Dr. Shellie

Suppose your students’ office space has room for only two of the following three groups of items. Which do you choose?

1. Sink, microwave, and coffee maker

2. Sofa

3. Round table with chairs and whiteboard

Additional information: there is no conference room or women’s bathroom on the floor, and no common kitchen or lounge in the building (at least, not that I have found yet).

Discuss.

I am sitting in on a class that my advisor is teaching this semester, and have also taught a few of the classes when he was away. I really like his lecturing style and find the material very easy to follow. In many of my undergrad and graduate science classes, the professor tried to pack as much material as possible into the class session. I was left frantically taking notes, barely able to process what was going on. In contrast, in this class, my advisor usually reviews the last class in the first ten minutes, and then goes on to cover a smaller, selected amount of material in the rest of the session. This way, you can process what is happening in "real time". And, since you see most of the material twice, the retention is better. I may adopt this approach in my classes next year.

I went to meet the facilities manager yesterday to discuss lab renovations for the fall. At some point they asked whether white was OK for the student office space.

"You mean I have a choice? I asked rather stupidly.

"Well it’s your space– you can have whatever color you want," he said.

"You mean, I can have it painted yellow?" I asked.

Yes, they said, I can have it painted yellow.

I was totally blown away by this thought.

Ok, so rationally I realize that being pleased and/or surprised by this is totally inane. After all, my university is investing a huge sum of money in me for my startup costs– initial student salaries, summer salary, lab renovation costs, equipment, etc. Painting the room yellow instead of white costs, uh, maybe $25? So I shouldn’t really be so surprised.

I think I haven’t yet adjusted to the abrupt jump in decision-making power between postdoc and assistant professor. Here at my current university, I need my postdoc advisor’s signature to buy anything that costs more than a hundred dollars. When I go visit my future university, people ask me if I need to make any structural modifications to the building.* It is startling. I must remember I am in charge now.