

Yes and no.

Maybe.

Well, actually, mostly no.

Certainly quality matters. So does quantity. Your tenure decision is partly in the hands of bean counters. One could certainly get past them with fewer than expected papers if the ones you had published made a positive impact on the field. Hopefully the letters written supporting you would make that very clear.

But Impact Factor and Citations?

No. Most emphatically, no.

It's widely accepted by all but some bean counters and the glamour hounds that journal impact factor correlates rather poorly with actual long-term impact upon the field. I've certainly read many, many society-level journal papers that have had a much larger, longer-lasting impact than many Glamourmagz papers. Sure, you don't want to come up for tenure with all of your papers, or even any of them, in sub-sub-sub-basement IF level journals. On the other hand, coming up for tenure with a single Glamourmagz publication isn't so good either. You want sufficient good quality publications to show that you have established a research program. One Glamourmagz publication doesn't do that.* Even worse, there are those of us that might think you're doing your trainees a great disservice funneling all of their work into a single high profile publication from which only the first and senior authors will garner credit.**

And citations? Puh-leeeeeze. Your tenure decision should ride on what you did during tenure-track. We're talking 5-6 years here, likely with most of your publications coming in the last 3 or so years. Hardly enough time for any but the rare immediate-large-impact publication to garner more than a few citations. The impact of your work should be judged by those who have been asked to write letters of support, particularly those within your sub-field, not by how many citations you might have gathered in a couple of years.

Focus on publishing X number of good quality publications pre-tenure, where X > the average number of publications the last few people in your department had coming up. If you land a Glamourmagz publication, good for you, but don't screw yourself over by focusing solely on that. And don't worry about citations. If your work is good, they'll come along eventually.

Next thing you know someone is going to suggest h-index as a measure of tenure-track success...

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* And doesn't do your chances of landing a grant as much good as you might think.
** If you want to offer up the multiple equally-contributing first author Kool Aid, go elsewhere.

Life's been busy here the last few weeks. I've been working my butt off organizing various things on top of running the lab etc. All good stuff. As a result of the last couple of weeks, plus some anecdata from some bloggy friends, I've been reflecting on what it takes and means to be successful in academic science.* We have a tendency to talk about how we - as in the singular I - have been/are successful. From the graduate students "I successfully completed this experiment..." to the PI's "I landed the following grants and published the following papers". I tend to say I earned tenure (I did!).

But the truth is there is almost no room for the singular I in academic science, or science in general, anymore. Hasn't been for a long time. I didn't get to where I am by myself. I landed my TT position, got funding, published papers, earned tenure, and have pushed along post-tenure through the efforts of myself and many others. Did I play a central role? Sure. I earned tenure. But there is no way I could be where I am without the help of others.

I am where I am because of the efforts of my postdoc mentor, colleagues in my department and institution, collaborators, trainees, professional and non-professional staff. Even the housekeeping staff.** I'm not so special. Nor am I unique. PI's like to boast about how they made it despite the odds/admin/poor funding rates etc. But they would never "make it" without a large network of support.

And yet there are those in similar positions to mine who feel anyone who is not faculty at a research intensive institution is somehow inferior. Not worthy of consideration. Simple peons to be used and abused. Oft times abused.

People like that make my blood boil. They are delusional douchebags who should not be tolerated.

Recognize that you cannot do what you do without the help of those around you.

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* Or successful anywhere really. The above applies to pretty much all walks of life.
** Try running a successful research program when your lab and office is piled high with trash.

A good bloggy friend has recently been fighting a battle with an Administrator on a power trip. I won't go into details, but I can tell you that it's a ridiculous situation in which the Administrator is refusing to take the ten minutes required to correct a mistake, made by the Administrator, because it would be against the "administrative regulations".

Unfortunately there seems to have been a large increase in this kind of nonsense over the past decade or so. If you want to read about some truly egregious examples, check out Benjamin Ginsburg's "The Fall of the Faculty". While I don't necessarily agree with everything Ginsburg has to say, there are some truly startling stories and statistics in his book. Like universities with ~30 administrators and staff per 100 students. Really?

Now there are administrators and Administrators. The former are the good ones. People who see their jobs for what they should be - providing the means by which faculty and staff can further the mission of the institution. For research-intensive universities that would primarily be the creation and dissemination of knowledge. These people do exist. Trust me.

Then there are the Administrators. These are the people who use their positions within the administration to further the cause of... administration. Adminstrators who build empires doing, well, not a whole hell of a lot. I'm sure we all know some of these. Their goal seems largely, if not solely, to be to grab enough power and prestige to be able to move up the academic administration career ladder. These Administrators, aside from being a drain on limited financial resources*, can serve as a huge impediment to the institutional mission.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-administration. Just anti-Administrators.

Screw them.

Actually, let's screw with them.

How? Well, there are a number of things we can do.

1) Ask nonsensical questions that sound like they might be important for an Adminsitrator.

Administrators speak their own language - adminspeak. It is rife with nouns turned into verbs. Incentivize. Actionable. Use them. At the end of a presentation given by an Administrator, ask something like "How are you going to make this actionable in order to incentivize the stakeholders so that you can actualize the nominalization of the process?" Then sit back a watch the Administrator try to hide that look of panic.

2) Metrics.

This is such an easy one. Administrators do love their metrics. And we scientists do like our numbers to have statistical significance. Try asking an Administrator about p-values and samples sizes for a set of metrics. Even better, ask them about comparisons to a control group. Administrators never have control groups.

3) Sow dissension in the ranks.

Administrators are in it for the power and prestige. There are few things they hate more than finding out an Administrator of equal rank has gained more power and/or prestige than they have. Casually mention to Senior Associate Vice Assistant Deanling for X that you heard a rumor - mind you, it's just a rumor - that Senior Associate Vice Assistant Deanling for Y is getting a budget increase. Or is having the walls their office suite paneled in Sumatran teak - and it's not coming out of their budget. Sit back and enjoy the ensuing feud.

4) Fuel paranoia.

Administrators tend to be paranoid. They really, really fear the loss of power and prestige. This makes them such easy targets given the current economic situation. While enduring conversation with an Administrator, mention in passing that you heard a rumor - mind you, it's just a rumor - that there was a reorganization in the works that would see units such as the Administrator's absorbed into a larger unit controlled by a more powerful Administrator. This is particularly effective if the Administrator in question doesn't like the more powerful Administrator. Another option is to mumble something about impending budget cuts within the Adminstrator's unit.

Now remember, target Administrators, not administrators.

If you have any suggestions on other ways to screw with Administrators, post them in the comments.

Have fun!

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* The national average is ~9 people in the administration per 100 students. Do we really need that many?

It's a new year. Already. And applications for positions in the NSF REU program I run are beginning to arrive. Already.

Of late I've been thinking, once again, about the value of providing research experiences to undergraduates. Or anyone for that matter. My recent thoughts were catalyzed by a conversation I recently had with a non-scientist. This person had just read a newspaper article reporting on a recent study that found some kind of link between carbohydrate intake and breast cancer. I haven't read the study, or even the newspaper article. Indeed, the details of the study are unimportant as fas as this post is concerned. What is important is the statement the non-scientist made concerning the article. They said they don't believe any of these kinds of studies because there are far too many things going on and it would be impossible to pinpoint one factor that might be involved in a particular human condition. Or words to that effect.

It certainly is true that scientific research can be very, very complex. At times mind-bogglingly so. But research scientists are trained to deal with exactly that. And someone who has had some research experience, even if just a few weeks over a summer, will know that. Even if they don't know exactly how a study into possible links between carbohydrates and breast cancer would be done.* Should one believe every newspaper report on a scientific study? Of course not. Neither should one believe everything published in the primary literature. But one should not dismiss something out of hand simply because you don't know how it's done.

A research experience is scientific literacy.

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* I don't. It's rather far removed from what I do.

When I was young it was pretty easy to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

The good guys often wore white hats. And always did the right thing.

The bad guys wore black hats. And/or were ugly. Or monsters. And were bad.

Then I grew up and the distinction between good guy and bad guy became... fuzzy.

In my daily life who is the "good guy" and who the "bad guy" is often subjective. It all depends upon who, if anyone, "loses" in each situation. Truth is, we all have to wear white or black hats depending on the circumstances.

This week I had to wear the black hat more than I would have liked. But it was necessary. There are people here who currently view me as the bad guy. That may, or may not, change as time passes.

I find being the bad guy hard. It's draining.

I hate being the bad guy.