Eigen

Why should it be agreed on between professors? Each professor will have a syllabus stating what they consider the breakpoint in work. No need for a standard agreement, that's not really how grading works. I see you're jumping on assuming unfairness in grades from RS, assuming they didn't bump other students within that range rather than that they did. That said, the focus on points to letter grades is largely absurd, imo. Final grade assignment is based on what the instructor feels is an accurate representation of the students work. Points and assignment grades through the semester provide a framework, but don't cover everything. Was a student sick on the day of a particular test, and that score is way out of the normal range for them? Might bump them up if they're close. A student that started out weak and got better as the semester went on? Same thing. It's why my syllabus, and many others, say I reserve the right to adjust final grades and that my point range is a guideline and not absolute. I personally always bump up not down, and I generally consider hat the same bump would have on the other students in the class.

While an interview bag should look more professional, I think this is somewhat field dependent. It shouldn't look ragged, or wildly unprofessional, but I don't think it needs to be especially different from what you'd use every day. At least in my field, form is just as important as function, and I don't think anyone judges based on the choice of bag. Even clothes for interviews- it needs to not be wildly unprofessional (not jeans and a t-shirt, not a cocktail dress), but there's a huge range in between that's very acceptable. In general, you want something that doesn't detract from the rest of who you are, but it should be comfortable and relaxed enough that you feel good in it and that comes across, imo.

I know the title is rather generic, but everything else I tried seemed too specific. What are your plans and goals for the new year? Any academic resolutions? Things you want to try? Things you tried last year that didn't work out? Personally, I'm in the midst of trying to re-organize and re-arrange my office. After moving last year, half of my files were still in boxes, and the other half were stuffed in a drawer somewhere. Organizing old grad school/postdoc files, my teaching files, and my research into some manageable grouping is the main plan before the new semester starts. I felt like my office floor plan wasn't really as conducive as I'd like to multiple students for office hours, so I moved things around to make a nice 3-4 person seating area with a table around a whiteboard that should make those easier. I'm determined not to over-prep for classes this semester. The fall had way too many 1 AM mornings before an 8 AM class! Less preparation, and more enthusiasm and energy were a better combination than extremely prepared, but exhausted.

I have no idea what you mean by a hookup statement. Can you clarify? Secondly, asking for sample sentences seems awfully close to plagiarism. Can you clarify your request?

So much this. I give an A- when there's a significant difference between the work shown and what I'd look for as an A, but the student hasn't dropped to B. I also give it when the student oscillates consistently between A and B work.

I use a Chrome messenger bag, personally. I have several more professional ones, but the utility of waterproof and how it fits on my back has been a lifesaver for traveling around to give seminars and navigating airports. I also bike to work, and it's great for that. I find very few of my colleagues have bags that scream professor, they all tend to be more practical backpacks or messenger bags.

Moved to the Biology section at the OP's request. Leaving a link in Psychology for the next month or so to let everyone transition.

More information would definitely be helpful. Are you an undergrad? Grad student? Is this professor a thesis/dissertation advisor? Potential committee member?

It really depends how efficient you are in time, and the course load. For the stated number of hours, most TA positions (as mentioned) pay fairly well above minimum wage. That said, sometimes you end up spending more time than expected, especially at certain points of the semester. In the end, TA positions don't really work well with an "hourly wage" idea, as they're a salary model- pay in exchange for a particular set of services rendered.

I don't know of any major grant where funding surplus can be used for salaries, nor any major granting agency that would allow the change under the situation you describe. So having $100k funding surplus means very little in whether or not you get a raise. Also, as mentioned, your rank with the University and HR matters less than what the institution funding your grant considers "normal" wages. Take, for example, NSF and NIH postdoctoral wages as a starting point.

I completely agree. I constantly get frustrated because I have been told over and over by senior female faculty (and grad students) that because I'm a male I can't properly mentor female students, or go into schools and work with getting girls interested in STEM fields, and that I shouldn't even try. This is a large, systemic problem that I feel gets way too little attention. There are growing pushes for female mentors for students, which is great, but I consistently feel like, instead of helping current male faculty get involved, most of the efforts on the campuses I've experienced explicitly push them away. It frustrates me to no end that I get told taking one of me female students out to get coffee when they're obviously having a hard day and need someone to talk to will hurt both my reputation and theirs. My earlier posts weren't meant to come across as placing blame on the female students, I just emphatically think the solution is never to cut out productive relationships (male/male or female/female) just because they aren't equitable. Instead, the focus should be on broadening them to be more inclusive. I was responding to the "If they won't do it with female students they shouldn't do it at all" vibe, because I feel like that's a step backward and not forward. As an example, my current campus has efforts to increase young female faculties productivity and likliehood of getting tenure. There are female only support groups run by senior female faculty on top of the existing early faculty mentoring services. They're great programs, and they seem to help. That said, it's frustrating that it's a gender specific option. However, I wouldn't say the current groups should go away, but would like to see our school develop similar support groups that are for any gender new faculty to go along with the gender specific ones. To go back to the title of this thread, the problem is not that male faculty are friends with male grad students- it's that they aren't friends with the female grad students.

And again we seem to talking past one another. The first part of my post was, indeed (I thought) answering your "am I missing something", although it apparently wasn't all that clear. The last was in response to Fuzzy; which I thought was obvious, since those were the exact words they used.

I don't disagree that the faculty should extend those invitations, in fact I think it's crucial that they do. I'm not saying the primary agency for departmental change should be the female graduate students, just pointing out some things they might be able to do to shake up the dynamic. I can judge the faculty in the OPs institution for their behavior, but in the most recent post I was trying to suggest solutions that might help within the realm of the OPs agency. From my position as a faculty member, I try to do the best job of reaching out to all of my students personally that I can. I don't not invite group members to events, and I don't exclude people. But I can definitely contrast times from when I've only had male students working with me to when I've had all female groups, and a lot of the options for 1 on 1 or even group activities are a lot more limited, and I find that sad. I still have good relationships with my female students, but I've never been able to get them quite as personally familiar. When I have mixed groups, I do the best I can to reach out to all of my students, but I'm not going to stop letting my male students crash at my house when they need it just because I can't do the same thing with my female students. And pre-tenure, there's only so much I can do on an institutional level other than do the best I can for my students and impotently post my frustration with the situation on a message board. I speak out when I have the opportunity, and I rather resent the implication (from a handful of Internet posts) that I am shirking my responsibility and am not an ally is frustrating.

I didn't say they should do nothing about it. I said the solution is not to restrict the relationships the male students are having, but rather to look for ways to productively bridge what is obviously a significant cultural issue in the department. It's why I referred to the entire issue as a serious problem facing academia in my previous post. But it's also not something that is easily solved on an individual level, if we take the culture at the OPs institution (a female student interacting 1 on 1 socially with a male professor being taboo). I also would posit that it's not likely to be the male faculty or the male students who are doing this by direct choice, but in my experience pressure from the institution to be overly cautious in their interactions with female students. Accordingly, the solution lies with pushing for change at the institutional level, or with being proactive in arranging group gatherings (i.e., two female students asking a male professor to get drinks).

The OP has directly suggested several times that they feel faculty should not do things with the male students (i.e., going to the bathroom together, get drinks 1 on 1) because they can't do it with the females students. The mentions of favoritism and collaboration have been so intertwined with social behavior in the posts I'm having a hard time following what is what, hence why I'm suggesting the OP leave off focusing on the social interactions, or talk of limiting the male students social engagement, and focus on the more serious issue of gender based favoritism in collaborations and class. All of the examples given have been of the social behavior, rather than a actual limiting professional interactions. Percieved closeness from out of class events can be hard to disentangle from actual marked favoritism in classes/collaborations. Also, the way I read it, there are larger social gatherings that are more open, and it's majoritively the 1 on 1 interactions the OP feels are lacking.

I feel like you're mixing together things that aren't a big deal with things that are. The male student forming friendships with faculty is not an issue- in fact, it's a large part of what grad school is about. The issue, as I would read it, is that there's such a strong connotation of impropriety for female graduate students forming friendships or doing things with male professors, and that's a hard one to change. I can't quite read from your comments, but do you actually want to form strong 1 on 1 relationships with your male faculty? Or is this something that you would also consider inappropriate? Overall, this is something I've had to struggle with a lot as a young male professor. I'm generally informal with students, and I have a lot that I would consider friends. I find myself having to be a lot more cautious and reserved with female students than male students, largely due to the worry of what it looks like from the outside. I try to interact with groups, and all of the students doing research with me are (currently) female. But I could easily take my male students out for the weekend and go camping or fishing, and no one would think anything of it. Doing the same thing with my female students would invite a lot of scrutiny, and likely have negative effects for both them and me. Similarly, I've let my (male) students crash with me if they need a few nights here and there between, say, semester and summer housing. Again, having female students stay with me (even though I'm married) is a line that would likely get me in a lot of trouble. It is a double standard, and I do find that it hurts my female students, as there are fewer people they can "appropriately" form close mentor relationships with, but I'm at a loss for solutions short of "broad sweeping change in perceptions and opinions". I feel this is an issue that needs a lot more attention (broadly) in the academy, where the general rule seems to be that male faculty should be very cautious around female students, but that male faculty/male students and female faculty with either male or female students can be a lot more personable. It's not something I see openly discussed much at all, but it's something that does worry me. I would say that you and your predominately female cohort could do a lot of good brainstorming ways to open up the social behavior of the department- I second the ideas of inviting faculty out for drinks after seminars, etc. as small groups. That said, as mentioned, I wouldn't think it would be productive to try to disrupt the relationships the male student in your department has formed- the idea is for you all to be able to form similar relationships, not for no one to be able to!

I'd look at some top SLACs, I think they'll provide more of what you're looking for than a lot of R2s. Our grants office, for instance, is very on the ball, and we have a pretty robust education program. Some SLACs that I've applied to even have fairly robust M.Ed programs as their sole graduate program. It's also worth noting that there are a lot more NSF grants awarded to *good* SLACs than mediocre R2s.

My field has 2-3 times the number of jobs advertised at this time relative to last year, and I'm hearing similar things from friends in other disciplines.

It's been a long time since the start of this, but have you completely ruled out small liberal arts colleges? Or are you just focused on R1/R2 schools?

More qualitative than quantitative. All depends on the number of schools hiring, which you get a good sense of year to year.

So for me it's all the same type of writing- response papers, research proposals, literature reviews, theses- but I refuse to grade hard copy, and I don't work at home. So maybe not field so much as just personal preference? I live about a 5 minute bike ride from my office, and I find it makes my work creep too much into my home life if I work at home. If I need to grade things, I come into my office, same with lecture prep and all the rest. I've gotten some really good, large screens for my office, and find they're easier on my eyes than hard copies- but they're also a lot better for my posture, since I tend to work sitting up in a good chair, rather than hunched over a desk or on the couch. Personal style, though! That said, my school also has vision included with our health package, so I don't have to pay for worsening sight and new prescriptions, either! Part of my personal stance on not liking hard copies is the environmental issue- I really can't stand the immense amount of paper waste it would generate. Any of my classes alone would be hundreds of pages a semester, and that just makes me hurt! But it's also because I have a grave propensity for losing things. The other is that I find when I'm giving comments on student work, I can rarely write enough, legibly, on a hard copy draft, even double spaced. Especially, as you mention, asking extra questions or providing that dialogue-based feedback that engages with them. I find there's enough room about 80% of the time, and then I have to cram in a ton of response in a small space that last 20% of the time, and it drives me nuts. I also type about 4x as fast as I hand write. It does help, a lot, that our CMS here is really good at allowing digital submissions with amazing comment/feedback on PDF drafts. It's also nice because the students can't just "accept changes" like they could in a word document, and actually have to go through, read them, and incorporate.

I don't let students turn in typed hardcopies almost at all, so that's not something I've thought about much. To me, so little information fits on a page with 12 pt font and decent margins, and I hate flipping back and forth.

FWIW, double spaced is not really more readable. I hate when my students turn things in double spaced, and have to go back and single space it before I can read and edit it. Double only makes sense if you're handwriting comments and need the room- i.e., not in modern digital grading and commenting. And, as Fuzzy said, follow the instructions.

This. You've only been there 3 weeks, which is a very small amount of time to judge the rest of your PhD by. This is especially true since you'll be going back and forth between two schools. You also seem to think what you study is important for making friends, which in my experience it completely isn't. The people I hung out with the most in grad school I had very little research overlaps with. The struggles with your work are still largely the same, you're going through the same process, and you have a lot more in common from that than you think. Give it some time, go meet people with offices down the hall, and don't focus so much on the fact that you research Z and they all research X and Y.

Yes, this is OK. Not sure why you think it wouldn't be. "Cheating" becomes a vague and amorphous term outside of exams/assignments, and is usually limited to plagiarism and getting someone to write your work for you.