In article <Pine.SUN.3.93.970223082346.29408B-100000 at admin.ogi.edu>,
malic at ADMIN.OGI.EDU says...
>>Hi:
>I haven't seen any responses to this post, which surprises me because I
>think the questions are very interesting and I have been thinking about
>them all week. Perhaps others have responded to Julia privately. I am
>in an unusual situation because I have been a technician, graduate
>student, post-doc and co-PI, all in the same lab, and over the past 14
>years I have seen many grad students and post-docs come and go. To my
>knowledge, I have never had a written job description.
>>I think the primary responsibility for everyone involved is
communication
>-- of information, of research results and of resources available.
>Perhaps this seems obvious but it certainly does not always happen. I
>believe that too often this does not happen.
>>In addition:
>I believe that the primary responsibilities of the PI to the grad
student
>are:
>1) To provide the student with a project that has a high likelihood of
>generating a PhD thesis with publications and the opportunity to lead
them
>to a career;
>2) To provide the student with the resources, the information and the
>guidance to carry out their research;
>3) To help the student finish in a reasonable amount of time, perhaps
>giving them the "push", and certainly the encouragement that they might
>need;
>4) To provide the student with guidance in finding an appropriate
post-doc
>or job.
>>I believe that the primary responsibilities of the student to the PI
>are:
>1) To work hard, because that is what grad school is all about;
>2) To enter grad school in good faith. That might seem obvious, and
>certainly there are many situations which come up which might prevent a
>student from finishing. But if a PI is supporting a student's graduate
>education, she has every right to expect that the student stay and
>finish
>if possible. Sometimes students use us as a stepping stone, to a more
>prestigious school or lab, having entered with no intention of staying
for
>a PhD. It is a waste of our limited resources.
>>In contrast, I think that a PI should give a post-doc a lot more
freedom
>in terms of choosing projects, trying risky things, fiddling around.
>Still, the PI should help the post-doc get papers out and guide her
toward
>a more permanent job.
>>I think that the post-doc's responsibility to the PI is to work
>toward publishing results on the project that is funding her and to use
>her
>presumably greater expertise to help the
>grad students and others in the lab.
>>I think both grad students and post-docs should be responsible for
writing
>up at least initial drafts of their work. And PIs should be
responsible
>for publishing whatever is publishable.
>>Julia,
>I hope this is helpful to you, even though the format is not exactly
>correct. I would love to see others thoughts on these issues.
>>Margaret Alic
>Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
>Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology
>
What the fuck are you talking about?
