Attracting top academic talent is only the first step—retaining early-career faculty is essential. These junior scholars represent the future of research, teaching, and institutional reputation, yet many face overwhelming pressures that drive them away from academia. In fact, nearly half of early-career faculty consider leaving their positions within the first five years, often due to burnout, unclear expectations, or insufficient … Read More
The Art of Saying No: Protecting Your Time Without Burning Bridges
In a world where opportunities, requests, and obligations constantly compete for our attention, learning to say no is one of the most valuable—and underrated—skills we can develop. Many of us hesitate to decline requests, fearing we’ll come across as unhelpful, damage professional relationships, or miss out on future opportunities. But the truth? Saying no doesn’t have to mean shutting doors or … Read More
Avoiding the Post-Tenure Plateau: Strategies to Reignite Your Career
Tenure is a career milestone many academics spend years working toward. It’s the culmination of late nights in the office, countless hours of teaching, and the relentless pursuit of research excellence. But what happens once you achieve it? For some, tenure feels like the end of a race—a moment to exhale and celebrate. For others, however, it can feel like … Read More
From New Hire to Research Leader: Building a Foundation for Your Academic Career
Becoming an independent investigator is an exhilarating milestone in any academic career. You’re finally running your own research program, pursuing your own ideas, and shaping your unique contributions to your field. But let’s be honest—it’s also a little terrifying. Suddenly, you’re not just a researcher anymore. You’re a team leader, a mentor, a teacher, a grant writer, a committee member, … Read More
Designing Faculty Development Programs that Actually Work
Faculty development programs are essential for helping academic researchers grow their skills, advance their careers, and meet institutional goals. But let’s face it: not all faculty development programs are created equal. Too often, they’re generic, overly theoretical, or disconnected from the real challenges faculty face. So how do you design faculty development programs that actually work? Programs that engage participants, … Read More
Raising Your Profile: How to Be More Visible to Advance Your Research and Career
Among the various promotion and tenure (P&T) metrics commonly applied to research faculty, one of the more nebulous is “reputation”. Where papers and grants can be quantified with numerical targets, reputation is harder to define with numbers. The vague nature of this assessment criterion understandably poses challenges to faculty who wish to establish their reputation but aren’t sure what exactly … Read More
Navigating the Tenure Process: A Guide for Early-Career Faculty
Tenure-track research faculty often feel the specter of the tenure clock looming over their shoulders. One of the most significant milestones in academia, tenure offers the promise of job security, academic freedom, and professional recognition. Yet, the path to tenure is often fraught with questions, pressures, and the feeling that there’s never enough time to accomplish it all. If you’re … Read More
Building Specific Aims for Your Grant Proposal: Starting with the End in Mind
Once investigators achieve their first major grant(s), they naturally tend to scale their programs (more resources, more personnel, more projects). With this shift, they typically have a lot more data and new questions/directions than in those early years of independence when they may have felt that they didn’t have enough (data, papers) or weren’t sure they were proposing enough (aims/sub-aims). … Read More
It may be “Spooky Season,” but one thing you don’t have to be afraid of is that upcoming progress report.
Getting a research grant can be a fraught process that, when successful, brings both relief and excitement. But those feelings might be short-lived as you begin to encounter new worries about being able to accomplish what you proposed to do or having to write more proposals to maintain/expand your funding. “I was so glad that I got a grant, but … Read More
AMA: What exactly is a NOSI and does it change the way you prepare a grant application?
When we help investigators seek research grants, we often need to translate the lingo that funders use. There are a lot of nuances that can be tough to know or remember when you’re not applying for grants every day, and the tendency toward acronyms doesn’t do a lot to aid understanding. In this vein, a key part of grantsmanship is … Read More