Faculty activity
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Faculty Retreat 2016
Today was the second day of our faculty retreat. The retreat committee believes we met our goals. Based on feedback from the previous retreat some years ago, we wanted to avoid passive, boring panels of speakers or brainstorming sessions that don’t result any actionable outcomes. The day one theme was outward focusing (toward our user population, resources and services) and today was inward focusing (on support specifically for us to get our work done). There was a mix of talks and breakout sessions. We encouraged tangible next steps and skill building. We even had a bit of fun in mixing up groups in between activities. There was plenty of food…
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Time
I’m supposed to be thinking about time more. In my previous life on the bench, my daily life was dictated by my timer. Some days were scheduled almost down to the second, assays and tasks lined up one after another. But when I left that, I left a lot of my schedule behind. I find that I still need that structure. I tend to not pay attention to time at all. I constantly over or under estimate how long something will need to take. The tasks I have now don’t come with protocols or instruction sheets with the timing outlined. To add to the problem, there are fewer clocks in…
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Headaches
Blistering headache to end the workday. The bitter chill of the bike ride to the train station did it. I was optomistic that the sun and building body heat would keep it from happening, but no. There is a steady breeze directly into my ears and I’m done for. I’ve been doing strange stretches on the train to ease my neck. I’ve taken off my glasses because they have been pushing on my right ear and creating some pain. They are sitting on the seat next to me and I’m hoping that a sudden stop doesn’t fling them somewhere. I’m cautious about looking too far down in order to see…
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Summer work
The semester is over and we are officially in intercession. The building has been quiet, but that hasn’t stopped the work. I need to turn in the first draft of this years performance review. I’m somewhat hesitant to look at it and see what targets I miscalculated on. However, I am looking forward to writing this years goals because I have a more focused idea in mind. I seriously want to have one goal with many facets to that goal. Last year I had several goals and some were dependent on others instead of me. I need to make sure the I get the basic foundation of my liaisionship stable…
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Manuscripts
Today I was talking with a colleague and realized that I have five papers to attempt to write in the coming year. Three in the general field of informatics support (on about to be submitted), one on the data management pilot project that I am leading. I give a talk on that one in a few weeks. And last, a collaboration on case studies in DM. It’s going to be a busy year. And I can’t tell you how convenient (although statistically improbable) that I would be converted to tenure-track this year. Just so all this work “counts,” especially since I will be first author on at least two of…
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Damage Control
It has been an exhausting work week. One day has been tumbling into the next with the amount of work to be done exceeding the amount of hours in the day. Today I was in meetings from 11am through 5pm. I spent almost no time in my office. Tomorrow morning I need to teach and it’s a good thing that it is something I have taught regularly, becuase I have had little time to prepare. But the most interesting part of today has been damage control in terms of colleague drama. I am trying to decide how to handle it. I have a colleague that I generally like and get…
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Neck deep in data
This week, like part of last week, is processing data. I am working on two projects, both spreadsheet heavy. The first is for a paper that involved us going back and remining almost sixty websites for course offerings and program listings. I’ve derived subset data sets about three times now. Every time we do it, we discover new questions based on inconsistencies. We go back, diambiguate and try again. I hope this is the last time. I’ve gotten about one-third of the processing done. I will have time to work on it tomorrow morning as well. Then after that, I will finish the data for my presentation to the pharmacy…
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Personal Organization
What it takes to get my job done is a recurrent theme here. We are ending the semester, which marks my time here at a year and a half. This year has been dramatically different than my first. The first year was a collection of building things: relationships, instruction materials, community. There was no where to go but up and to the right with things to do. This year has been characterized as more. More work, more commitments, more meetings, more opportunities. The volume has been alarming. And I found very quickly that the methods I was using to keep track of my work wasn’t working. I needed to be…
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Day in review Sept 9, 2015
The workday began well enough. I spent some time fixing my citation managment database for the meta-analysis that I am involved in. I am thrilled to say that the working relationship between the PI and I is good. So far, he has been prompt in conversations and responding to email. He has been clear in his communications, deadlines, and goals. The tenor of the relationship has been positive and one of equals. Not bad for a first run. The next month will be heavy on work, but worth it do get it done. I hope to have the majority of it done by the end of the year. The pilot…
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Day in review Friday August 28, 2015
The end of the week. I have two more instruction sessions next week. Today was unexpectedly good. The student were animated and willing to participate. It was more than I expected on a Friday afternoon immediately after lunch. And I finally got to get some scheduling done, until the end of the semester, for the data management project that I am shepherding. This said, I started to realize yesterday that I have the habit, probably formed from my other jobs, to do only short term planning. I need to develop the habit of long term planning. Further, I need to develop a cycle in planning. I had the conceptual idea…