In general, most responders thought postdocs were neither faculty nor students, but somewhere in between. But if forced to choose, most people would lump postdocs with faculty.
Ways in which postdocs are unlike students:
- Already have doctoral degrees
- Are employed by the university, and not paying tuition (except for Betty's bizarre institution)
- Benefits (usually)
- Don't have to go to class/earn credits
- No teaching requirements (usually - though departments differ)
- No service requirements
- Not an independent PI
I posted this poll to find out if I was over-reacting about something, or if my view of my position is totally skewed. In my current position, I am officially "faculty" as far as paperwork goes. I have the full benefits package and a TIAA-CREF retirement plan. I know that this is partly due to my unusual department-funded position - my friend Other Postdoc is a Postdoctoral Fellow (whereas my title is Postdoctoral Research Associate) on external funding and she gets the crappy student health insurance. But we are both "faculty" if you look us up in the online directory.
Anyway, in general I am treated fairly well by colleagues. But lately, both in my department and in the broader field, I've been seeing a lot of things that classify postdocs as "students," such as sessions at conferences. I recently saw myself on one list as a "postdoctoral student." What the hell is up with that? It's starting to really piss me off. Sure, I know I'm not "real" faculty. But I already have a degree, and I don't really need any more advice about how to pick a dissertation project or how to choose committee members. Many of the issues that I worry about (getting more publications out, beefing up the CV, putting together a comprehensive research program/plan) are much more similar to the worries of tenure-track faculty than to grad students (at least, grad students who are early in the process).
As Saxifraga pointed out in the comments on the poll, this lack of clarity is one of the problems with postdoctoral positions: what are they? What are we supposed to get out of them?
6 comments:
I think I was one of the people who said that postdocs aren't like faculty because they are not permanent, and I just wanted to clarify.
At our institution, postdocs are a blurry group. They include people who are on an official ARC postdoc fellowship, but ALSO any non-permanent people who are only a couple of years out from the PhD tend to be referred to as postdocs, even if their job title doesn't call them that. That's why I said non-permanence tends to equate to postdocness, at my university, anyway.
For example, Geekman's official title is research associate, level B. But I have often heard people in his dept referring to him as a postdoc, and he is on email lists for postdocs, etc.
Interestingly, a few days ago someone told me they had applied for a parking permit and been told that "emeritus professor" was not a real classification, and that they had to be either staff* or student, so to go back to their department and clarify their position. I assume postdocs get told the same thing.
* We don't distinguish between 'staff' and 'faculty' in Australia: they are synonyms. (I'm not entirely sure what the distinction the commentators below are making is: is it that staff are non-teaching staff and faculty are those in teaching positions?)
maybe it's just my inst, and in the non-hard sciences since i have no experience with that, but post-docs teach.
At my institution I find the following generalizations apply:
Staff are people like research assistants/technicians and research scientists/lab managers who work for a PI so are not, themselves, independent researchers. Staff are also administrators, custodial and maintenance staff. Faculty are usually people who hold a tenure track or tenured position at the university or a position of an equivalent status at another university. With the advent of teaching faculty they may be further distinguised as teaching or research faculty members. Postdocs and research associates are junior faculty members which means they do not have a vote on faculty issues and are not consulted.
I've had similar conference experiences and it only emphasises that the academic system itself knows not what to do with postdocs.
My title is the same as your Brazen, "postdoctoral research associate" and I get all of the benefits of a full-time employee at the university (benefits, retirement plan, etc.).
I don't think a person with a terminal degree, mainly those working as a post-doc, should be lumped with students. They are not students because they have completed their degree. I've never heard of such categorization. Personally, I don't think I could stand for that. I worked hard for my degree and I believe it should be recognized that I am done.
I don't blame you for being pissed.
I totally agree that the lumping with students thing is happening increasingly often and it makes me want to hit someone. I cannot for the life of me see how postdocs could or should ever be characterized as students and terminology like "postdoctoral students" make me out of character angry. Whether we can be considered faculty or not is another discussion - but students, no!
It is my impression that "post doc" covers almost anything a person would do in academia after the PhD on a short term contract. I don't agree with that way of using it, but think that's the way it works. It covers lab managers with research responsibilities like yourself, near-established scientists with 5-6+ years of contract science behind them, short-term programmes for getting established in a specific field (like an internship), people paid by project money to create databases, project administration, help out on different projects, for a specific research task etc. I think this mess gets in the way if we want to identfy what the outcome of a postdoc should be. Thanks for bringing this up. I should continue on my own blog.
The biggest difference that I can see where I'm at is that post-docs can work as little as 70 hrs a week and get to take a Sunday or two off per month as well as a yearly one week vacation where as a graduate student (myself) has a lab week of 90 hours and works 360 days a year, those extra five days/year being the cause for verbal abuse by an adviser for 'lack of commitment'. Why? Because I either get laudatory letters from my adviser until I've been granted my first RO1 or I will have no academic career; of course one's adviser knows this. I've consulted a lawyer in this matter and am told that case law says trying to do anything about this situation might inconvenience my adviser, but would certainly end my career. Inter-lab transfers are not tolerated here. A post-doc, on the other hand, can simply do another post-doc, hence their adviser can't ask for as much.
I should think you'd be glad to be past this stage regardless of what people call you. If I got to take a day off or put in a work day of as little as 12 hrs, I'd answer to 'ass-hole' with a smile.
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