I’ll be on break for several days now and so will this blog.

Jim

The year is ending early at George Mason–we shut down for the holidays starting tomorrow. Besides wishing my readers the very most festive of New Years, I’d like to briefly reflect on what has been an extraordinary year for the Institute:

This is the year that saw the Institute begin the process of become a much larger research organization, both in size and in scientific capabilities. We added two new centers (social complexity and neural dynamics). We commenced the addition of 50% more space in our current 23,000 square foot facility. We purchased a 3T MRI and organized a brain imaging core. And we’re most importantly in the process of adding perhaps six more research groups to our number–so that we will end up with a scientific staff of perhaps 80-90 compared with the 50 that make up our community of inquiry at present.

I can’t even begin to express how proud I am of the many individuals who have worked so hard to make all of this possible. So let me end by simply writing the words: thank you.

Jim

When I was a postdoc at NIH, I was one of thousands of research fellows, all of us in the rather interesting nether world that is neither quite student nor independent investigator. When my lab chief would explain my role to one of his colleagues as “something like an assistant professor” I would be happy for a week! But in truth of course, no postdoc is like an assistant professor–because assistant professors are independent investigators.

From an institutional perspective, postdocs are indicative (actually they are in fact a bio-marker for) research activity. The larger the cadre of postdocs at an institution, the greater the level of sponsored research, particularly in the biomedical research areas, but also in other areas of science. Thus, from an institute’s point of view, having lots of postdocs is a good thing.

Unfortunately, for many individual postdocs, it ain’t such a good deal. Salaries are low. Prestige is hard to come by, unless one is lucky enough to be the “anointed one” for a boss who is at the top of their field. And of course, the future is anything but certain.

Thus, one of the great unsolved challenges in science administration is to improve the lot of the postdoc, while at the same time producing lots of the same. One of my colleagues here at Mason, created an office of postdoctoral affairs at his last institution. And certainly there are some postdoctoral fellow associations and organizations which can subserve a somewhat similar role to that of graduate student governments and the like.

But ultimately the problem lies in the fact that a postdoc is a trainee, but often treated as an employee. These are often mutually contradictory.

Jim

We had a kick-off meeting with the construction folks this afternoon. It looks like the Krasnow Expansion Project (distinct from the MRI installation) will get underway at a practical level (equipment etc.) sometime during February. We’ll keep you up to date.

Jim

We have some preliminary dates now for the demolition phase of the MRI installation:
Mon 2/13/06 – Friday 2/24/06

Exact details and hours will be developed as we go.

Jim

I had breakfast at the Cosmos Club this morning with two friends
(I’ll identify them in a future blog entry with their permission) and
the topic revolved around two very interesting ideas. The first was
the notion that how the human body reacts to trauma or surprise might
be a very useful metaphor for understanding the reaction of of social
networks to the same. This echoes some of the ideas put forward by
Stephanie Forrest (http://www.cs.unm.edu/~forrest/) with regards to
the immune system and defense of computer networks, but goes beyond
it to include other reactions such as fight/flight. The second idea
was that of social ecological systems (think Hollywood or Boston’s Rt
128) and how such systems might be manipulated, both from the bottom
up and the top down. I was interested to learn of the idea that a
nation’s defense might in fact be designed to be such a social ecology.

It’s not surprising that the breakfast extended for 2 hrs. It was a
lot more interesting than the scrambled eggs.

Jim

Here’s the latest information based on this morning’s teleconference
with the Siemens team. The installation is most likely to begin in
the first week in February. We’re looking at ten weeks. And the
magnet delivery date is right now scheduled as April 24/25.

Joining me on the director’s blog over the next months will be Mike Herman who is our project engineer/coordinator at GMU Facilities Planning and Dr. Layne Kalbfleisch (who has been a guest commentator before)–Layne co-heads up our Neuroimaging Core with Dr. Kevin McCabe. This will be the location for all information regarding construction/installation projects.

Welcome Mike and welcome back Layne…

Jim

Of course this practically means Linux or OS X these days. But why? I think there are several good reasons. First, understanding how to make things happen in a command line driven environment gives an insight into how a computer actually works. If you understand how to go from source code to compiled executable it gives you some notion of what is really going on under the hood. Second, flavors of Unix explicitly deal with security and permissions in a way that Windows doesn’t (or at least in a way that I can understand). Thus understanding how to change ownership and/or the permission status of a file practically makes you a more secure computer user. Third, there is a lot of free opensource software out there in the Unix world, both explicitly scientific (think octave or genesis) but also office oriented (open office for example). Finally, your chances of getting infected by a virus or worm is greatly reduced, since the folks who write these malevolent programs are writing them to the masses (read Windows machines).

For me there are strategic goals of the institute: overarching objectives that are necessary to fulfill the ideas and goals set by the founders of Krasnow, some fifteen years ago.

These type of goals stand in stark contrast to the tactical demands of the moment.

And it’s for these strategic goals that, in science administration, as in life, it’s worth going to the mat.

If one recognizes one’s strategic goals clearly, then it’s relatively easy to tease out those times to stay in the round of poker.

Jim

Eventually there are battles you can’t win–in science administration as in life. Knowing when to fold your hand (in the poker sense of those words) helps minimize losses and at the same time preserves political capital for another day.

But it’s a fine line–because there are many important issues that are worth the fight and it’s often one’s apparent single-mindedness, stubborn refusal to give in that carries the day in the end.

So when to fold? I think the general answer to that is on two occaisions: first, you fold when your argument is clearly positioned by your opposition as counter to the best interests of the larger institution or company. Second you fold when continuing to push is overtly against the best interests of your direct report. In the former case, you fold because it’s good policy, in the latter because it’s good politics.

Jim