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Category Archives: Department politics
How to do an external review, particularly of a university department
There is a sameness to human organizations. This means that if you are conducting an external review, you can probably do a surprising amount of it without knowing anything about the particular group at hand. Knowing this, then looking for … Continue reading
Posted in Department Evaluation, Department politics
Tagged external review, leadership, reviews
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Feeling scared and guilty because your teacher or boss has asked for a meeting without telling you its subject?
Why when someone above me asks for a meeting without telling me why do I feel scared and guilty? I try to think of what I might have done to offend, but nothing comes to mind. It is a little … Continue reading
Posted in Department politics, Group leadership, Life in a biology department
Tagged bosses, fear, meetings, transparency
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Let need, not ego, matter for allocating research space
Remember your first bench? Was it a place to dump field gear? Was it 6 feet of black magic with shelves above for carefully labeled and dated orange-capped bottles? Did you line up your vortexer with your pipetteman rack? Did … Continue reading
Posted in Department politics, Life in a biology department, Organization of a scientist
Tagged benches, laboratory, politics, sharing, space, status
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How to change an organization, a department, a curriculum
Whatever field you are in, there will be organizations with structure and rules. In academics, departments have committees, undergraduates have a required curriculum, graduate students have their courses, exams, and theses. Sometimes these structures are very well known and standard … Continue reading
Posted in Department politics, Life in a biology department, Politics, Undergraduates
Tagged alliances, Arizona State University, behavioral ecology, change, conflict, cooperation, Curriculum, Education, evolutionary biology, Harvard University, organization, stucture, tradition, Undergraduate education, Wikipedia
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Assistant Professor in Evolution at Washington University in St. Louis!
We have an open position in evolutionary biology right here at Washington University in St. Louis! I hope you’ll apply! We are very excited about this and hope to welcome an excellent new colleague soon to our wonderful university, department, … Continue reading
Why you shouldn’t hire your colleague’s child, or be asked to do so
The whole reason we do experiments blind, have rules against nepotism, and worry about inadvertent bias is that we are humans and these things go with the species, no matter how fair we try to be. Even though there has … Continue reading
Posted in Department politics, Ethics, Social interactions, Tenure
Tagged conflict of interest, high school, nepotism, summer job, tenure
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Some tips for an effective faculty retreat
We went to a duck hunting lodge for the first faculty retreat I ever attended. I don’t remember much about it, except that one faculty member had to have milk and cookies before bedtime. The rest of us drank … Continue reading
Sociobiology 