Most of all I'd like to see more transparency about department/college/university level service needs and who has stepped in to meet them. A giant public spreadsheet if you will. I once asked my chair to create such a list for our department. When I finally saw it I was SHOCKED at how unevenly the service tasks were assigned. I'd always considered service important, but obviously (and sadly) most of my colleagues do not. It wasn't hard to start saying no once I'd seen the data.
It was good that they actually made the spreadsheet - in my institution we have been requesting this for over a decade to absolutely no effect. There was even a pilot version that got scrapped for some reason.
In my recent performance review (happens every five years at my college, post tenure) where I spelled out how many facets of my workload have doubled in the last five years (e.g., advising, class size, # new preps, committee work, etc - I'm in a liberal arts college, btw) my Associate-Dean suggested .... wait for it ... that I start saying "no". In a student-focused era where retention matters for budgets, I was told to say no to students' faces when they asked for [fill in the blanks]. Wow, right? That's horrible. As I type this I am seeing emails pop-up from students asking me to over-ride my course caps because they *need* my class that's closed. Sigh.
So you can imagine that I read your post with interest and in solidarity. This "just say no" solution to the problem of overwork is victim blaming. As you and others remark, it deflects from the real heart of the issue that drives faculty overwork and burnout -- it's the system's fault, not ours. As another reader has commented, we do not cause our own burnout! And self-care isn't going to solve our burn-out problems. We are driven to excel at our work, and our motivations are complicated (I, like you, often romanticize my grad school days...). It is a near-intractable problem.
Exactly—victim-blaming. I’m very surprised to read that you were counseled to say no to undergraduates, it’s hard to imagine that scenario at my old institution. But I think leadership will say anything, no matter how inconsistent, in order to avoid dealing directly with the problem.
Excellent Liz! 👏 The "over-working" problem is a complex systems challenge. Simple linear prescriptions like Nancy Reagan's "just say no to drugs" and Nike's "just do it" will fail every time. The word "just" implies the solutions are simple and, as you clarify, individual. This is how systems do NOT change.
In my consulting on the "burnout" problem, I clarified 5 "vectors" or causes (cultural, financial, professional etc.) that operate silently in the background of many organizations. Without elevating and disarming those drivers of overwork, all prescriptions for change will fail, and individuals will be blamed. The only really effective thing a person can do to prevent/end burnout on their own is to LEAVE the toxic system, which you have done Liz. Sadly this also requires abandoning a career track that for many people is a calling which is a grievous loss for them. It's a sad state of affairs in so many fields (healthcare, law, education, manufacturing, retail etc).
This idea of vectors driving burnout is very interesting. I’m also interested to think back to the ways that I perpetuated some of this as a lab PI. . . And also how hard it would be to run a lab that totally avoided overwork for PhD students and postdocs! There is always a deadline or a time where you have to repeat an experiment that you don’t want to repeat, etc. This is getting a bit off topic, but how does a PI make sure that they are not creating, or at least propagating burnout?
Oh it's right ON topic! Because you're pointing out how the very people who complain about burnout also enable and maintain that workplace dynamic. My son just completed his PhD in biomedical science. I shared my memories with him of nearly killing myself as a grad student and post-doc. It's brutal. He and most of his peers are avoiding the post-doc route and going into "industry" for better pay and a saner schedule. This is a real crisis for the whole academic "pipeline" as you know very well.
You said it better than I could. The saddest part is how I still kind of romanticize those long hours I spent in the lab as a trainee, and fondly remember how there was a kind of camaraderie around it. I can’t entirely hate it!
Agreed! There is a weird battle-field high of being under fire as a student, and the trauma-bonding camaraderie is unique and deep. No wonder so many of us decide to "re-up" for multiple tours ... until we get our medical discharge!
This has been something occupying my mind quite a lot lately! I think about my postdoc years and even the way I feel about science currently. The wonderful "obsession" for wanting to figure something out, and having to work with the animal's biology: this combination lead to oddly-scheduled but wonderful days when I lived in Paris as a postdoc. I'd inject embryos around 11 AM (injecting earlier did not work for logistical reasons). Then, I'd start live imaging them at around 5-6 PM when the confocal became available. I had to stay until 8 or so to make sure the imaging was going without any issues (it would run overnight). I loved it. It was difficult but I loved making those movies. I created a body of work I am so proud of. A 9-5 day doesn't work for that. During those couple hours of wait between 6-8 PM, either I got some work done and grabbed a quick bite, or sometimes went to a nearby place to eat, the grocery store to shop for the week's lunches and dinners (some simple Monoprix prepped dishes). Then I often walked home listening to an audiobook (Paris was a wonderful place to walk no matter the season, except when rainy).
Now as a PI I am experimenting with promoting sane work hours but with that, I wonder if my people aren't ever going to get a chance to experience what I did as a postdoc. I have been thinking about sharing my perspective with them, but I don't want it to come across as a "hidden" expectation that I want to see them at the lab during late hours. I just hope they can experience this kind of lovely obsession with wanting answers to a question 💕
You paint such a vivid portrait of life as an apprentice scientist Duygu! My son just completed his PhD in biomedical science, and I watched him work weird and long hours to get the mouse data from his T-cell research. It was overwhelming and thrilling for him and fully confirmed his career decision. He loves doing science and is achieving good success.
I admire you in your PI role as you struggle with the tension between doing "real" science and having a sane life and wanting your students to have both. No easy solution but your open conversation approach sounds like the way forward. I have a good friend who is a cardiology professor who has to contain her frustration with her residents who want to go home at 5 PM. She knows it's a saner training model but she also feels they're "missing something". And she's right, as are you.
I really like this - I actually made it a game at one point to see how many men would say no to a service request before I gave up and asked a woman (I think my record was six men). In my workplace, there are some men who will say yes but most will not, and the reverse is true for the women. So yes, the redistribution issue is very real and in my institution at least is *highly* gendered.
I was lucky to be in a department with a number of highly service-oriented men, so it didn’t get split up that way. But in other arenas—most notably a scientific society—it was shocking how gendered the work was.
I agree with much of this, especially your conclusion about demanding more comprehensive workload reform. The "just say no" culture at my former employer led to a bizarre situation where tenure and seniority often meant avoiding leadership. For instance, I accepted the directorship of the first-year seminar in my second year on the tenure track, supervising 25 faculty. That should have been a position for a more senior colleague. Same with chairing committees -- avoidance led to junior faculty members assuming leadership they weren't prepared for, because they felt it would help their tenure case. This is a truly berserk way of approaching service work. No wonder the results were bad.
I don't blame people for pulling back now. Institutions are doing a poor job of making people feel valued and secure. Those were once the two chief rewards for sacrificing earning potential. The more focus there is on landing good-paying jobs for graduates, the less emphasis on timeless qualities of education and the particular disciplines, the more faculty work seems like just another job. And then you start thinking about protecting yourself.
Sometimes it's good to protect yourself. I don't feel guilty for the summer when I refused to participate in committee meetings because I was still on sabbatical. It was more convenient for others to meet during the summer, but I felt justified in holding that firm boundary. The problem is when people say no because they've stopped caring. When faculty begin checking out or protecting themselves against the work that needs to be done, it's not much different from a relationship where partners begin protecting themselves against each other. Nothing good comes of it.
I wish there were more nuance brought to these conversations. I was often frustrated, as a parent of young children, by my older colleagues' obliviousness to things like committee meeting times. No, I was not available to meet at 4pm -- I needed to get my kids from daycare then. Your idea of more comprehensive reform might also apply to a "village" mindset. The notion that everyone should be expected to contribute equally to service regardless of whatever else is going on in their life -- that parenting is just a personal thing, and not an institutional concern -- is part of the problem. I felt this especially keenly during COVID. There was zero sensitivity to the added stress that parents with school-age children faced during our one semester of remote teaching. The same should apply to someone grappling with illness or trauma. We ought to feel more collective responsibility for one another.
I agree with all of this! I’m definitely not suggesting that faculty, especially young ones, say yes to everything; as you suggest it’s more the culture that needs changing.
Our departmental seminar was at 4 pm, which meant that a lot of parents of young people had to leave before the questions, and definitely couldn’t stay for the reception after . . . There were some discussions of changing the time but in the end we’d arranged all classes around it and for some reason couldn’t find another time earlier in the day that worked . . . !!
I was asked to serve on the high profile faculty review board as assistant professor. No one told me to refuse, but it might have helped my own review if I had.
Mainly it made me take my eye off my co-PI in our group, who secretly made plans to leave for a job at a school in another state. Without that collaboration any more my tenure case was toast.
Most of all I'd like to see more transparency about department/college/university level service needs and who has stepped in to meet them. A giant public spreadsheet if you will. I once asked my chair to create such a list for our department. When I finally saw it I was SHOCKED at how unevenly the service tasks were assigned. I'd always considered service important, but obviously (and sadly) most of my colleagues do not. It wasn't hard to start saying no once I'd seen the data.
"It wasn't hard to start saying no once I'd seen the data."
Which is why the data is kept under wraps!
It was good that they actually made the spreadsheet - in my institution we have been requesting this for over a decade to absolutely no effect. There was even a pilot version that got scrapped for some reason.
Transparency isn’t a core value in many departments or institutions.
yes - i would go so far as to say that secrecy is a core value a lot of the time.
And dissembling. An admin told me once, "you want the truth but most people here don't. I have to keep their spirits up [by lying]."
Auuuggh!
"for some reason..." - ha ha! Clearly the reason was...to hide the data. Oy.
YES! This! Just one faculty meeting with this kind of information on the white board would be a game changer.
In my recent performance review (happens every five years at my college, post tenure) where I spelled out how many facets of my workload have doubled in the last five years (e.g., advising, class size, # new preps, committee work, etc - I'm in a liberal arts college, btw) my Associate-Dean suggested .... wait for it ... that I start saying "no". In a student-focused era where retention matters for budgets, I was told to say no to students' faces when they asked for [fill in the blanks]. Wow, right? That's horrible. As I type this I am seeing emails pop-up from students asking me to over-ride my course caps because they *need* my class that's closed. Sigh.
So you can imagine that I read your post with interest and in solidarity. This "just say no" solution to the problem of overwork is victim blaming. As you and others remark, it deflects from the real heart of the issue that drives faculty overwork and burnout -- it's the system's fault, not ours. As another reader has commented, we do not cause our own burnout! And self-care isn't going to solve our burn-out problems. We are driven to excel at our work, and our motivations are complicated (I, like you, often romanticize my grad school days...). It is a near-intractable problem.
Exactly—victim-blaming. I’m very surprised to read that you were counseled to say no to undergraduates, it’s hard to imagine that scenario at my old institution. But I think leadership will say anything, no matter how inconsistent, in order to avoid dealing directly with the problem.
Agree. It was a thoughtless reaction that individualizes rather than solves.
Excellent Liz! 👏 The "over-working" problem is a complex systems challenge. Simple linear prescriptions like Nancy Reagan's "just say no to drugs" and Nike's "just do it" will fail every time. The word "just" implies the solutions are simple and, as you clarify, individual. This is how systems do NOT change.
In my consulting on the "burnout" problem, I clarified 5 "vectors" or causes (cultural, financial, professional etc.) that operate silently in the background of many organizations. Without elevating and disarming those drivers of overwork, all prescriptions for change will fail, and individuals will be blamed. The only really effective thing a person can do to prevent/end burnout on their own is to LEAVE the toxic system, which you have done Liz. Sadly this also requires abandoning a career track that for many people is a calling which is a grievous loss for them. It's a sad state of affairs in so many fields (healthcare, law, education, manufacturing, retail etc).
This idea of vectors driving burnout is very interesting. I’m also interested to think back to the ways that I perpetuated some of this as a lab PI. . . And also how hard it would be to run a lab that totally avoided overwork for PhD students and postdocs! There is always a deadline or a time where you have to repeat an experiment that you don’t want to repeat, etc. This is getting a bit off topic, but how does a PI make sure that they are not creating, or at least propagating burnout?
Oh it's right ON topic! Because you're pointing out how the very people who complain about burnout also enable and maintain that workplace dynamic. My son just completed his PhD in biomedical science. I shared my memories with him of nearly killing myself as a grad student and post-doc. It's brutal. He and most of his peers are avoiding the post-doc route and going into "industry" for better pay and a saner schedule. This is a real crisis for the whole academic "pipeline" as you know very well.
You said it better than I could. The saddest part is how I still kind of romanticize those long hours I spent in the lab as a trainee, and fondly remember how there was a kind of camaraderie around it. I can’t entirely hate it!
Agreed! There is a weird battle-field high of being under fire as a student, and the trauma-bonding camaraderie is unique and deep. No wonder so many of us decide to "re-up" for multiple tours ... until we get our medical discharge!
This has been something occupying my mind quite a lot lately! I think about my postdoc years and even the way I feel about science currently. The wonderful "obsession" for wanting to figure something out, and having to work with the animal's biology: this combination lead to oddly-scheduled but wonderful days when I lived in Paris as a postdoc. I'd inject embryos around 11 AM (injecting earlier did not work for logistical reasons). Then, I'd start live imaging them at around 5-6 PM when the confocal became available. I had to stay until 8 or so to make sure the imaging was going without any issues (it would run overnight). I loved it. It was difficult but I loved making those movies. I created a body of work I am so proud of. A 9-5 day doesn't work for that. During those couple hours of wait between 6-8 PM, either I got some work done and grabbed a quick bite, or sometimes went to a nearby place to eat, the grocery store to shop for the week's lunches and dinners (some simple Monoprix prepped dishes). Then I often walked home listening to an audiobook (Paris was a wonderful place to walk no matter the season, except when rainy).
Now as a PI I am experimenting with promoting sane work hours but with that, I wonder if my people aren't ever going to get a chance to experience what I did as a postdoc. I have been thinking about sharing my perspective with them, but I don't want it to come across as a "hidden" expectation that I want to see them at the lab during late hours. I just hope they can experience this kind of lovely obsession with wanting answers to a question 💕
You paint such a vivid portrait of life as an apprentice scientist Duygu! My son just completed his PhD in biomedical science, and I watched him work weird and long hours to get the mouse data from his T-cell research. It was overwhelming and thrilling for him and fully confirmed his career decision. He loves doing science and is achieving good success.
I admire you in your PI role as you struggle with the tension between doing "real" science and having a sane life and wanting your students to have both. No easy solution but your open conversation approach sounds like the way forward. I have a good friend who is a cardiology professor who has to contain her frustration with her residents who want to go home at 5 PM. She knows it's a saner training model but she also feels they're "missing something". And she's right, as are you.
Be well.
I really like this - I actually made it a game at one point to see how many men would say no to a service request before I gave up and asked a woman (I think my record was six men). In my workplace, there are some men who will say yes but most will not, and the reverse is true for the women. So yes, the redistribution issue is very real and in my institution at least is *highly* gendered.
I was lucky to be in a department with a number of highly service-oriented men, so it didn’t get split up that way. But in other arenas—most notably a scientific society—it was shocking how gendered the work was.
I'm glad ours is not a typical model! We have a setup that particularly (more or less) rewards selfishness and punishes service which doesn't help.
I agree with much of this, especially your conclusion about demanding more comprehensive workload reform. The "just say no" culture at my former employer led to a bizarre situation where tenure and seniority often meant avoiding leadership. For instance, I accepted the directorship of the first-year seminar in my second year on the tenure track, supervising 25 faculty. That should have been a position for a more senior colleague. Same with chairing committees -- avoidance led to junior faculty members assuming leadership they weren't prepared for, because they felt it would help their tenure case. This is a truly berserk way of approaching service work. No wonder the results were bad.
I don't blame people for pulling back now. Institutions are doing a poor job of making people feel valued and secure. Those were once the two chief rewards for sacrificing earning potential. The more focus there is on landing good-paying jobs for graduates, the less emphasis on timeless qualities of education and the particular disciplines, the more faculty work seems like just another job. And then you start thinking about protecting yourself.
Sometimes it's good to protect yourself. I don't feel guilty for the summer when I refused to participate in committee meetings because I was still on sabbatical. It was more convenient for others to meet during the summer, but I felt justified in holding that firm boundary. The problem is when people say no because they've stopped caring. When faculty begin checking out or protecting themselves against the work that needs to be done, it's not much different from a relationship where partners begin protecting themselves against each other. Nothing good comes of it.
I wish there were more nuance brought to these conversations. I was often frustrated, as a parent of young children, by my older colleagues' obliviousness to things like committee meeting times. No, I was not available to meet at 4pm -- I needed to get my kids from daycare then. Your idea of more comprehensive reform might also apply to a "village" mindset. The notion that everyone should be expected to contribute equally to service regardless of whatever else is going on in their life -- that parenting is just a personal thing, and not an institutional concern -- is part of the problem. I felt this especially keenly during COVID. There was zero sensitivity to the added stress that parents with school-age children faced during our one semester of remote teaching. The same should apply to someone grappling with illness or trauma. We ought to feel more collective responsibility for one another.
I agree with all of this! I’m definitely not suggesting that faculty, especially young ones, say yes to everything; as you suggest it’s more the culture that needs changing.
Our departmental seminar was at 4 pm, which meant that a lot of parents of young people had to leave before the questions, and definitely couldn’t stay for the reception after . . . There were some discussions of changing the time but in the end we’d arranged all classes around it and for some reason couldn’t find another time earlier in the day that worked . . . !!
I was asked to serve on the high profile faculty review board as assistant professor. No one told me to refuse, but it might have helped my own review if I had.
Yikes. So rather than giving you an inside track to the ins and outs of faculty review, it put you in a vulnerable position?
Mainly it made me take my eye off my co-PI in our group, who secretly made plans to leave for a job at a school in another state. Without that collaboration any more my tenure case was toast.
😳