Transitioning from Starting Up to Started

I've been thinking a lot about my previous post and the problems that I have been having coping and I think the real problem is that my lab is transitioning from the "start-up" phase to the "started" phase. I no longer have to beat down doors for students and collaborators. Funding and papers are forthcoming (although more is always better in both categories). Up to this point, my criteria for selecting grad students was basically a pulse. Now, I can afford to be more selective and honestly, I'm not quite sure how to do that. This same extends to collaborators, requests for proposals, etc.

So basically my lab has moved past the part where you scrape your way out of the giant hole that is starting a faculty career and now we are on the surface trying to decide in which direction to start walking in.

A question that has leaped into my mind is what is my goal? Initially, I wanted to get my lab up and go in a certain direction. As we are now making progress, I need to adjust my plans to a horizon a little further out. (*It would be great if I had the time to actually think about those goals, but alas that is difficult*).

The most basic thing seems to be developing a filter to identify things that are good for the lab/my career vs. bad and to use this to select students, collaborators, speaking engagements, etc.

Victim of my own success

For those of you wondering if I have stopped blogging (no posts since late August), the answer is no...I have just been really, really busy. For one, my husband and I decided to take a second honeymoon to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It was glorious, but left me really, really behind at work (despite doing email and a paper review while on the trip). After that the travel roller coaster started and it seems that just when I catch up I go on the next trip and then am behind again. I have been to 2 conferences, 1 NSF review panel, and 1 family vacation in that time.

In addition to all that, things have been going really, really well here. I recently found out that a large NIH grant that I am on got funded and that I also got a small, local seed grant. That's great and all, but now we have to produce data, which means that I have to find students to work on all these projects and get them moving. Unfortunately, my 1st years are buried in classes and not much help, so the burden falls on the senior guys.

My students have sent me 2 papers that we think can go into high impact journals, but I am so busy managing all our new collaborations and other commitments (like teaching and mentoring those sr. students) that I hardly have time to read them. Some days I just wish that I could hit the stop button for a week and catch up. Things are clearing up now, but I am about to go to Important Annual Meeting in my discipline and there you go...I will be behind again. I am stealing five minutes to write this instead of working on my lecture notes for the class that I am giving in 2 hours. But you know what, with all this, I still LOVE my job.

Release Time and Other Financial Nightmares

So now that my lab has some funding and we are not going to go up in flames of financial ruin, I am coming to learn the intricacies of budgeted grants. Unlike my start-up, this money cannot be used for anything, but is dedicated to specific purposes. For example, I tried to order file folders so that we can organize papers related to the research. Unfortunately, I did not budget office supplies into my grant (apparently supplies and office supplies are not the same). So I can't use that money for folders. Instead I have to dip into my slush fund, which is a limited pool of money from my endowed chair that I am trying not to spend.

Similarly, I now need to come up with release time. For those of you unfamiliar, release time is where I pay part of my 9 month salary from my grants. I'm not sure that I'm actually being released from anything (in theory teaching, but in reality not so much). It is more like a tax. However, money budgeted as summer salary is not the same as release time, so yet again , I get to dip into my slush fund to keep the wheels greased. It is very frustrating to work within the specific confines of a budget. To a large extent money should just be money and if it is spent on stuff related to the proposal and we get papers it shouldn't matter.