Haha, and then write a whole career goals grant...All constructive and helpful insight and questions that we should have asked ourselves sooner.
Both spouses should write up a specific aims page for their career:)
Thanks again!
Anyway, something I should have added re the grant anxiety issue: different med schools have different approaches to tenure-track research faculty who lose their funding. Some are very harsh about it and/or have very little bridge funding available. Others are relatively generous, providing at least a couple of years of support equal to the individual's recent grants. It's worthwhile to find out both what exactly the written policy is, AND what individual faculty members have actually experienced (keeping in mind that how a non-tenured prof is treated is likely to be different from how a tenured prof is treated). If the school is not very generous, you MIGHT be able to change that for you specifically by getting them to include specific levels of bridge support in their offer letter. It's a long shot, but if they want one or both of you enough, it's not unheard of.
Yet another complication is that different med schools have different abilities to support their research enterprise (including, but not limited, to bridge funding). Research always costs a med school more than the grant funding brought in to pay for it, even when indirect costs are included. A solid med school will have an arrangement with a hospital to cover the gap, and/or a large endowment it can tap. But if that hospital is badly run, or its leadership resents having to fund research, or the school's endowment is too small, there will be chronic budget cuts and this will result in failing infrastructure and inability to cover obligations such as bridge funding. It really, really pays to get to know some of the old-timer faculty, get a few drinks into them, and have them tell you how it really is.
You also want to discover any drama before you decide to take the offer. What's the gossip about the bigger name faculty in the department and college - do some have reputations for being abusive, selfish, etc? You're going to be on their students' thesis committees and will have to deal with their PIs' behavior. Have there been recent changes in departmental or school leadership, and what is the real story behind these changes? Unlike the non-academic world, you're going to be stuck with these people for years or even decades - it's very difficult to move, as you know. If you have a good situation now in terms of the people around you being friendly and helpful, you should not automatically assume that the new place will be similar.
Bottom line: visit more than once and meet informally (dinner, drinks, etc) with as many faculty as you can, and find out the real story from them. I'd even add that it makes sense to meet as many students and post-docs as you can to get a sense of what they're like. Do they seem glum and disinterested? Or are the bright, excited by their projects, happy with their labs, and do they ask good questions about your work? Do they like their living situation - how close is it? Is is subsidized by the college? In good repair? Etc. Whatever problems they are having, your own students and post-docs will also have, and that will impact your own success.
Statistics: Posted by snic — Mon Jul 01, 2024 8:46 am — Replies 26 — Views 1655