Quote:
Originally Posted by Black Peter
I am no expert in Biophysics, so you'd be best off talking with your advisor or other Biophysics faculty about this.
However, i can offer some general advice for new faculty that tends to be relevant in any field.
1) Find out what gets you tenure. Most people do all the wrong things because they don't know better. If getting tenure depends on pubs, then by all means, focus on that. Let your classes slide if necessary. On any given day, if you have to choose between research and teaching a class, this should be an easy choice as long as you don't get complaints from the students. Don't get caught up in a bunch of committees and service work. Focus on what gets you tenure.
2) Make friends with the full professors and work with them if possible. They can help you more than you know. Find a mentor right out the gate. This is crucial. Pick one that publishes a lot (if pubs are what gets you tenure).
3) Don't waste your entire first year "getting your lab set up". Get it done immediately. It doesn't take that long to set up a lab and start collecting data. The sooner you are publishing the better.
4) When the job offers start coming in, talk to people who have been there about how to negotiate. There are so many things you can get from schools if you just know about them.
I will continute the derailing of this thread from PhD advice into faculty career advice.
I am not sure the above post is good advice.
1) Teaching - try to teach graduate level classes when possible and do a good job. The advantage is getting exposure with potential grad students to join your group (so do a good job to attract them) and seeing first hand who is good and who is not (you want to avoid as many duds especially when you are just getting started). Secondly, I recommend getting notes off other faculty for teaching lower level courses, many will be very grateful to give them to you. Spend most of your time preparing to give lectures because slacking on teaching will lead to complaints. You can slack on things like reusing other people's quizzes and exams, things nobody will notice or complaim much about. Overall though, you are right that pubs, but moreso getting funding is more important than publications.
2) The key is collaboration here more than mentoring. You want to be involved in your department with a few other faculty member's research. There is a lot of give and take here, mostly giving at first, but you have to play politics very carefully. You want to make absolutely certain you establish a cutting edge research program, so keep your collaborations on the fringe of your overall research goals. The game doesn't end after tenure either because there are still promotions to be had so be prepared to keep collaborating throughout your career, probably with a whole bunch of ass clowns, with personalities you may hate.
3) You should get a post doc and grad students to begin setting up the lab. Your first year will be spent writing grant proposals, largely based on the proposals you wrote that got you the job (and you have to think about this even before you get a faculty job).
4) Negotiations for faculy jobs are mostly focused on your start-up package. If you are going to do research, you need seed money to get started. You will want to negotiate the best you can to get money for the equipment you need. So you need to do your homework and make a budget for the projects you propose to do and start making these wishlsits as you are applying. I don't think you will want to spend anytime negotiating salary, its just not worth it. Assistant professor salaries are not particularly high and you will need to get tenure before seeing any significant raises. You can negotiate how much you can pay yourself out of start up for summer salary, but there really is not too much to argue about here (it does not look good to pay yourself ugo amounts of money out of funds the school gives you to start up your lab).
You missed the most important factor tenure decisions are based upon:
5) Reputation. You will give seminars, you will present at national meetings, and you will have an external advisory committee. Your faculty will take their opinions heavily into consideration when its time to decide your fate. The key for these folks is whether or not you are a world class researcher in your field and if you are on track to continueing this cutting-edge research. The main idea is this group can see through several weak publications in a scattered set of fields. They want to see high level publications in a specific field that is cutting edge and is heading towards something even bigger. I think making friends in your own department is over-rated, but making friends with your colleagues at other institutions is much more important. These advisory committees follow you as you try to make the bump from associate to full professor and can play a role in obtaining named professorships.