—
I really like my job. I love doing research with my students and on my own. I love reading papers, writing papers, and even writing proposals. I get so excited about my science. I love teaching my classes, even if I do have to give them grades at the end. I love mentoring my seven graduate students and the assorted others who stop by my office on a regular basis. I am finding more opportunities to work on mentoring and diversity issues as part of my service commitments. I have no doubt that I am truly in the right job for me.

I really love my daughter. Minnow is almost three. She is enormously enthusiastic and creative, and she is becoming more independent with each passing day. Her favorite things are books, puzzles, blocks, stickers, running around with her friends, and exploring the outdoors. She is growing so rapidly that her selection of favorite books and toys changes with each passing week. She loves to tell stories with me at bedtime – we cooperatively spin tales about the adventures we have had or the ones we will have soon. She loves dragons. She’s decided that science is cool and can be heard multiple times per day calling for me to come do science with her. Of course, her definition of science is a little shaky, but it’s a start. When she grows up, she’s decided that she wants to be a “mommy and a teacher and a scientist” just like her mommy and grandma. I tell her she can be whatever she wants.
—
I declared my theme for 2009 to be “Sustainability”, as in “I’m going to focus on trying to live my life that is sustainable in the long run for my body, my mental health, my family and my career.” While I wouldn’t say that I’ve achieved total sustainable nirvana, I’ve made a series of small and large decisions over the past year that have put me on a path that is much healthier for me and those around me. Some of those decisions are associated with a great deal of loss, but oddly enough I am much happier now than I had been for much of the preceding five years.
—
For 2010, my chosen theme is “Peace and Joy.”

I want to embrace my current happiness and joyously luxuriate in all of the simple pleasures of life. A student thanking me for being a good teacher. Getting new data in hand that puts new ideas in my head. Minnow telling me that I am terrific. Phone calls and emails from good friends. The profound joyousness of having a job I like and a daughter that I love in a community where I am slowly setting roots.

There’s a prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr that I’ve always liked:

God grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I’m learning to accept that life doesn’t always work out exactly the way I once planned. I need to keep making peace with my life that way it is, because that peace is what will help me stay joyous.
—
Over the past year, I’ve increasingly felt distanced from this blog space. I’ve chosen not to share some important parts of my personal and professional life here, and since my source material was originally my own stories, in some ways I’ve cut off my own tongue. I can still share less-personal things, but when that’s all I write about, blogging becomes more of an obligation and less of a release. It becomes more of a droning chant and less of a lyrical melody. On top of that, I know that if my blog voice goes mute, there will still be a tremendous orchestra of people blogging about the common and diverse experiences of women in STEM and adventures in academia. And that’s a supremely comforting thought.

This will be my last post as SciWo or ScienceWoman. I’ve come to peace with the realization that blogging as SciWo is no longer a source of joy for me. I treasure the true friendships I share with many of you, but I know that we can continue to revel in and grow those friendships even without this blog. For her own reasons, Alice has also decided to stop blogging in this space, and so sciencewomen will go dark. Our archives will be here for as long as it pleases the benevolent overlords, but you won’t see new material in this space or with these voices.

The past five years have been a wonderful journey, and I am supremely happy to have shared it with you and to offer whatever little insights I have earned, but most of all to have become part of a large and diverse community of women and scientists who are also being the change we want to see.

Other signs have included….

I hardly participated in Donors’ Choose even though it is a really worthwhile organization. (By the way, today I donated $377 as a 10% contribution of our final donation number. Thanks so much to everyone who donated anything at all!!)

I hardly even read blogs anymore, let alone write. And this wasn’t making me feel very good.

I have been feeling for a long time like I was letting SciWo down by not meeting my blogging commitment, and by not finding time to comment on her posts.

I have been feeling like I was letting down my other blogging colleagues at Scienceblogs, and elsewhere, especially Zuska (my first blogging friend), Isis, Maria, Jane, Abel, Scicurious, Janet, the doods at DrugMonkey, Pal, Jenny F. Scientist, Dr. Shellie, Lab Cat, and lots of other folks I’m overlooking here (sorry! ).

Like Jane, when she signed off in May, I had hoped to be able to keep blogging through all the “critical points” in an academic’s career, maybe try to make transparent (or visible? interesting how those are opposites) some of the process of being an academic.

But if my job is (as I wrote here)

My job is to think creatively about gender and engineering education, and to think about, write, and teach in ways that result in a change in how engineering education is done in the US

then I haven’t really been doing a good job at this, still. And part of the problem is, I realized a few weeks ago, that I have no internal conversation at the moment. None. All my thinking over this semester feels as though it has been for other people — for my students, for readers of my articles, for colleagues…. and none of it really has been for me. I didn’t appreciate how much this would matter to an introverted person.

When I’ve been able to gather some mental quiet around me, it has pretty much been to simply hear silence — to have some of the both physical and mental noise around me cease. No students complaining about their lives or problems or how my course isn’t living up to their expectations. No colleagues or students needing things from me. No “advice” from senior folks about how I should focus on research then followed up with a complete absence of help from them running interference on my behalf so I could focus on my research. When I heard this silence, I was loathe to fill it with even my own thoughts.

I need to stop. I need to refocus on how to do this job in a way that is balanced — and I don’t mean research vs. teaching, or work vs. home. Those are dichotomies that are too simplistic. I mean in a way that makes me feel as though I am focusing on a balance of important and urgent, that I have been able to do at least some of the things in life that are important and matter, whether at work or at home, whether in the classroom or out of it, instead of always feeling like I’m fighting fires wherever I am.

And part of this, I think, means acknowledging that blogging — for the moment, in this way, at least — doesn’t have a place in me anymore.

I hope my blogging groove will come back sometime. After all, I started blogging to find community, and I found it. I hope to keep some of it (through Twitter and email and such). I started blogging at Scienceblogs to have a bigger microphone to talk about being a feminist and an engineer and I used although really very occasionally. For the short term, I’ll still roll-over the hosting for Scientiae, although if you’re interested in being the uberhost and carrying it onwards through 2010, do give me a shout-out. (And I might be thinking of a way to turn Scientiae posts into a book… what do you think? Send me an email too…)

But maybe the actual act of blogging has helped me all it can for now. I have good community, and I am starting to develop my voice in other fora. So, perhaps for now, I think I need to start refocusing on important, rather than urgent.

So, for your reading, comments, emails, posts, and support over the almost 2 years I’ve been co-blogging here, and over my 3.5 years total blogging, a very grateful thank you.

And to SciWo: for your generosity in sharing your blog and turning it into our blog, for your support online and off, for your blogging the good fight, and for your continued friendship, I am even more grateful. Thank you so much. *Hugs to you and Minnow.*

See you all ’round the interwebz. Thanks again.

Anyway, her new blog is STEM Equity, and you should also totally read her first book, Reinforced Concrete and the Modernization of the American Building which is similarly brilliant even though it has rather the most boring title ever (sorry, Amy). You should go read all of them.

January
To Detroit to look at the SWE Archives

To RTP for ScienceOnline2009

February
To Arizona, invited to a workshop on engineering and ethics education

To Washington DC for a panel on research in engineering education

March
To Kentucky, to do some intense PEER mentoring in engineering education

April
I think nowhere

May
To Madison for my dad’s retirement

To a room at Purdue for a week’s development of a overhauled course

June
To Washington DC for JAM

To Amsterdam and Delft for a workshop on gender and engineering

July
To Detroit again to work in the SWE archives

To Grafton, New York for a workshop on engineering and identity

To British Columbia via Colorado and 5 national parks by car for our vacation

August
Back to Indiana from BC via Minnesota and the Minnesota Science Museum

September
Nowhere

October
To Long Beach for the SWE National Conference

To San Antonio for the Frontiers of Education Conference

November
To Atlanta for the National Women’s Studies Association conference

December
Nowhere, thank god.

No wonder I’m tired. I think doing this much travel is not normal (or is it, for assistant professors?) After sending this list to my dad, I promised myself that I would not travel so much next year. For realz. And I have a whole bunch of carbon offsets to buy.

He had killed 14 women all together, and injured 9 more women and 4 men.

The women who died could have been anyone. They could have been your friends, your mothers, your sisters, your lovers, your daughters, your neighbors, your students, your teachers, maybe even you.

They were killed because they were women.

Remember those who died in the Montreal Massacre:

Genevieve Bergeron, 21, was a 2nd year scholarship student in civil engineering.
Helene Colgan, 23, was in her final year of mechanical engineering and planned to take her master’s degree.
Nathalie Croteau, 23, was in her final year of mechanical engineering.
Barbara Daigneault, 22, was in her final year of mechanical engineering and held a teaching assistantship.
Anne-Marie Edward, 21, was a first year student in chemical engineering.
Maud Haviernick, 29, was a 2nd year student in engineering materials, and a graduate in environmental design.
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31, was a 2nd year engineering student specializing in engineering materials.
Maryse Laganiere, 25, worked in the budget department of the Polytechnique.
Maryse Leclair, 23, was a 4th year student in engineering materials.
Anne-Marie Lemay, 27, was a 4th year student in mechanical engineering.
Sonia Pelletier, 28, was to graduate the next day in mechanical engineering. She was awarded a degree posthumously.
Michele Richard, 21, was a 2nd year student in engineering materials.
Annie St-Arneault, 23, was a mechanical engineering student.
Annie Turcotte, 21, was a first year student in engineering materials.

Please honour the white ribbon as a symbol of the fight against violence against women.

Minnow and I have been trying to find ways to counter these daylight confines by squeezing in fun adventures on weekends (trips to living history farms, nature centers, and local playgrounds) and by using our long winter evenings to read about the adventures and misadventures of other outdoor enthusiasts. With that as an intro, I present the current favorite book in the Science household, Stan and Jan Berenstain’s The Bear Scouts.

(Isn’t it amazing how Minnow is picking up on the rhyming and able to supply her own words to end some of the lines of text? In another take she did far more of it than displayed here.)

After we’re done reading about the Bear Scouts’ adventures, we can retreat to the cozy four-season tent…

pitched inside my home office. Do you think my students will believe me if I tell them their papers aren’t graded because I’ve been camping every night this week? (As I write this, Princess Pup has made herself comfortable in the tent, as she patiently waits for me to finish and play with her.)

To all the students and faculty out there, good luck with the end of the semester crazies and may you find time to escape to nature when it is all over.

1. Done! Accepted!!!!! Finish revisions on the paper-that-won’t-die (goal: November 13)
2. Done! Internal release time application (due November 18)
3. Read some, but not nearly enough. Read around proposed grad student topics enough to ensure we’re not reinventing the wheel/pursuing proven dead ends (amorphous, I know)
4. Made progress, not enough to strike-through. Finish GIS work left-over from 2008 AGU poster.
5. Done! Draft abstract that is due in early December, so that I can get my co-authors’ approval.
6. Done! Write the letters of recommendation that have piled up because of graduate fellowship season.</li>

And, I did get some reflective clarity on what my research (and consequent writing) goals are for next semester.

1. Get 4 grads to the proposal defense stage, get one grad to thesis writing stage, get one grad’s first paper out
2. Do a good job writing my first PI NSF proposal and submit in June
3. Write my side-project paper (or at least finish the analyses for realz)
4. Continuing laying groundwork towards a collabortive proposal pushing edges of PhD work
5. Women-in-geo paper and/or diversity grant coalition forming

More than an ambitious list given my teaching load and home-life responsibilities, but, hey it’s good to have ambitious goals, right? And having them as an ordered list should help me cross some of them out, rather than having all of them turn out to be half-finished in May.

I’d also like to dedicate this post to all of my friends who’ve had terrible, horrible no good, very bad days in the past few weeks.

• To A, who made a hard, but right decision,
• To A, who had hir Thanksgiving plans turned topsy-turvy,
• To B, who needs hir advisor just to help hir for once for crying-out-loud,
• To C, who just needs some stinkin’ data,
• To C, who is facing yet another round of surgery and recovery,
• To J, who needs in-laws that appreciate hir wonderful cookery,
• To K, who put hirself in a tight spot by fighting for the thing zie knew was right,
• To K, who is trying to figure out how to help a friend, while taking care of hirself,
• To L, who fears for hir job and hir career,
• To M and S, who were too sick to enjoy the day of feasting
• To P, who is facing so much loss right now,
• To S, who deserves more thanks for the wonderful job zie does caring for hir family, and
• To everyone who’s family dinner was less than idyllic yesterday.

Hopefully by talking about our big and small troubles, supporting each other through them, and offering the respite of compassionate friendship, we can help make things a little bit easier and kinder for everyone. As for Minnow and I, we’re having very good days, thanks in no small part to knowing we have a network of supportive friends and family. Thanks to all of you for being part of that.

With that proviso, Minnow presents this week’s edition of SciWo’s Storytime featuring the book Little Squire the Fire Engine by Catherine Kenworthy and illustrated by Nina Barbaresi.

Now there’s nothing wrong with reading about fire trucks, I just don’t think that this particular book rises to the level of other classics of the genre, like Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things that Go or Wong Herbert Yee’s Fireman Small books.

Anyways, I was in the process of contemplating Minnow’s enthusiasm for fire truck books and wondering how I was going to get her to see a real-life fire truck when one came to us. Literally. Here’s a photo of a fire truck parked at our house a few days after this video was made. No one had a fire, but an elderly neighbor fell and hurt himself and the firefighters/first responders were dispatched to help him up and to the hospital.

Minnow was very impressed, and also very relieved that the fire truck did not sound its siren on our tiny quiet street. When she was 1, the firefighters had come to her daycare for a demo and had sounded the siren for the kids. Minnow still talks about how scared she was.

We’ve got a wonderful book about pillbugs that I really want to make a video about, and we’re still trying to track down some of the other great books requested by our DonorsChoose friends, so check back next week for another edition of SciWo’s (and Minnow’s) Storytime.

Dr. Cassell has also done a great deal of thinking about the importance of mentoring, networking, and professional development opportunities in academia and industry. Here are some snippets of what she had to say in the opening part of her remarks, advice for navigating the new environment faced by junior scientists:

• There is no substitute for tenaciousness and perseverance.
• Always be open to new opportunities.
• Treat your colleagues well.
• Establish integrity of institutions. What you do is important, but how you do it is more important.

Dr. Cassell also talked about the characteristics of a good mentor, qualities that included accessibility, empathy, honesty, savvy, humility (most important), consistency, open-mindedness, and understanding of the current/new research/academic/professional environment. Mentors should be providing networking opportunities, offering moral support, and encouraging creative thinking. In turn, good mentees are proactive, probing, gracious, and humble in accepting critical feedback.

Of course, you are not going to meet all of your mentoring needs in a single relationship, so Cassell suggests to never let go of old mentors, establish both official and informal mentors and also find a set of confidants. She urges mentees to keep meetings professional.

Cassell also spoke about the differences in the way mentoring and professional development occurs in industry versus academia. She thinks they used to be quite different, but maybe not so much anymore. In her view, strengths in industry include: constant feedback and peer review; objective [and clearly defined?] performance measures; yearly development plans, treating human capital as the greatest asset; considering the sum of team and individual performance in evaluating success; and doing good succession planning. She talked about specific programs aimed at supporting scientists at Eli Lilly, including a women’s network, on-site childcare, generous maternity leave, job sharing, flex time, remote sites of work, and a VP of Diversity. By the time she was done, I was almost ready to ask for a job application.

Dr. Cassell suggested that to make mentoring meaningful is to make it part of the institution’s culture. To do that, it needs to be factored into performance evaluations, because the organization needs to put its money where its mouth is. She told us that bad mentors at Lilly get sent to “charm school.” In my mind, this making mentoring part of the institutional culture, by rewarding good mentoring, is one of the biggest challenges to mentoring programs aimed at young faculty at universities. Most universities already place low value on service, and if mentoring is just one tiny component of a low value activity, then there’s little way to provide incentives and rewards to good mentors. Of course, some would argue that seeing junior faculty succeed is its own reward. But over the course of busy work days, weeks, semesters, years… is that enough of a reward to actually motivate senior faculty to devote significant time and energy to mentoring those climbing the tenure ladder? Or will it only be enough to provide a twinge of regret when some young faculty are denied tenure?