Spring Break
Summer means research for profs
Issue date: 6/14/07 Section: Opinions
How's your summer going so far?
If you're reading this, you're probably taking a class or two and working to pay the bills. Some stress, but not the high-stakes pressure of finals week.
You might assume that it's the same for faculty. Wrong!
As I've said before in this space, research university faculty do a lot more than just teach. Today, faculty members are not only expected to publish research papers but also compete for and win research grants.
In my experience, teaching and research are both all-consuming jobs. As the Bible says, you can't serve two masters equally.
So during the fall and spring semesters the demands of teaching often take precedence over research, gobbling up all available time. Research projects languish or move ahead slowly.
This makes summertime catch-up time for research, since fewer faculty teach in the summer. Research papers get dusted off, finished and submitted to professional journals. Grant proposals are completed and rushed to the Office for Sponsored Programs hours before they are due in Washington.
New data are gathered from remote sites at the ends of the Earth, something that can't be done during normal working hours in Athens. And new research ideas pop up eureka-style and are pursued, neither of which is likely to happen when a professor is hurrying to class or grading tests.
Back to "research papers." That phrase may conjure up a high-school flashback of a brief term paper thrown together the week (or the night) before it's due. Ha!
A scientific research paper is an excruciatingly composed, often lengthy piece of technical prose containing a significant original result. When I taught a research seminar last summer, I told my students, "The paper isn't finished until it's gone through ten drafts."
Exactly one year after that seminar began, our first paper has been accepted and is in press at a journal, and a second paper is nearly ready for submission...after we spend half of this summer polishing it.
Furthermore, one or two published papers isn't enough anymore. Depending on the university and the department, three or more papers per year may be expected for tenure. The bar keeps getting set higher. A research colleague friend of mine published or submitted 24 papers in 2006. His one-year output used to take half a lifetime in my field!
Even so, the "publish or perish" pressure is nothing compared to the research grants rat race. The acceptance rate for publications at the journals I routinely deal with is probably about 60%. Those are fantastic odds compared to the world of grants, where too many scientists fight for too little money. At the National Science Foundation, the funding rate for proposals is about 20% and dropping. Ditto at the National Institutes of Health, where (according to the May 28, 2007 Washington Post) funding rates for young scientists are in the single digits.
Translation: scientists have to write five, ten or even fifteen brilliant proposals just to squeeze a single solitary dime out of the grants process. Like research papers, each proposal takes months to craft and fine-tune.
When does this get done? All year long, but with a vigorous push during the summer.
Worse yet, that's only half of the pressure inherent in "grantsmanship." If the grant proposals don't get funded, then research scientists, post-docs and graduate students lose their funding and in some cases their jobs.
Imagine how pressured you'd feel if the proposal you were typing at 3 a.m. would determine the employment and affect the lives of your fellow workers and students and their dependents!
If you do hit the jackpot and win a grant, your reward is funding-AND the requirement to write lots more research papers. The treadmill never stops.
So the next time you encounter a faculty member this summer, consider this possibility. Instead of enjoying the lazy "dog days" of summer, he or she may be dog-tired from doing research-the part of the job that undergraduates rarely see.
- John Knox is an associate research scientist in the Faculty of Engineering and an instructor/adviser in the Department of Geography. He can be reached at jknox@engr.uga.edu.
If you're reading this, you're probably taking a class or two and working to pay the bills. Some stress, but not the high-stakes pressure of finals week.
You might assume that it's the same for faculty. Wrong!
As I've said before in this space, research university faculty do a lot more than just teach. Today, faculty members are not only expected to publish research papers but also compete for and win research grants.
In my experience, teaching and research are both all-consuming jobs. As the Bible says, you can't serve two masters equally.
So during the fall and spring semesters the demands of teaching often take precedence over research, gobbling up all available time. Research projects languish or move ahead slowly.
This makes summertime catch-up time for research, since fewer faculty teach in the summer. Research papers get dusted off, finished and submitted to professional journals. Grant proposals are completed and rushed to the Office for Sponsored Programs hours before they are due in Washington.
New data are gathered from remote sites at the ends of the Earth, something that can't be done during normal working hours in Athens. And new research ideas pop up eureka-style and are pursued, neither of which is likely to happen when a professor is hurrying to class or grading tests.
Back to "research papers." That phrase may conjure up a high-school flashback of a brief term paper thrown together the week (or the night) before it's due. Ha!
A scientific research paper is an excruciatingly composed, often lengthy piece of technical prose containing a significant original result. When I taught a research seminar last summer, I told my students, "The paper isn't finished until it's gone through ten drafts."
Exactly one year after that seminar began, our first paper has been accepted and is in press at a journal, and a second paper is nearly ready for submission...after we spend half of this summer polishing it.
Furthermore, one or two published papers isn't enough anymore. Depending on the university and the department, three or more papers per year may be expected for tenure. The bar keeps getting set higher. A research colleague friend of mine published or submitted 24 papers in 2006. His one-year output used to take half a lifetime in my field!
Even so, the "publish or perish" pressure is nothing compared to the research grants rat race. The acceptance rate for publications at the journals I routinely deal with is probably about 60%. Those are fantastic odds compared to the world of grants, where too many scientists fight for too little money. At the National Science Foundation, the funding rate for proposals is about 20% and dropping. Ditto at the National Institutes of Health, where (according to the May 28, 2007 Washington Post) funding rates for young scientists are in the single digits.
Translation: scientists have to write five, ten or even fifteen brilliant proposals just to squeeze a single solitary dime out of the grants process. Like research papers, each proposal takes months to craft and fine-tune.
When does this get done? All year long, but with a vigorous push during the summer.
Worse yet, that's only half of the pressure inherent in "grantsmanship." If the grant proposals don't get funded, then research scientists, post-docs and graduate students lose their funding and in some cases their jobs.
Imagine how pressured you'd feel if the proposal you were typing at 3 a.m. would determine the employment and affect the lives of your fellow workers and students and their dependents!
If you do hit the jackpot and win a grant, your reward is funding-AND the requirement to write lots more research papers. The treadmill never stops.
So the next time you encounter a faculty member this summer, consider this possibility. Instead of enjoying the lazy "dog days" of summer, he or she may be dog-tired from doing research-the part of the job that undergraduates rarely see.
- John Knox is an associate research scientist in the Faculty of Engineering and an instructor/adviser in the Department of Geography. He can be reached at jknox@engr.uga.edu.
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