|
home
> activities > fellows >
1999_2000 >
report.htm
|
Site
Map |
| 1999-2000
ANDP Training Program Fellows |
 |
Anne
E. Baldwin | Annette
Gilchrist | Anita
McCauley | Laura
Stone | Benjamin
Walker | Powerpoint
Presentations | Report
Report
on the ANDP Training Fellows Workshop
Spring 2000 Meeting of the ANDP
The
Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs (ANDP) held their
annual Spring Meeting May 6-8, 2000 at the Georgetown University
Conference Center. New to
the meeting was a workshop planned, organized and presented by the
inaugural class of ANDP Training Fellows entitled “The Trainee’s
Perspective”. The
workshop addressed issues in graduate and postdoctoral training
including how students choose a graduate program, professional
development training opportunities, irregularities in postdoctoral
salary and benefits, and the invisibility of postdoctoral fellows.
Alison
Hall, chair of the ANDP Training Fellows program, opened the workshop by
describing the goals of the Training Fellows program and outlining the
activities of the Training Fellows during the past year.
The activities included a leadership interview with their program
director, designing and distributing a questionnaire to students and
postdocs, and organizing the 2000 Spring Meeting workshop.
Laura
Stone, a postdoctoral fellow at the Vollum Institute of the Oregon
Health Sciences University, introduced the workshop and described how
the activities of the Training Fellows over the past year culminated in
the topics of the workshop. She discussed how the workshop evolved out of both the
leadership interviews and the results of the questionnaire administered
to peers at 6 institutions, with approximately 80 responses.
Stone focused on how the Training Fellows used these two
experiences to identify issues of concern to both trainees and program
directors.
From
the leadership interviews, the Training Fellows learned that program
directors were very interested in how students choose a graduate
program. Anne Baldwin, a
graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discussed many
facets of a student’s decision to choose a graduate program.
The primary resource students utilize is the World Wide Web.
Baldwin provided tips on how to improve a program’s presence on
the web, from the departments web page to the importance of keywords and
descriptions. The ultimate
decision-maker for a prospective student, however, is the “gut
reaction”. Baldwin discussed how an effective recruitment weekend could
sway that “gut” feeling.
Respondents
to the Training Fellow’s questionnaire indicated they desired greater
training in professional skills as a component of their graduate
education. In particular,
students desired additional training in teaching and communication
skills such as grant writing as well as exposure to applied skills
including business principles and technology transfer.
Anita McCauley, a graduate student at Wake Forest University
School of Medicine, described many different approaches being utilized
by universities across the country to implement these types of training
experiences into graduate education.
McCauley also emphasized the need to talk to graduate students so
that professional development resources could be implemented that best
fit faculty as well as student interests.
The
Training Fellows workshop also focused on important issues in
postdoctoral training. Annette Gilchrist, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern
University, addressed inequities in postdoctoral employment.
She indicated many of these inequities arise due to disparities
in job classification and position titles.
With each job title for a postdoctoral fellow comes a unique set
of guidelines for salary and benefits.
As a result, postdoctoral fellows in the same lab with similar
training can have very different salaries and benefits, which can be
very demoralizing Gilchrist said. She
emphasized the need for postdoctoral training committees to evaluate
postdoctoral training experiences and equity issue as well as to balance
the needs of the postdoctoral fellow with those of the principal
investigator.
Concerns
about postdoctoral training extend beyond job classification and
employment status. Benjamin
Walker, postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University Medical Center,
said that in many institutions postdoctoral fellows are “invisible”.
They are viewed as the property of the PI and therefore ignored
by both the department and the institution.
The result is an inability to identify postdoctoral fellows
within and across programs, limiting opportunities for networking and
research collaborations. Because
postdoctoral fellows are largely invisible, the additional training they
need to successfully advance in their career is left up to the PI.
Walker indicated that postdoctoral fellows and their respective
programs would be better served if professional skills’ training, such
as how to give a job talk, was a collaborative effort provided by many
faculty members. He also
suggested establishing a postdoctoral listserv and a postdoc
organization to provide regular communication and a sense of community
to postdoctoral fellows.
In
addition to the presentations given by each Training Fellow, two outside
speakers were invited to share their perspectives on graduate and
postdoctoral training. Dr. Teresa Sullivan, the Vice President and Graduate Dean of
the University of Texas-Austin described the professional development
program instituted for graduate students at the University of Texas.
Dr. Eliene Augenbraun, Vice President and CEO of ScienCentral,
Inc., described her experiences in establishing a postdoctoral training
program at Johns Hopkins University.
Submitted
by Anita McCauley, 1999-2000 ANDP Training Fellow
|
