A great review by Jerry Coyne in the Times Literary Supplement on Fredrick Crewes new book, Follies of the Wise.

Money quote:

“The quality of Crews’s prose is particularly evident in his two chapters on evolution versus creationism. In the first, he takes on creationists in their new guise as intelligent-design advocates, chastising them for pushing not only bad science, but contorted faith:

‘Intelligent design awkwardly embraces two clashing deities – one a glutton for praise and a dispenser of wrath, absolution, and grace, the other a curiously inept cobbler of species that need to be periodically revised and that keep getting snuffed out by the very conditions he provided for them. Why, we must wonder, would the shaper of the universe have frittered away some fourteen billion years, turning out quadrillions of useless stars, before getting around to the one thing he really cared about, seeing to it that a minuscule minority of earthling vertebrates are washed clean of sin and guaranteed an eternal place in his company?’

But after demolishing creationists, Crews gives peacemaking scientists their own hiding, reproving them for trying to show that there is no contradiction between science and theology. Regardless of what they say to placate the faithful, most scientists probably know in their hearts that science and religion are incompatible ways of viewing the world. Supernatural forces and events, essential aspects of most religions, play no role in science, not because we exclude them deliberately, but because they have never been a useful way to understand nature. Scientific “truths” are empirically supported observations agreed on by different observers. Religious “truths,” on the other hand, are personal, unverifiable and contested by those of different faiths. Science is nonsectarian: those who disagree on scientific issues do not blow each other up. Science encourages doubt; most religions quash it. “

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ve probably wondered who was Shelley Krasnow. The short answer is that Mr. Krasnow (who passed away in 1989), through a substantial bequest, established the endowment which allowed the founding of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study. The slightly longer answer is that Mr. Krasnow was both an inventor and a very successful land developer here in the National Capital Region who came to understand the importance of trans-disciplinary scientific resesarch.

As I understand it, Mr. Krasnow’s major invention was a particularly quiet electrical generator that had great applicability to the silent operation of submarines. However he was very interested in biomedical research and the Institute’s focus on understanding the biological basis of “mind” would have fit in squarely with his own areas of intellectual curiosity.

Shelley Krasnow also invested early and often in land surrounding the Washington D.C. beltway–he was ahead of his time in realizing that it would become one of the key growth areas of the country. It was the proceeds from these major landholdings that made possible the Institute that bears his name today.

All of us at Krasnow owe Shelley Krasnow gratitude for the foresight he showed in providing the gift of resources that made possible our scientific work.

Jim

The 1910 Flexner Report (click on the link above) reformed medical education in the US and set the stage for the massive biomedical enterprises we call academic medical centers today. Today we are in need of a new reform effort in medical education for the simple reason that everything has changed: from the business model all the way to the emerging consensus regarding evidenced-based practice, medical education and the biomedical research enterprise (outside the federal government and big pharma)are largely in a different paradigm from the one created by the Flexner Report nearly a century ago.

The American Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is the organization that is central to the future of US Medical Schools. But it represents multiple strong constituencies and therefore tends to evolve policies based on consensus.

At the same time, some innovative medical schools are not waiting to reform. One of the leaders is Case Western Reserve with its new curriculum.

It seems to me that a new Flexner report is sorely needed: one that takes into account the current state of the playing field in medical education and the biomedical research that is intrinsic to the enterprise.

Jim

A colleague and close friend recently enumerated the vast number of SFN abstracts authored by neuroscientists at his institution. I’m not so sure that’s something to brag about. Your grandmother and my beagle can submit abstracts if they fill out the forms and pay the fee (actually it’s more complicated than this, but not much). They’re not peer reviewed.

But that brings up a good question: what are the appropriate metrics for success in the field? Peer reviewed papers in high impact journals? Sponsored research awards?

And another question: why can’t the SFN move towards a system for peer review of abstracts? They’d be worth a whole lot more consideration if there was some degree of selectivity.

Jim

How might the process that I’ve described in the last four posts be
improved?

For me, the answer to this question is shaped by my own perspective:
that of a director of a multidisciplinary institute. The process that
I’ve described (a general description that is not specific to any one
institution) is far too discipline-centric. Searches, as a result of
the academic politics involved, tend to hire individuals whose
scholarly interests lie at the point of a pin. An example: a
zebrafish neuroscientist who uses molecular biology to study
neurodevelopment or alternatively, a confocal imager who interested
in the cell biology of mitosis. While these hypothetical targeted
hires are actually very interesting, I would much prefer a more cross-
disciplinary hire: say a signal transduction cell biologist
interested in genes that may have facilitated the development of
language in humans.

How do we get there? For me the key is collaboration between units on
joint hires (faculty lines split between two or more units) and
search committees that reflect the diverse multidisciplinary
interests of those units. There is a problem here however: newly
hired faculty with homes in more than one unit tend to have
difficulty–for example promotion and tenure can be problematical, or
at the very least complicated.

And so perhaps we need to allow units which normally don’t grant
promotion and tenure (institutes for example) to begin to do so.

Just a thought….

Jim

Today we cover the offer itself. First, the usual caveat that the below is a description of the generalized process and is not specific to George Mason University.

Eventually, the search committee reaches consensus on a candidate to offer the tenure-line position to. Even at this point however, there is usually a back and forth up the academic chain of command on three key items: salary, space and set-up dollars. At times there is another component to be resolved: the fraction of the 9 month salary that the new faculty member is expected to support from grants. At some institutions, this last point even morphs into the fraction of the salary guaranteed by tenure.

When all of the above points are agreed to, a letter is composed that includes institutional legal boiler plate and that letter then constitutes the offer. It is typically time-limited and requires a written affirmation of acceptance from the putative new faculty scientist.

After receiving the letter, the individual who was previously a candidate, is now in a new position: negotiator. Very often the initial offer letter precipitates a back-and-forth process of negotiations (usually on the above key points of salary, space and set-up).

It is fascinating that many candidates actually forgo participating in this negotiating process and thus may give up obtaining key components of a package all in the passion of “closing the deal”. In my opinion, it’s during these negotiations that the candidate has the most power to affect the architecture of the eventual deal since a failed search is the bane of all search committees.

My final posting on academic searches will deal with ideas on how to improve the process.

Jim

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I remind readers that the below describes the process for an institution in general and does not specifically refer to the process at George Mason University.

As short-listed candidates are brought in for their job talks, a lot more goes on than just the job talk itself. Typically visits are booked for an entire day and involve individual meetings with departmental faculty members, the search committee as a whole, students and postdocs, the department chairman (or institute director) and now, more commonly, a mock class lecture.

Crucially, the search committee takes feedback from all interested parties into account (in addition to their own discussions). On occasion, intense negative input from faculty members and students not serving on the search committee can knock the leading scientific candidate out of contention.

Thus, the successful short-listed job candidate will need to successfully negotiate all of the above meetings in addition to having a knock-em dead job seminar in order to stay competitive for a position.

Ultimately however, the search committee (for scientific tenure-line jobs) is going to be looking at scientific substance (as measured by publications in high impact journals and grants) as the key criteria (even for junior positions such as assistant professor). A second important factor will be the potential for the candidate to successfully collaborate or at least interact with other members of the faculty. Finally, teaching is given consideration.

Following all of the visits of the short-listed candidates, the search committee convenes and ranks the applicants (typically using some of the above described criteria). Academic politics plays an important role at this crucial juncture since individual members of the search committee may represent a larger agenda or constituency at the discussion. Strange arguments may come into play (e.g.–she is too good for us–we have no chance to attract her to our department, hence lets offer the job to our second ranked applicant since he will definitely accept our offer…or alternatively: let’s offer the job to X because his startup package will be considerably less).

Which brings us to the topic of the offer itself. That will be covered in the next blog posting.

Jim

Once again: the caveat that I am describing a general institution, not necessarily the procedures of George Mason University.

A search committee consists of a group of tenure-line faculty members, one of whom is named chair. The composition of a search is typically the choice of either a department chair or dean, although in the case of decanal searches the provost sets the parameters. Typically, the search committee first reaches some consensus regarding the type of scientist they would like to ideally recruit. This amounts to a profile, although it can be quite general (e.g.–a top neuroscientist funded on an NIH RO1 grant with publications in journals like NEURON and NATURE NEUROSCIENCE).

The search committee’s next task is create an advertisement for the position based on the profile using carefully crafted language that meets the institutional requirements for equity and diversity while at the same time drawing in the best candidates. This content is then vetted by various institutional officials to make sure it complies in general with institutional policies and then the advert is placed–in general journals like SCIENCE, but also in more specialized venues on the internet. The committee may decide to review applications as they come in, or at some designated date.

The labor-intensive component of the search committee’s task occurs during the review of applications. In many cases, this amounts to a triage process, where the goal will be to invite the “A list” folks to campus for an interview and job talk. The “B-list” candidates typically are a fall-back position for the search committee while the “C-list” applicants are “triaged” out of the process.

The above process is often quite difficult because individuals on the committee may well have divergent opinions and/or agendas. For example, an individual member of the search committee may feel strongly that a less-than-stellar candidate make the B-list, simply because they know techniques or methods which might be advantageous to that committee member’s own research agenda.

Nevertheless, consensus is typically reached and a short list of candidates invited to campus. In the next posting, we’ll describe that part of the search.

Jim

This is the first of several posts on the process of academic searches. I’m going to be writing in the general case (that is, not specifically applicable to either the Krasnow Institute or George Mason University) although I’ll try to point out some of the unique aspects of how we fill positions here. I’m also going to limit the purview to academic searches for scientists, since that is what I really know something about.

Searches begin long before advertisements are places in SCIENCE or other venues. As much as a year before the first public sign that an institution is looking to fill a position, the process begins with what we call a faculty line (i.e. the position) either opening up through a vacancy or being newly allocated by the university administration to the unit. There is a tremendous amount of academic politics involved in just this initial stage. For an institution at a steady state period of its development, a vacancy offers the opportunity for budget relief and a newly allocated faculty line is often at the expense of a vacated line in some other academic unit of the university.

Sometimes faculty lines are allocated to units as compensation by the central administration for some other action entirely unrelated to the line itself.

Tenure-track faculty lines are the reserve currency of academic politics. For most universities, such lines are usually backed up by hard dollars–either from tuition, the endowment, or in the case of public institutions, the state government. Thus ultimately faculty lines represent base budget dollars for an academic unit.

For an institute for advanced study, like Krasnow, these faculty lines usually (but not always) reside within a separate unit from the Institute–and that academic unit becomes the primary academic home for the Krasnow Principal Investigator. Thus, our own search process is inherently collaborative.

Next post we’ll write about the search committee.

Jim