Week 49

This Monday I wrote week forty-nine on the top of my schedule. It took me a minute to understand the significance of that, but I am three weeks out from my first year at this job. I will be completing my annual review paperwork soon; I have the form already.

I accomplished most of the goals that I had in mind for the first year. Some of them are somewhat out fo my control as they depend on the rate of integration with my departments. As a whole, I am pleased. A short list:

• established orientation for first year basic science students
• embedded instruction for two classes
• about a dozen open or invited workshops
• standing invitation to college faculty meeting
• introductions to about half of my departments
• participate on 8 committees
• won (with co-authors) seedling grant for data workshops at regional sites.

And I am looking forward to going through the review process as that will help me outline what I would like to do for the coming year. I have a number of more sophisticated projects for the coming year. That list:

• Monthly bioinformatics workshops
• Establish orientation for my other college’s graduate students
• Increase data management workshops
• Write 1-2 papers
• Spend more time on research on data management and bioinformatics
• Meta-analysis with medical resident

Of course this is all dependent on the Governor’s budget hatcheting that he is in the process of doing. There is the standing question of my job security because I am not tenure track yet. But my current goal is to get involved in as many productive things as possible and make it undesirable to let me go — a sentiment I’ve shared before.

I am excited about the future work. I have a lot of opportunities ahead of me. Some will work out and others won’t, but that’s fine. I believe that I am engaged in activities that add value. So I will be spending some time adding stats to that and arguing my points.