It’s been a busy few months at work, and a productive few months, which often means a lull in my blog. I do still want to keep this blog going as a space for chronicling our days, so will endeavour to write here more often.
Before Spud’s birthday and the advent of 2022 (hopefully not 2020-too…), my annual recaps. Starting with professional.
This year I:
- Published eight articles, six of which represent work from my lab, five of which are original research and one review. This is a deep relief, to have some of our older projects finally out in the world and to have newer collaborations coming online quickly and efficiently.
- Recruited three grad students and one undergrad, and then convinced that undergrad to stay for an MSc starting next year. So far three of the four are completely fantastic, and the fourth has promise but is a work-type that I struggle to mentor. My lab is now 12, and as big as I can reasonably manage without more permanent staff, whom I cannot stably afford yet. Three are set to graduate in 2022, my first flight of PhDs.
- As part of an ad-hoc committee, wrote the terms for a departmental EDI committee. Am now the chair of said EDI committee. This is probably good (I care about EDI done right and a LOT of Innovation U’s EDI work is performative), but has its difficulties, as there was some small but vocal opposition to the committee in the first place.
- Gave nine talks, all online, and a nice mix of local and international locations. Fun to meet with some folks at other spots. Probably too many talks overall, but we had fun stories to share with all the papers coming out, and not having to travel for 1-4 days to give a talk means it’s much much easier to do.
- Wrote a massive grant, which I should hear about any day now
- Wrote (in 24 hours) the internal renewal form (10 pages!) for my fancy chair (I thought it was a simple one page form!), only to be informed I don’t have to start that process until February of this coming year. Phew.
- Wrote no other grants aside from two renewals, as I just did not have it in me to define new research directions within the timelines offered. Nor to scope out work with such an unpredictable backdrop. The federal government has an unfortunate new habit of debuting grant programs with three-week lead times, unstable portals, and shifting application formats and requirements. These pass precisely zero of my triage points for “should I write this grant?” so I have sat them out.
- Ran my course entirely online including an at-home lab for the first time. It went really well, which is good because I learned it would be going back to online for next semester 24 hours before we left to visit grandparents for a week at Christmas and 14 days before I have to have the course website set and published.
- Counselled all of my students and staff at various points about burn out and doom scrolling and how having a therapist can be a helpful outlet even when the world isn’t on fire. Several have mentioned they have taken this advice. My crew is struggling and I anticipate another hard year as their boss and mentor. Lots of ways to motivate sufficient productivity to get into the positive feedback loop of getting things done and feeling good about getting things done, lots of slack to offer when trying to find that loop is doing more harm than good. Firm, fair, and clear, and constant reminders of the supports available.
- Completed all the usual service tasks (safety committee inspections, ran the seminar series online for the year, sat on video calls and voted on various matters) plus was on a hiring committee for a new colleague. I let one rather large ball drop, and so did every other person in a position of leadership and it resulted in the dissolution of a Big Thing, which I also ultimately think was for the best.
- Survived. It will be, on balance, an excellent year for bean-counting. It was a tough one though, and asked a lot of me in flexibility and grit and empathy and fatigue. My bar was to survive and I’ve definitely managed that.
Next year brings two massive renewals – my research chair and my foundational funding grant, as well as teaching my “full” load and submitting my tenure brief. It’s going to be… ugly. But I see it coming and have a plan. We shall see!
labmonkey2 