professional development | grouperlab

August 2, 2013

Finishing with the Start in Mind

Hmm, Caldwell, that’s not how the Stephen Covey Habit goes. Yeah, I know…

It’s not that the summer has parboiled my brain — I’ve had several pleasant vacations and focused quite actively on the concept of taking time for myself and prioritizing my own relaxation and recovery. And in fact, we talk a lot in the lab about the excitement of connections and possibilities that come from having a bold imagination. However, the steps involved with getting from being a brand new grad student to a freshly minted PhD combine a bit of imagination (beginning with the end in mind) with a lot of perseverance (focusing on the next step). It’s great to have a great goal and imagine all sorts of wonderful outcomes… but as the Taoist Lao Tzu said, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, with a focus on the ground immediately below one’s feet.

As a systems engineer, I also think of the world as a set of nested feedback control systems. This weekend, I am getting ready to complete the graduation ceremony with placing the doctoral hood on my new PhD GROUPER alumna Marissa Vallette. The joy of the weekend also has me thinking very intently about how Marissa arrived into the lab. In our exit interview a few weeks ago, that initial meeting was the source of a very rich conversation. Every student is different, with a unique mix of strengths and weaknesses (“opportunities for additional development”). Marissa is one of the ones who, by all accounts, is likely to want to organize your files, keep track of the calendar, and ask several times exactly what is meant by that correction in paragraph 5 on page 73. (This is by no means a complaint. Sometimes, when you’re working on a dissertation, that’s exactly what you need to focus on. And I am indebted to Marissa for taking on the role of organizing the GROUPER lab calendar and several of our lab documents for two years.) And, please recall, GROUPER works on a somewhat unusual recruitment and selection model: existing members of the lab are strongly engaged in interviewing and providing feedback on potential new members.

I am amused when people ask Marissa how she started in GROUPER. One version of the answer is that BSC passed the interview. Yes, she started with a list of questions for me (reproduced with permission from MAV):

On average, how many years does it take to graduate an M.S. and/or Ph.D. student?
How many M.S. and/or Ph.D. students have you graduated?
How many M.S. and/or Ph.D. students do you currently advise?
Are you tenured?
How do you incorporate your background (e.g., research, industry experience) to industrial engineering?
What other commitments do you have both on- and off-campus?
What is your advising style? For instance, is it guided or un-guided?
What is your availability? For instance, how quickly do you respond to e-mails? How frequently would I be able to meet with you one-on-one?
Aside from departmental requirements, what is your philosophy on selecting a committee (for an M.S. and/or Ph.D. defense)?
How do you run your research lab?
What are your/the lab’s current research interests?
What are your/the lab’s current research projects?
What, if any, are the requirements/expectations of your graduate students? For instance, do you require them to publish journal papers and/or attend conferences? Are there lab meetings?
What funding opportunities are available both inside and outside your research lab?

Overall, not a bad set of questions, and if you are a student who considers themselves in need of a bit more “active involvement” from their advisor, you really want to get answers to these questions. I admit that I would have had trouble answering these questions as a brand new faculty member—both because I wouldn’t have had positive answers to many of the questions, and because I wouldn’t have been able to articulate my philosophy as well then. But, as Marissa said, it was good that a) I did have answers to these questions, and b) that I didn’t mind her asking them. I certainly want to have a good fit and ongoing relationship with my students, and it is definitely not the case that my students are all reproductions of me. I want that sort of interaction, and a mutual agreement on goals and priorities, because it is that sort of agreement that helps manage the rough patches of the graduate experience.

In retrospect, she’s not even the first (or last) member of GROUPER to have interviewed me with such questions. For the new crops of students about to start their graduate careers in the next few weeks, I would recommend that they come up with their own list of questions, for themselves and for a potential advisor. In the long run, my grad students can be seen as “colleagues displaced in time” (a phrase I adopted some years ago to reflect my desire to have a strong professional relationship with GROUPERs as they continue on in their careers). In the short term, I have an exceptionally powerful and controlling role and responsibility for their progress and completion. That’s not boastful egotism. That is a recognition of the way academia works in a doctoral-granting research program. In all of the research conferences I’ve attended, one of the most frequent questions asked (sometimes just after “Where’d you go to grad school?” but sometimes even before that) is “Who was your advisor?” Those relationships are vital, and can easily make the difference in your life for decades after you leave that grad lab for the last time. So, I am quite pleased that I was able to have this time, on this graduation weekend, to reflect on lessons I got to learn with a brand new doctoral student and her questions at the beginning of her GROUPER program.

November 29, 2012

Inputs and Outputs

It’s not a great time to be a student–end of semester exams, project papers, and completing all of that work that seemed infinitely manageable back in October. It’s not a great time to be a faculty member–thesis drafts to read, letters of recommendation and proofreading students’ research statements fall on top of grant proposal deadlines and all that grading. So, it seems reasonable to be both a bit gentle, and a tad more explicit in clarifying the difference between “nice to have” and “required”. Some extra data, or a couple more days to work on that draft of the term paper is nice to have. What’s a challenge at the end of November is recognizing what is required, and how to get to all that is necessary in the too-little time available.

Most academics want to get grants to do their research. That’s not an easy process, and the competition grows in complexity and sources of frustration. Whether it be a development contract from a company, or a research grant from a governmental funding agency, the folks reading the proposal want to know “Who Cares” and “Why Should I Spend the Time to Read This?” They don’t know about what you meant to say, and they probably aren’t in your field. It’s your responsibility to communicate what’s so cool and new and shiny to you, to other people who may not even care until you show them why it’s valuable and critical and efficient to help them in what they do every day. A challenge at the best of times; a burden worthy of Atlas if you’re trying to write five proposals in two weeks to different types of organizations. Faculty usually talk about funding as an input measure (“Congratulations! You got the grant! Now what are you going to publish, which students will graduate, and what new things will come out of that lab that other people also want to use?”) . It’s also an output measure, of course: “I wrote nine proposals, and two of them got funded! I’m a star!” (Actually, that is kind of true. Funding rates for proposals from the most competitive agencies are often described as being in the 6-12% range. Hitting on 22% of your proposals would be good. Like Ted Williams in baseball, hitting on 40% of your tries would make you a Hall-of-Famer.) Either way, there is a big lag between the pain of creation and the success of the award. (Maybe just long enough to forget how much it hurts.)

But faculty have another set of inputs and outputs: their students. There was a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the evolution from being your professor’s advisee to being his or her peer. I was able to send this to the current GROUPERs, and even to my five most recent PhDs. I’ve even gotten a reply already–the start of a thread. This helps me feel good about the students as outputs–but I can still gloss over the importance of inputs. Not just the students as inputs (you need good material), but what we can do to get the student where they want to go.

Unfortunately, Natalie is leaving us in a few weeks: she’s graduating with her BS. Although an undergrad, she’s been one of the more experienced members of the lab for the past two years, helping to keep us aligned and sequenced (she’s been the project management software goddess). Student as input, student as person needing inputs, student as providing inputs… (that’s also modeling project we’re working on as well, within the SMELT stream). The greatest reward though, was the news we’ve gotten over the past week or so. At the HFES Annual Meeting back in October, I met a researcher from an organization doing research on human factors in healthcare. Have I got a student for you, I said. She’s already developed her own research study. She is fantastic as part of my lab. She wants to work in this area. And now, Natalie gets to announce that she got a job! And then she said that being part of GROUPER was a large part of how that happened… as well as my work that went into it.

GROUPER is an input into the students’ lives and professional evolution? What I’m doing is a transformation that gives someone a better outcome, a stronger trajectory, a more favorable future? OK, maybe that is worth it, and a great reward that turns into inputs for the next cycle. That, and a few extra hours’ sleep. And maybe some visits by the proposal writing muse.

April 9, 2012

Expert Blind Spot, Distributed Expertise, and Knowledge Sharing

Oftentimes the term “expert blind spot” is used to describe instances in which an expert’s understanding of a content area overshadows their knowledge of how to teach it. This isn’t exactly how it is being used in this context, but its usage is not much of a stretch here. Jeremi asked Dr. Caldwell, “How do you advise such a dynamic lab of students who all have varied interests and are at different stages in their programs? How do you do it?” Although a few ideas were faintly mentioned, what became apparent was that Dr. Caldwell was unaware of elements of his style that made him an expert-advisor. Jeremi didn’t stop at that answer; she probed other GROUPERs and found that the expertise on his advising style was distributed among his advisees. Now that we have begun to characterize it, we thought we would do some knowledge sharing. Our hope is that this information is not only beneficial to Dr. Caldwell, but also to others interested in advising (or mentoring, in general), and to those wondering what it’s like to have Dr. Caldwell as an advisor.

Kelly:

As an undergraduate coming into a graduate’s domain, the GROUPER lab, I felt very intimidated and insecure. Would I meet their expectations? Would they tell me I was the worst undergrad on the planet? All these worries and more swarmed my head, but that’s where Dr. Caldwell calmed my nerves. He assured me that I would fit right in and they wouldn’t expect me to perform at a graduate level. I could move at a pace that I wanted and was not going to be pressured to meet this deadline or that. That is what I love about being an undergrad advised by Dr. Caldwell: he is realistic about my abilities. Other advisers could have looked at me my first week being in the lab and said “You have to write this paper by this date and you better know how to write a fantastic research paper”. But, Dr. Caldwell had realistic expectations and in our 1-on-1 meetings, he has always been concerned about me, rather than a paper deadline. He has let me know that I am not required to find a topic right away, and he knows that I am busy with my coursework. He has guided me to finding a topic and was genuinely interested in what I wanted to get out of this experience and what I was going to enjoy writing about. There shouldn’t be pressure being an undergrad in a graduate lab, and Dr. Caldwell has definitely kept it that way. In the group setting, being in this research lab is my first group experience of the sort. I had been on teams before for projects, but this is by far the most positive one. Although we do get off task sometimes, the lab is very goal-oriented, and when we do get off task, it usually has a life lesson or reason attached to it. Everyone in the lab looks out for one another; there is no competition for papers, topics, or Dr. Caldwell’s attention. He treats everyone with the same level of respect and attentiveness and has never made the lab feel competitive in any nature. It is a very supportive environment and Dr. Caldwell, inside and outside the lab, is an extremely supportive adviser, especially to undergraduates.

MAV:

As explained in previous GROUPER blog entries and from browsing the GROUPER website, there are many ways in which Dr. Caldwell distinguishes the GROUPER lab from others. These include lab meetings that are filled with humor and light-hearted sarcasm and outside activities such as the G4s. Although Dr. Caldwell does a great job of advising his lab a whole, he does a superb job of advising his students as individuals. Let’s look at an example: me. Entering into a doctoral program, I knew that I had a specific style of advising that would work for me; any deviation from this style would be disastrous. Dr. Caldwell always e-mails me in a timely manner, follows through on tasks, allows for task-oriented discussions (as I do better with a list of tasks and deadlines instead of being let loose in the “forest”), and meets with me regularly. However, even though I believed that there were a certain set of standards I needed for myself, Dr. Caldwell added another guideline I wasn’t aware I needed in order to be a successful student: it’s ok for me to take a break, to step away from research, especially when I’m causing myself to become overly-stressed (and usually it’s for no apparent reason other than just me being a perfectionist). It almost seems to be counter-intuitive: why would my advisor ever want me to stop working on my research, even for a day, let alone several days? Causing me to spiral downwards on my research (again, for no good reason) would not do me any good and, thus, cause me to become less productive and maybe even have a grudge against my research. Ultimately, Dr. Caldwell wants all of his students to be successful (hence, the large list of GROUPER alumni). Dr. Caldwell has been advising students for years and he probably knows what’s best for me, even if I don’t know it myself. Having Dr. Caldwell as an advisor lets me know that both my research interests and personal sanity are being monitored for their well-being.

Omar:

As a new student, I was not sure on what topic to start working on for my doctoral thesis. This was making me so nervous, especially since every time I pick a topic, I have a tendency to keep changing my mind. I am amazed at how Dr Caldwell reacts to my changes. A typical adviser would not like his student to discuss with him a certain idea over and over then simply drop it for another idea that looks more appealing to the student. However, my professor always stresses how important it is to pick a topic that fits my interests and what I want to do in the future. He discusses with me my future plans to be able to help decide what to do with my Ph.D. studies.

The way he reacted to my hesitation over the 1st few months relieved all pressure that I might have had. It added a lot to my self confidence and kept me focused to do more reading and exploring more ideas in order to be able to pick the research that suits me the best. It is great if a student knows exactly what he wants to work on from day one. But, trying to quickly settle is not the right thing to do. And that’s what I appreciate about my experience with Dr Caldwell on how he managed to help through the journey of picking the best fit for me.

Another very successful approach Dr Caldwell sticks to, that in my opinion helps all students in the lab, is weekly lab meeting. In that meeting, I get a chance as well as my lab mates, to talk about my ideas whether I am still in beginning, middle or finalizing the research. Feedback from academic students of the same interest with presence of a leading faculty member in the domain is found to be very helpful.

Jeremi:

Mentoring and success drive Dr. Caldwell’s advising style. Dr. Caldwell places a very high premium on mentoring: he gives his time to meet with us individually and collectively on a weekly basis (with the exception of when he’s traveling, of course). Any outsider peeking into his life as a professor would say that hosting one-on-one meetings with five (or more) students every week –in addition to holding office hours for your class– is pretty remarkable! It is through our 1-1 meetings that it becomes apparent how deeply interested Dr. Caldwell is in exploring our ideas and discovering what topics interest us. In fact, he is beyond interested: he gets excited about exploring new ideas with us! Unbeknownst to us, somehow in the midst what seems like a pure exploration of ideas, he gathers information about what we are passionate about and our career goals. With these two pieces of information, he helps us settle on topics with which we will be satisfied. With this approach, his students excel. As we succeed, he succeeds.

His conception of mentoring extends to peer mentoring. Weekly lab meetings are designed in a way that we share updates on our respective projects; and through this exchange, we learn from one another about the milestones ahead. At times, Dr. Caldwell asks probing questions (that he already knows the answer to) such that others may benefit. Additionally, this informal exchange inevitably facilitates the development of our “elevator pitch” such that when we are away from the lab, we can respond succinctly and intelligently to questions people ask about what research we are working on. This is a specific example of how he transforms, what seems like, casual interactions into teachable moments.

I will quickly add a few others things that characterize his style. One, he is extremely well-read and as a result, is able to make fascinating connections because ideas that may seem unrelated on the surface. In Dr. C’s words, he’s able to “scan and connect.” Continuing with this idea, he also does what we call “management by wandering” which means emailing articles he comes across that may be interesting or relevant for us. Secondly, in meetings that involve committee members, he plays an interesting role, balancing between being coach and gatekeeper (through the milestone). At times, he uses an adaptation of the Socratic approach to get the student to share information/ explanations that he thinks would be helpful for the rest of the committee or to re-phrase committee members’ questions in a way that clarifies the question other members are asking. Third, he includes us in the strategic elements of his research enterprise. For example, our input is solicited when brainstorming ideas about the immediate goals and long-term visions for GROUPER, as well as some of the characteristics prospective GROUPERs should posses. Lastly, he’s real! He has a family, a home he invites us to once per semester, enjoys playing video games from time to time, thinks about next steps in his career… you know… facets of life that make people “real”- Dr. Caldwell has them. And this is not to say that other advisors don’t, but he’s personable enough to share elements of personality with us. As a student aspiring to make my mark on the world someday, I sometimes wonder about the possibility of work consuming life. It’s nice to see a model that demonstrates that you can have life outside of work, and those two ideas do not have to be in opposition to one another. Of course, Dr. Caldwell’s model is not perfect, but at least it shows that it is possible.

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March 7, 2012

Stream Management

“Hire the best people, and then get out of their way.” — Arnold O. Beckman

While I was an undergraduate, I frequently heard variations of this management philosophy; as an independent-minded student, often working by myself on projects, the mindset was very appealing. However, as a major professor and lab director, things are not always that easy.

Recent updates of the lab webpage have focused on further elaborations of the range of projects (“streams”) that GROUPERs are involved and productive. Instead of just listing the two primary research application areas (healthcare and spaceflight), we’ve now elaborated all three application areas (including STEM education), as well as the three more general methodological / theoretical considerations (communication effectiveness when resources are constrained; the effects of delays and information asynchrony on performance; and processes of knowledge sharing in teams and communities). Why all of the additions? Not just to sound more impressive and recruit more students (with seven grad students, two undergrads, and a 50% administrative appointment, it’s not clear that a much bigger lab is needed or wanted). With the new population of students (see the “Restocking GROUPER” entry), it is almost inevitable that the interests of this collection in 2012 would “load” on the streams differently than the lab circa 2004 or 2008. They even change their allegiance to a particular stream as their understanding of their topic (and their understanding of how the streams are organized) evolves through their development as students and scholars.

So, how does one remain sensitive and aware of these issues? One problem, of course, is that you don’t know what someone doesn’t know, or that you didn’t agree on basic elements, until implicit expectations aren’t met, or unquestioned assumptions aren’t grasped. This seems to show up most frequently, and with the greatest sense of immediacy, when students are in the midst of a critical written milestone (a thesis proposal or dissertation preliminary document, or a thesis or dissertation draft in preparation for a final defense). And with that, I again recognize the challenges of managing a diverse lab that works on novel and bleeding edge problems or approaches. There really isn’t a good way to give someone a past completed thesis and say, “Read this, and do exactly the same sort of thing with the same format, and you’ll be fine.”

In some cases, even that might not be sufficient. After 22 years, a dozen dissertations chaired (and another 20-30 as a committee member), and over 30 theses chaired, it’s easy for me to have the different pictures in my head. Research methods questions? I just go back to my psychology background. Systems engineering definitions? Yes, the style of that is covered, all the way back to my sophomore Unified Engineering experience. But what if your writing style was formed and honed by those with backgrounds in mathematical optimization, or physics, or political science, or software simulation? I’ve experienced all of these from GROUPER students in the past two years… and they’re not the same. Good luck with putting them all into the same box, or worse yet, into a blender and hoping that something palatable comes out. (Suddenly, I cannot help but think about the old “Bass-O-Matic” Saturday Night Live skit.) Yes, it would be much more straightforward to have a single stream and project focus, with all of the students having very similar backgrounds. However, I confess that I wouldn’t enjoy it as much.

There is a balance between being too far away, and being too close. Each person, and each group, needs its own balance. So, I’m looking for dynamically stable equilibria in academic research management and educational personal / professional development. Last academic year, I spent a fair amount of my time working with two students both trying to finish their dissertations at the same time. This year, the challenge has been a dissertation, a thesis, and dissertation prelim document, in addition to other research projects. I keep insisting on being directly involved in each project, and each document, and each student—to the extent that I felt guilty and nervous when I mentioned during a lab meeting that I would be gone for a few weeks and unable to keep to the weekly schedules. With this level of commitment, I can be both overwhelmed and concerned when I am not there every moment—exactly the opposite of Beckman’s admonitions. And yet, when I expressed worry that the GROUPERs would be left vulnerable and exposed in the “dangerous jungle and forest” of graduate student life, the response was one of the most rewarding and valuable validations I’ve received in a number of years:

“We’re not in the forest. We’re in the Lab.”

That’s also a philosophy I can live with.

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Tag: professional development