Like many other new institutes, the faculty at N1 almost entirely consists of young members within five to ten years of their PhD. The associate professors (few) and full professors (fewer) can be counted on fingertips. Our senior colleagues have substantially contributed to the growth of N1 and by their accomplishments and experience, have been able to give direction to the institute. What I also admire about them is that they left good positions in established institutes and roughed it out in a new set up and at the same time, managed to keep their research programmes going. Their commitment and leadership is deeply appreciated.
Sometimes, however, there is a bit of a gap in communication between the younger faculty (YF) and senior faculty (SF) members. I would like to share an example of how something said by YF can be misinterpreted by SF and vice versa.
A lot of heated conversations are centered around the balance between teaching and research. On joining, the message that most of us get is that while there should be no compromises in teaching undergraduate courses in our flagship programme, eventually our performance will be judged on the basis of our publications and research grants. Those of us who did their PhD/postdocs in North American universities have had prior teaching experience and have also seen our supervisors/postdoc guides balancing and actively performing both duties. On the other hand, many of my colleagues have joined after doing postdocs in research institutes in India and Europe. Thus, they may not have had any teaching experience prior to joining here and have come out of a system where undergraduate education was not given much priority.
Faced with the challenges of teaching their first course and trying to carve out an independent identity in the research world simultaneously, some YFs are occasionally heard saying that their teaching duties take time away from their research work. I would not doubt the commitment of a colleague who says this towards teaching well. I would only think that my colleague is dealing with time management issues, an important part of the learning curve of any faculty member and is frankly sharing his/her struggles with others.
Unfortunately, however, if our SFs hear this, more often than not, they will angrily retort and say that they had much heavier teaching loads when they started out and that YF has it much easier and therefore should not complain. SF might even make a general statement on the lines of ``People should not make teaching an excuse for their lack of productivity." Perhaps, SF is making a general statement, but YF will be stunned because s/he has been very productive. Needless to say, this conversation may not end very well.
SF's reaction is based on the assumption that YF was making teaching load an excuse for weakness, where as all YF was doing was harmlessly interacting with colleagues and sharing his/her struggles. On the other hand, even though SF made an off-hand general remark, it is next to impossible for YF to not take it personally! Perhaps, it might have been better if SF too had shared some stories of their early career days or given some advice. While it is considered impolite to offer unsolicited advice, surely unsolicited advice is better than unsolicited criticism?
Teaching was only one example. Similar conversations can also happen around other issues like research facilities, lab/office space, personal facilities like transport, housing etc.
On a personal note, I often don't mind when a senior says things like ``I had it much harder," provided the senior gives a concrete example and describes how s/he handled it. I get this a lot from my father and it usually has the desired effect.
When I was describing the above situation to him the other day, his reply was:
`` In army, a junior will not dare to open his mouth when a senior is talking. You academic people have it much easier."
I will leave it to the readers to agree or disagree with my father :)
Sometimes, however, there is a bit of a gap in communication between the younger faculty (YF) and senior faculty (SF) members. I would like to share an example of how something said by YF can be misinterpreted by SF and vice versa.
A lot of heated conversations are centered around the balance between teaching and research. On joining, the message that most of us get is that while there should be no compromises in teaching undergraduate courses in our flagship programme, eventually our performance will be judged on the basis of our publications and research grants. Those of us who did their PhD/postdocs in North American universities have had prior teaching experience and have also seen our supervisors/postdoc guides balancing and actively performing both duties. On the other hand, many of my colleagues have joined after doing postdocs in research institutes in India and Europe. Thus, they may not have had any teaching experience prior to joining here and have come out of a system where undergraduate education was not given much priority.
Faced with the challenges of teaching their first course and trying to carve out an independent identity in the research world simultaneously, some YFs are occasionally heard saying that their teaching duties take time away from their research work. I would not doubt the commitment of a colleague who says this towards teaching well. I would only think that my colleague is dealing with time management issues, an important part of the learning curve of any faculty member and is frankly sharing his/her struggles with others.
Unfortunately, however, if our SFs hear this, more often than not, they will angrily retort and say that they had much heavier teaching loads when they started out and that YF has it much easier and therefore should not complain. SF might even make a general statement on the lines of ``People should not make teaching an excuse for their lack of productivity." Perhaps, SF is making a general statement, but YF will be stunned because s/he has been very productive. Needless to say, this conversation may not end very well.
SF's reaction is based on the assumption that YF was making teaching load an excuse for weakness, where as all YF was doing was harmlessly interacting with colleagues and sharing his/her struggles. On the other hand, even though SF made an off-hand general remark, it is next to impossible for YF to not take it personally! Perhaps, it might have been better if SF too had shared some stories of their early career days or given some advice. While it is considered impolite to offer unsolicited advice, surely unsolicited advice is better than unsolicited criticism?
Teaching was only one example. Similar conversations can also happen around other issues like research facilities, lab/office space, personal facilities like transport, housing etc.
On a personal note, I often don't mind when a senior says things like ``I had it much harder," provided the senior gives a concrete example and describes how s/he handled it. I get this a lot from my father and it usually has the desired effect.
When I was describing the above situation to him the other day, his reply was:
`` In army, a junior will not dare to open his mouth when a senior is talking. You academic people have it much easier."
I will leave it to the readers to agree or disagree with my father :)
6 comments:
Interesting post!
In general, how much time do you get to spend on research, in contrast to your teaching and administrative duties?
It depends on the semester. This semester, I am teaching two courses, and thus end up spending more time on teaching than research. I now understand why summer months are so important.
Regarding administrative/service duties , they expand to fill the time alloted to them. After learning this the hard way, I am now limiting myself to at most one hour a day on admin work and plan in the morning what needs to be prioritized that day.
I am in same situation as yours (New Prof in new India). I have also heard (though not directly) SFs telling that they had it hard. I would like to know how:
1. What was the average class size (I am teaching >100)? I am sure it was much less in 80's and moreover only the really interested one got admission compared to today.
2. What was the average acceptance rate of tier I or tier II conference/journal at that time? I am again sure that publication is getting much tougher with time.
3. What were the expectations? Today I supposed to get good grant, good publications (number and quality), good student feedback and good collaborations.
I do believe that in many ways, the current generation does have it easier in the sense that when we enter the job market, we have many more jobs available to apply for. Our salaries are also much higher, we have much more flexibility to travel, we have the opportunity to apply for more research grants and we have internet, which makes it much easier to collaborate with people across the globe. And yes, many SFs did have much higher teaching loads - as much as 12 hours per week.
It's just that some YFs would appreciate it much more if some SFs would not question their commitment to excellence in teaching and research, but try to understand their genuine problems and address them if they can instead of writing them off by saying "we had it much harder."
Life is much much tougher now: The demands on quality in teaching and in research ( even if these 'demands' are self-imposed because of a larger peer-group in our vicinity) are higher. The pressure to deliver results faster is also higher. SFs should communicate the art of chilling (as the Foster ad says) and not make a tense situation worse. That's an idea! Get the SFs and YF's to go out together for a beer session. After a couple, the YFs can speak their minds Japanese style and no offense will be taken. Hic.
"Life is much much tougher now: The demands on quality in teaching and in research ( even if these 'demands' are self-imposed because of a larger peer-group in our vicinity) are higher. The pressure to deliver results faster is also higher."
I totally agree with this.
I don't know about the India situation, but many of these aspects can be applied to US and Canada, and while it is true that many things are easier nowadays with internet, money, etc, the expectations are also higher.
The most clear example comes with teaching. It used to be normal to sometimes teach 3 courses in semester in a research university. Now the norm is 2 at most. But we are pretty much required to maintain a website, to accommodate students in many ways, to deal with homework, etc.
At the end of the day, it's hard to make a fair comparison between both situations.
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