A recent post of Heather’s touched upon the difficulties of being a supervisor. And I’m sure it’s very difficult. You should preferably be authoritative, supportive, caring, knowledgeable, well funded, and available, all at once!
Just before reading Heather’s post I had been asked to sit in as student representative in a work-group on “guidance for junior supervisors” on our upcoming KI cancer research retreat. (I realize it seems like I spend all my time going to different conferences and retreats. This is not the case – there are only two this year, they just happened to be the weeks after each other…).
Anyway, since the supervisor question has been raised a lot lately I have spent some time thinking about it – how can life be made easier for junior supervisors? I’ve had some experience in supervising undergraduates and junior students, and when in doubt I have either turned to some senior PI at the department whose judgement I trust, or talked to students in a similar position to mine. This gave me the idea to suggest creating networks of junior supervisors (the “just-turned-PI’s” and the “PI-soon to be” maybe) to the work-group. I was thinking in the terms of discussion groups where one could talk about issues like “what to do if the student doesn’t work hard enough/ doesn’t seem to develop in scientific comprehension/ is too shy or otherwise reluctant to participate in discussions and presentations” “What to do if there are conflicts in the group” and so on. What does the wise NN think? Is there a need for more support of and networking among junior supervisors? What tools could be useful? I think generally supervisors don’t get a lot of pedagogical training, and being a great scientist is not necessarily the same as being a good boss or teacher. What makes a good supervisor? What skills does it take? What do you think?
Hey, you could perhaps start up a Nature Network forum for junior supervisors, as a shared space for swapping tips. Invite all the junior supervisors you know and ask them to do the same. See if it works.
Of course, I would suggest that ;-)
It might not be a bad idea. I’ll try it in my work-group and see how they like it. Thanks :)
There are Nordic courses organised for young PIs, in all disciplines. I went on one a couple of years ago – there were some good ideas, amongst the “mode 2 research” rubbish.
A forum sounds like a good idea, although it might be a bit quiet.
A few months ago Heather Ethchevers pointed out a book on lab management that you can get for free from HHMI. I’ve not read it from cover to cover but it looks useful.
Thanks for the ideas. The plan right now is a discussion group meeting for coffee every now and then, maybe with the forum as a complement. And I’ll definitely have a look at the book!