Tips for Writing

Nature recently published some tips and advice for honing skills in the thing we do nearly every day: write. 

Image Credit: awarenessdays.com

Check out the links below to learn how to write more successful grant proposals, more compelling letters of recommendation, better manuscripts (and manuscript reviews), and inspiring personal statements. Got anything to add? Share it in the comments.

• Secrets to writing a winning grant: Experienced scientists reveal how to avoid application pitfalls to submit successful proposals.

• Writing the perfect recommendation letter: Three experienced professors share how they triumph over this time-consuming task while sounding original and unique.

• Sell yourself and your science in a compelling personal statement: Don’t get bogged down in technical details, and balance the professional and the personal.

• How to write a superb literature review: Editors and working scientists with well-cited reviews share their suggestions for tools and techniques.

• How to write a first-class paper: Six experts offer advice on producing a manuscript that will get published and pull in readers

Career Profile: From Physics Faculty to Director of Undergraduate Advising

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy has compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers, planetary scientists, etc. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Dr Monika Kress

Below is our interview with Dr. Monika Kress, the Undergraduate Advising Director in the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. She has been in this position since 2023, after following a fairly linear academic career path, from PhD to two postdocs, with a little bit of adjuncting to get teaching experience while doing the postdocs. She most recently served as a tenured faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at San Jose State University (SJSU) for 19 years, including five years as department Chair. 

Describe job hunting and networking resources you used, as well as any other advice/resources.
It was comical. I feel like Cinderella. The short story goes as follows: I was telling one of my professional mentor/friends about my interest in data analytics, and he told me that he had a friend who does data analytics at Stanford. The idea was to connect the two of us to discuss data analytics in higher ed. Which we did! My new Stanford friend informed me that there was a job opening in data analytics in the Undergraduate Education division at Stanford. Despite my new credentials, I was completely unqualified for it. However, the job ad right next to it was “Undergraduate Advising Director.” That job ad read like my CV! It was all of my favorite things to do (basically talk with students and help them decide on their major, find resources to help them succeed in their classes, navigate university policies and procedures, find opportunities for research, etc). I put together a cover letter, stripped my CV of all my publications, grants, and presentations, and applied for the job. The rest is history. 

What have been particularly valuable skills for your current job that you gained through completing your degree?
Throughout my career, I was unknowingly building a formidable skillset. My most important skills were interpersonal: helping good people who are experiencing difficult situations; dealing with people who are just outright difficult; helping students make good choices about their academic career; being a good listener; being kind; being good at understanding complex policies and how they pertain to the difficult situations that students find themselves in, being able to absorb a lot of complex information and coming up with an optimized if not analytical solution to the problem.  Overall, my experience in working with students in higher ed was the main qualification. 

I also found that it is very helpful to be proficient in whatever software and computer systems are commonly used in academia (which are also in use throughout the business world). Google docs/sheets/forms are a must-have skillset for any industry. Adobe Acrobat does amazing things with PDFs - learn all the things! Excel does so much more than just calculate your grades - you should definitely learn pivot tables and other cool functions of Excel. It also helped that I know how to use Canvas and PeopleSoft, as we use those quite a bit in my org. You’d be amazed at how far you can go career-wise, simply being a nice person and a reliable, high-functioning adult with good communication skills and knowledge of these software packages and platforms. 

Describe a typical day at work.
The commute from my house in San Jose to the Stanford campus is an epic horror show, if undertaken at rush hour (30 miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic can take an hour and a half). Fortunately, my hours are very flexible. I work from home 2 days a week, so I actually look forward to my drive to the beautiful Stanford campus, which gives me 35 minutes to listen to podcasts. When I am home, I work 9-5. When on campus, my hours are 10:30am-7pm, which is great because students often come see me during my 5-7 office hours, and then I have no traffic on the way home. 

I do some email and/or meetings with colleagues before noon, then I have a working lunch with colleagues or students. From 1-6:30pm, my schedule is open for students to make meetings with me to discuss all things academic. Sometimes I am almost booked solid during that time, other times in the quarter are quite slow (no looming deadlines). How busy I am varies. It is very busy at the start and end of each quarter, and extremely busy in September when we are onboarding the new freshmen. Overall, my workload is such that I can take my time with each student, pay careful attention to details, and go the extra mile for them, all without feeling exhausted at the end of the day. I find it very reasonable. 

Wellness is huge at Stanford - seriously, we have the world’s leading researchers on wellness! The culture is such that everyone understands that overwork does not make for better outcomes; stressed out employees do not make for a productive work environment for anyone. Stanford is well known for hiring professors who are at the top of their fields. The university commits to supporting them by hiring the best staff, paying us well, and making the workplace somewhere that the best staff want to come and carry out their careers. I have several colleagues who have been at Stanford for decades, their entire careers, including one lady who had her 50th work anniversary shortly after I arrived. Stanford also has a huge commitment to undergraduate education, including two dozen people like me to serve as academic advisers (not major advisers) for students. I mostly work with freshmen and sophomores before they declare their majors. 

What are the most enjoyable aspects of your job?
I love talking to my students about their goals and aspirations, as well as their problems. Nothing makes me feel better than helping a student sort out a sticky situation. From the outsider’s perspective, it may seem weird that sending emails and filling in PDF forms makes for a meaningful career for someone with a resume like mine, but I absolutely love it because I am making an impact in a positive way, numerous times every day. 

What do you like most about your working environment? 
I love my colleagues. We are all academics (PhDs), and many of us have either been, or wanted to be, professors, and for whatever reason it either didn’t work out, or it did and we then left tenured or tenure-track positions for various reasons (two-body problem, etc). Many of my colleagues are in the humanities where the job market for tenure-track positions is grim. Most of the other advisers also teach a class now and then. The students are amazing, too. They have incredibly diverse backgrounds, hopes, and aspirations. 

What opportunities does your job provide to be creative and/or to take initiative?
Every student case is unique. They are all individuals with interesting personal histories and various hopes, goals, and dreams. So I am creative all day long in how I ask questions, how I respond to the things they say, how I advise them, how I engage with their professors, etc. Also there are a lot of ongoing professional development and training opportunities provided to me.

How family-friendly is your current position?  
Very. We always have a Zoom option for meetings, although we usually meet in person by default because we like in-person meetings. We also try not to hold meetings before 10 am or after about 3 pm because many people have little kids they need to bring to/from school. I personally do not have kids, but I do have parents who live far away from me and who are getting older. I am trying to make more time to travel to see them, and the people at work are very understanding about this as well. I also was encouraged to take family leave when my dog was horribly injured a few months ago. I did not ultimately need to do that because I was able to work from home, but it was nice to know it was available. (My dog is fine now!) 

What is your salary? 
$114,000 (12 months) with excellent benefits (comparable to my old faculty salary)

What is your level of satisfaction with your current job? And the work-life balance?
100%!!! It has completely exceeded my expectations. My colleagues are incredible and I Have so much in common with them. 

And the work-life balance?
Also 100%!!

What advice do you have for achieving work-life balance (including having a family)?
As someone with no biological children, I still do have a family: two parents, a husband, three grandsons (thanks to my husband), his immediate (and extended) family, as well as my own sister and her kids. I readily acknowledge that not having children has made my life a lot easier than those who do have children. I am fortunate that my workplace is respectful of different family configurations. 

As far as work-life balance, you need to be clear about what your needs are, keeping in mind that you are hired to do a job and that you need to get your work done and to do it well. If you do those things, you will be able to have a job that allows more flexibility if you need to take time off during “normal business hours.” People seem to think being in academia, being a professor, is super flexible, but it can be quite inflexible. Classes are taught at certain times. There are a lot of committee meetings. Your research takes time and you have commitments to your collaborators and students. You should not be working in a vacuum. You need to show up.  If you’re out sick, work piles up, and you have more to do later. I find that my new job is far more flexible than my professor job ever was. I would strongly encourage people who want flexible working conditions to think outside academia or at least outside the usual tenure-track pathway. 

What do you do for fun (e.g., hobbies, pastimes, etc.)?
After so many years as an academic, I am trying to re-familiarize myself with the idea of having things you do for fun. Wasn’t work supposed to be my hobby and pastime, and take up 100% of my waking hours? I AM SO PASSIONATE ABOUT ASTRONOMY I DO IT ALL THE TIME. (I actually never felt that way about astronomy...) So I have been trying to do more fun things.  I make time to go see my grandsons play little league and soccer. I cook healthy meals from scratch (I have discovered that I like cooking!). I go to my fitness class twice a week, where I have made new friends. I take my dog for long hikes and go on road trips with my husband and dog. I take more trips to see family and friends, which I can do any time of year now, not just summer! I’ve never had this kind of life, and I am totally enjoying it now!

Can we include your email address for people who may want to contact you directly about your specific career route?  
Yes, use monika.kress_at_sjsu.edu (replace _at_ with @). I am now Professor Emerita and still use that email address regularly for career-related things.

Recap: Virtual CSWA Meet and Greet @ the 236th AAS Meeting

Drawing on community input from a brief survey, our panel focused on addressing the special challenges our community faces, especially in the era of social distancing and social unrest. Recognizing that women can identify along multiple axes, the CSWA invited representatives from the AAS diversity committee to participate on this panel. Panelists were Dr. Jackie Monkiewicz (Working Group on Accessibility and Disability, WGAD), Dra. Nicole Cabrera Salazar (Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy, CSMA), and Dr. Rolf Danner (Committee for Sexual-Orientation & Gender Minorities on Astronomy, SGMA). Dr. Stella Kafka (CSWA) moderated.

In support of Black Lives Matter, the Meet and Greet started with a moment of silence to reflect on the episodes of social injustice that were occurring at the time of the meeting (early June 2020). Subsequently, posts that highlight the work of Black astronomers were (and will continue to be) cross-posted on the CSWA blog page.

The panel discussions centered around three topics: work-life balance, supporting each other, and making on-line meetings inclusive. What follows are comments from the participants on the panel, including the moderator. A link to the CSWA Resources page is included at the end.

The Maria Mitchell Women in Science Symposium - Summary of Discussions

By: Nancy Morrison, Nicolle Zellner, and Jessica Mink

The first Maria Mitchell Women in Science Symposium, in honor of the 200th anniversary of  Maria Mitchell's birth, was held October 5-6, 2018 at Babson College in Wellesley, MA. It was organized by the Maria Mitchell Association of Nantucket, MA, and sponsored by many organizations including the AAS. Nancy Morrison, Nicolle Zellner, and Jessica Mink, members of  the CSWA, attended and participated in the discussions. Speakers included Dr. Meg Urry (Yale), Dava Sobel (author), Dr. Jill Tarter (Emeritus, SETI), and Dr. Kate Kirby (APS). Panelists included astronomy profesor Dr. Colette Salyk (Vassar), Dr. Shirley Malcolm (AAAS), professors in environmental studies, biology, math, and other science fields, and other  science professionals. The panel discussions focused on three themes:

• Recruitment: How to Bring Women and Girls into STEM
• Retention: Strategies for Stemming the Leaky Pipeline and Ending Unconscious Bias
• The Future: Where Are We Going and How Do We Get There? The Future of Women and Girls in STEM

Each panel was followed by "salons", discussion groups to which we were assigned, with a range of ages and experience, all of which made for quite interesting discussions. For example, Shirley Malcom (AAAS) noted that the problem is not recruitment of women into science, but keeping them on a path (not a pipeline!) toward a life in science. We all agreed that retention is just as much affected by varied paths as it is by a single leaky pipeline and that there still is a problem that women's paths all too often take them away from academia and/or STEM. And the path isn’t necessarily family: Meg Urry presented the fact that the number one predictor of success in STEM careers is gender - not family issues; there is no difference between women with and without children.

Summaries of the break-out discussions will eventually be posted by members of the Maria Mitchell Association who organized the symposium, so highlights noted by Jill Tarter in her meeting summary are listed here. Take-away advice includes:

for individuals:

• Master your skill sets and use them when in new and/or unintended situations. 
• Take advantage of opportunities when they arise and learn to sell yourself intelligently.
• Strive for work-life alignment.
• Celebrate science and never stop asking “Why?” 

for institutional leaders:

• Publish and make transparent the rubrics that are used in evaluating candidates for entrance and advancement.
• Avoid geographic and intellectual isolation. For example, hire and admit in cohorts.
• Acknowledge and remedy stresses, including financial diversity and mental health, that women and underrepresented minority scientists (URMs) may be experiencing.
• Confront bullying and harassment and create safe spaces for women and URMs.
• Create multiple on/off/return ramps to academics and careers.

Maria Mitchell said, "We are women studying together". We look forward to our future and to the organizers’ intended future offerings of the Maria Mitchell Symposium! 

For a full list of speakers and panelists, and more information (including pdfs of the presentations), visit the Symposium's website. You can also see photos at the Maria Mitchell Association's Facebook page and search twitter for #MMWISS for tweets by several people.

Taking Action on the Gender Bias in STEM

Malaysia Primary School Girls

Today’s guest blogger, Anne Virkki, works as a postdoctoral research scientist in the planetary radar group of the Arecibo Observatory. She is originally from Finland, received her PhD from the University of Helsinki, and soon after defending escaped the dark and cold weather to the heat of Puerto Rico.

In the last AAS Division for Planetary Science meeting in October I joined the Women in Planetary Science lunch and discussion event. We discussed the small number of women in many of the spacecraft science teams as well as editorial boards of scientific journals and even smaller numbers of women from the different ethnic minorities. I find the event useful but felt that the discussion never got into the very core of the problem or practical actions on how to tackle it.

What we did discuss was the unconscious bias, but mainly on the level of employers choosing the future employees and how to make everyone included at the work places.  

However, a gender bias exists in the lives of many of us from a much earlier stage; it is a legacy carried by parents and teachers to children in societies where conservatism lives strong. The elders conserve the gender roles they learned from their own elders as values they either consciously or unconsciously pass on to their children: Girls should be seen but not heard, boys are better in mathematics and technology than girls, girls should learn to knit and cook and clean while boys should learn handiness like fixing the car or other “traditional forms” of engineering. For many families these stereotypes are fortunately history but for many others they are very present up to this day, and will affect the career choice of the children. 

Sexual Harassment – Changing the System II

[This post is Part II of an expanded version of my World View column in NATURE, Change the System to Halt Harassment from 08 February 2016. Universities and their senior staff must do more to deter, detect and punish all forms of inappropriate behavior – JTS]

This series discusses what can be done by people with power to change the system and begin to eliminate sexual harassment from our community. Part I discussed the role of senior academics and department chairs. Here, I focus on university administrators and leaders of our professional organizations, but I also want to make sure that anyone facing sexual harassment knows that help is out there. Please talk to someone you trust and rest assured that you are not alone. 

University Administrators

Every university needs an office where students/postodcs/faculy/staff can talk anonymously about harassment. For lack of a better name, I am going to refer to it as the Office of Good Advice. This office must be fundamentally separate from the Affirmative Action office, University Counsel, or University Police, all of which are responsible for reporting under Title IX. Office of Good Advice should be well known to everyone on campus, it should be staffed with trained professionals, and it should be the first thing that comes up on a web search for “sexual harassment.” Anyone on campus who needs to talk about harassment issues should know which university employees are obligated to report incidents and which can keep reports confidential. 

Every university needs an Office of Good Advice not only because students fear that they might be pressed to make a formal, legally viable report, but also because the staff in the legally responsible offices are often, with no malicious intent, unable to listen objectively and sensitively. Students might later report that they were asked intimidating and inappropriate questions that appeared to undermine the validity of their complaint like, “Were you drinking?” or “Are you unhappy with your grade in his course?” No matter how well-meaning, staff members in offices responsible for upholding the law cannot help but be influenced by that responsibility and by knowing the requirements of an investigation.  

Sexual Harassment – Changing the System I

[This post is Part 1 of an expanded version of my World View column in NATURE, Change the System to Halt Harassment from 08 February 2016. Universities and their senior staff must do more to deter, detect and punish all forms of inappropriate behavior – JTS]

With the issue of sexual harassment in the news, one hopes that student groups, academic departments, and university administrators are discussing what can be done to eliminate this vile plague from our community. There are fundamental flaws in the current system where Title IX offices are set up to protect the university, where all the pressure for righting these wrongs is placed on the shoulders of young women who are often in the most vulnerable stages of their careers, and where such harassing behavior can remain an “open secret” for years if not decades. In short, we have to find a way to change the system – to train those with privilege, especially senior men, to become not only allies who can support individuals but advocates who will add their voices and prestige to fight for right, to create a “safe space” where anyone facing sexual harassment can get help and advice, and to shine a light on the harassers who still operate in the shadows, destroying careers with their unprofessional conduct.

The Women In Astronomy Blog has already published advice for anyone facing sexual harassment, but here I focus on what can be done by people with power to begin to change the system. The target audience for this post includes senior academics and department chairs, but please don’t stop reading if you are not one of these! Sometimes senior people might want to help but don’t know how, or don’t consider this is a priority, or don’t think they have time. It might be your job to show them how to help, or convince them that this is important, or persuade them that they need to make time for this. Also, if you are not a senior person now, you will be some day. When you are chair of your department, will you know what to do? 

Becoming Allies and Advocates

Many senior members of our community admitted to knowing the “open secret” mentioned above. How can it be that so many did so little for so long while so much damage was being done? Think of all those young women, undergrads at a nationally renowned university, who left the field because their professor made a creepy advance. Think of all the discoveries they could have made but never will because they left astronomy before their careers had even begun. 

In-Reach/Outreach

Today's guest blogger is Terri Brandt. Terri is a high energy astrophysicist working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Studying cosmic rays and gamma-rays has taken her from Ohio to France to the ends of the Earth (Antarctica!). She helps organize diversity events at Goddard and has filled spare time with, among other things, ultimate frisbee, including cofounding one of The Ohio State teams.

Those times you need an ear, or a shoulder.

We’ve all had them.

When support, a space to share, to rail at life’s injustices and be

Heard

are as necessary as air.

People in underrepresented groups, facing higher frequencies of injustice, often need these spaces more often or more profoundly than members of majority groups. Be it outright *ism or the accumulation of microaggressions, having such spaces can help underrepresented groups’ members remember why they began this journey, can help them renew their commitment to it or to celebrate the beginning of a new journey.

To do this, these spaces must necessarily be safe, as defined by the people needing them. For people of color, this may mean spaces where there are no “white” people. For women, this may mean spaces with no people identifying as male.

Exclusion from a safe space is typically not a reflection on a given person. Rather, it is a reflection of the systemic over- and undervaluing of individuals based on things other than their actual performance in equitable assessments.

These safe spaces allow discussion, healing, and renewal. This “inreach” to members of underrepresented groups can be absolutely critical to the success of members of these groups.

At the same time, we also need outreach.

We need spaces where people who genuinely want to be allies, who want to listen and learn and use their privilege (however small it may seem) for the good of others, to be able to interact with members of underrepresented groups who are ready to share their stories, who are ready to point potential allies to resources and engage with their respectful questions about points not yet fully grasped. Who can help enunciate the common needs of the underrepresented group. Who can help allies become advocates.

These well educated advocates can create more allies and advocates, sharing the burden and creating an exponential growth of people who can partner with members of underrepresented groups to more rapidly and effectively change the system from within, to create a culture and a system that better enables everyone to realize their full potential.

So if you are a member of an underrepresented group, I invite you to create or sustain spaces of inreach, to strengthen your support networks (whatever they may be) so that you are better able to survive the inevitable injustices inherent to our systems and enacted by individuals in those systems. Because despite our actions,

We Need You.

And when you are able and ready, please engage in outreach, whether in person or online. Help others to help you and other members of your group.

To members of well represented groups, I invite you to listen, to use resources available to educate yourself. To reflect deeply and compassionately on the experiences of underrepresented group members, acknowledging that the act of sharing is a gift, no matter how painful the content.

Reach out to others, to let them know that you want to engage with them on ways to stop injustices when they are ready. Respect when individuals are not yet ready. Leave the door open for them and keep looking for those who are ready. Because despite our actions,

We Need You. 

And when you are able and ready, please step up and act. Advocate! Whether online or in person, use the power of your privilege to raise up voices that systematically go unheard, to minimize bias, unconscious or otherwise, to create a more just world.

For only in fully realizing all peoples’ potentials will we truly be doing the best science possible. 

Mindfully Responding to Microaggressions

Today's guest blogger is Anonymous. Anonymous has a PhD in chemistry and recently completed a postdoc at an unnamed national lab. She has since transitioned to a non-science career and is enjoying it! She’s interested in community organizing, the bugs in our neural programming, and the ways we transform our painful experiences into growth and  value.

 

Last time, I wrote about confronting a non-friend about his hurtful comments (see part 1) and subsequently recognizing the narcissism behind his behavior.  Although I felt (and still feel) confident that ending the relationship was the right decision, for a long time I didn’t feel great about how I’d responded during the attack.  In fact, I wondered if I could have done better and felt bad that I hadn’t known exactly what to say.

As I worked through these feelings, I realized that knowing what to say to someone else wasn’t nearly as important as knowing what’s going on inside myself - in other words, being mindful. In order to respond to attacks effectively and be happy with my decisions, I needed to resist the immediate urge to focus on them, their behavior, and responding. Instead, I needed to take a step back, recognize my feelings and needs, and focus on how I could act to support myself.

This is still a work in progress, but here are five things I try to remember when I am faced with bad behavior:

1. This is difficult, and it is normal for me to feel _____ right now.

These simple words have amazing power. When I’m able to recognize how difficult it is to be a human being, I give myself permission to not know, to struggle, and to make mistakes - in essence, to be who I am in the moment instead of impossibly, already perfect. When I stop judging myself for having negative feelings and simply acknowledge and accept them, I’m better able to process those feelings and direct them towards growth.

I think that many of us, when faced with microaggressions, have learned to downplay how frustrating and hurtful they can be.  We’ve learned this after being bombarded with messages like, “You just need to let it go,” “Other people have it worse,” and, “You’re making noise just to get ahead.”  (Translation: “You shouldn’t be feeling bad - and if you do, you’re either being ridiculous or greedy.”) Sometimes the lesson is further reinforced by advice that is ostensibly meant to be helpful (though I‘m pretty sure this advice wasn’t actually meant to be helpful…).

When faced with these messages, I try to acknowledge my feelings and counter these messages with NO: NO, this is a difficult situation and it is okay for me to feel hurt/angry/frustrated right now; NO, I will choose for myself when it will be okay to let this go; NO, you’re being an unempathetic jerk right now and it has nothing to do with me.”

It also helps  to hear these messages from friends. (We regularly did this for each other in the peer support group that helped me survive my postdoc.) Not only does outside validation reinforce the positive new messages, the knowledge that you’re not alone goes a long way towards fighting secondary feelings of isolation and shame. Eventually, saying NO might start to feel natural, as well as pretty good.

2. My worth is not dependent on a particular response.

One of my biggest current struggles is getting past trying to being a “good” person. It’s exhausting, as Courtney Martin points out, because it’s hard to know exactly what that means and harder still to maintain it.  That said, my fear of making a mistake and so being “bad” is so ingrained and pervasive that it turns many situations into pits of despair. A simple question of how to best respond to an insensitive remark becomes a major dilemma in which I MUST PROVE MY WORTH AS A HUMAN BEING (BUT PROBABLY WILL NOT). Any moment in which I don’t say anything because I am afraid or don’t know exactly what to do becomes PROOF THAT I AM A BAD AT LIFE.

It’s paralyzing. If this is you, let me say that you are not alone.

So I do my best to mindfully counter these messages, too: I am worthy. I offer myself permission to make mistakes, to be uncertain, and to take the time to fumble my way through what is usually a difficult and messy situation. I am still a worthwhile human being. My worth is not dependent on a particular response.

It’s not easy, but countering those messages and believing the new ones also become more natural over time. When the fear of being bad is no longer suffocating, it’s much easier to choose a response and feel good about it.

3. If I have to choose between...I choose me.

I may not know what Erykah Badu had in mind when she wrote this song, but in this context, it reminds me that I have a choice of where to focus my attention as “the most important thing”. For example, I can choose to focus on the other person and what they said or did. Alternatively, I might choose to focus on myself so that I can figure out what I want and need to feel safe. I don’t always have the presence of mind to immediately choose the latter (which is okay, because see #1), but when I finally get to the point where I can, I inevitably feel better about my situation and my choices.

As another example, when I’m deciding what to do, I can focus on how other people might respond to my decision. Alternatively, I might take that into account, but choose to focus first on understanding what my goals and desires might be, and how I can prioritize my own health and happiness as the most important thing. Again, I don’t always choose the latter (in fact, I’m pretty bad at it), but have always felt better after struggling (and growing) to get there.

4. Some people aren't interested in changing right now, and that's okay.

In learning to be kind to and make choices on behalf of my own health, I’ve also learned to let go of my desire to make choices for other people. I think of it this way: in asking people to change, I’m probably asking them to question their identity and exorcise a demon or two. That’s hard, slow work even for people who *want* to do it. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t hold others accountable - in strong, emotionally supportive relationships such as friendships and partnerships, you should be able to do so and have them take it seriously. (If not, run!) Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible at work.

So instead of restricting my idea of a positive action to “whatever makes this person change NOW”, I try to broaden my goals, and thereby my definition of success. For example, if I genuinely like the person, I might gently confront them with the hope that they may come around someday, and count that honest/brave conversation as my success. If don’t like them and don’t want to spend the time on it, I might choose to set boundaries and consequences (e.g., walking away, asking them to stop), and count that awareness and protection of my needs as my success. If I think that I need to speak up in order to feel good about myself or because there is power in showing solidarity with others, then I will attempt to do so professionally and count that bravery and relationship building as my success.

My definition of success might be different every time. It might not always work out 100% the way I hoped. But knowing that I have various options and framing them as things I can do for myself often makes the decision process easier.

5. Focus on positive reinforcement.

It’s easy to get discouraged when you’re surrounded by toxic people and behavior. As a result, I think there’s great value in seeking out positive people and relationships as rebalancing forces, whether from a personal or a workplace culture perspective.

For example, if there’s one unprofessional person in your lab, see if you don’t have to take him on alone - carefully see if you can ask for emotional or overt support in private conversations with other colleagues. Limit your time with this person if you can or need to, and try to spend time with the people who build you up. If that person one day says something thoughtful or empathetic, point it out. (Think of it like training a dog - with positive reinforcement, maybe he’ll do it again.) Thank friends and allies and let them know that you appreciate their support - the reminder that you’re not isolated feeds your soul, too. All of these things remind you that, as hard as this person or their behavior is, they are just one part of your life and are something that you can survive.

Diversity 101: Nine Simple Steps to a More Diverse Astronomical Community

 

 

Today’s bloggers are Joan Schmelz (me!), Program Officer at NSF, Physics Professor at the University of Memphis, Chair of CSWA, and soon-to-be Deputy Director of Arecibo Observatory; Dara Norman, Research Astronomer at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Visiting Faculty Fellow at Howard University, AAS Council Member, and Alum of CSMA; and Van Dixon, Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, and Chair of WGLE.

 

Mentoring Women: advice from Joan Schmelz

 

Those of us that work to make the astronomy community a more diverse place can learn from the old playbook of the senior white men who mentored a generation of junior white women, say 20 years ago. Many of these men had the best of intentions; many even hoped to make the world of astronomy a better place for their own daughters to grow up in. Some used the model of the father-daughter relationship to form the basis of the interactions they would have with their female students. Sometimes it worked – support, direction, and respect are all good components that can transfer from one dynamic to the other. Sometimes it didn’t work – hugging, love, and discipline are all components that are tricky to apply to the professional environment.

 

For those of us who do have the best of intentions, how do we navigate the diverse mentoring challenges of modern day astronomy? What can we learn from the last generation who helped white women break into the field and achieve success in numbers that now approach parity? I ask myself what advice I would have given to a well-intentioned senior white man about mentoring young women in astronomy (if one had bothered to ask, that is) back when I was a junior astronomer? Here are three simple things that any potential mentor could have done:

 

1. First, do no harm.

 

Don’t tell sexist jokes. You should never make insulting or condescending remarks about women as a group. Hint: if you think it could be insulting or condescending, it probably is. If you are a professor, be careful what you say in front of your class or to your advisees. Address both your colleagues and your students with respect. Don’t propagate old-fashioned ideas like women are too emotional or not logical enough to do science. You should never entangle your professional life with your personal life by asking your students out for coffee, beer, or dinner. Don’t touch your students on the arm or shoulder. Never hug or kiss your students. This may seem obvious and, indeed, it should be. But think of how different it might have been if everyone in the astronomy community had behaved in a professional manner. Sexual harassment and sexual discrimination would never have exploded into such damaging issues!

 

Uncomfortable conversations and my responsibility within our community

“I’m about to have an uncomfortable conversation with y’all.  I may turn red and become visibly emotional.  I apologize in advance.”  That statement is how I start almost every single one of my talks on anti-sexual harassment policies.  I know that the topic is hard for many in the room to discuss, that I may trigger an unwanted response, either in the form of a repressed thought or a negative defensive emotion, at any point in that hour.  I know that in order for those in the room with real power to hear about this topic, they need to see first-hand just how this unfortunate issue can negatively impact a person’s work, and their primary objective as a scientist. But I also know that for some people in the room, what they really want is for me to give them a hug and tell them it will be okay.  I know that my words will have a direct influence on the audience and I must act according to the level of respect and understanding every single person in that room deserves.  That’s not easy, and I know up-front that I have put myself into a position of responsibility.

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: The Astronomy Allies Program

Today’s guest blogger is Katey Alatalo. Katey is a postdoc at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Her research interests include using CARMA and ALMA to map cold molecular gas in candidates from AGN feedback and using Herschel to map the conditions in shocked molecular gas in interacting groups of galaxies.

Suppose you are standing at your AAS poster, and someone is monopolizing your time and standing way too close.  Suppose you meet a senior scientist at the AAS meeting, and s/he asks you to dinner under the pretext of discussing your work, but the conversation gets way too personal.  Suppose you drink a bit too much or stay out a bit too late at the AAS party, and you need a safe way to get back to your hotel.  What do you do? Contact Astronomy Allies.

The Astronomy Allies Program consists of volunteers who act to form a “safe-zone” at AAS meetings. An Astronomy Ally can act as a buffer, bystander, or advocate. As a meeting participant, you can contact an Ally if you need help. Allies can provide confidential advice, support, information, and resources. They can serve as a liaison between you and the AAS administration. They can help create an environment where the perpetrators of harassment feel they “can’t get away” with their unprofessional and disturbing behavior. As knowledge of the Allies Program grows, their very existence may help prevent future problems before they start.
 

Fed Up with Sexual Harassment II: Information Escrows

Today’s guest blogger is Mordecai-Mark Mac Low. Mordecai is a curator in the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, where he leads a research group studying the formation of planets and stars and the structure of the interstellar gas, and has curated the Space Shows "Journey to the Stars" (w/Rebecca Oppenheimer) and "Dark Universe."

After Eliot Rodger's rampage, the hashtags #notallmen and #yesallwomen swept Twitter, expressing the reality that although most men do not engage in sexual assaults or harassment, the ones that do tend to be serial offenders (e.g., sec 5.6 in this federal report from 1981, "Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace: Is It a Problem?", or Lucero et al. 2003, "An Empirical Investigation of Sexual Harassers: Toward a Perpetrator Typology" Hum. Rel., 56, 1461), ensuring that almost all women have had to deal with such problems at some level. (Although male victims may be slightly less common, and female perpetrators more so, both appear to suffer from even more overwhelming underreporting than the usual narrative.)