Veronique Carignan in Undark Magazine:
In 2022, a few years into a tenure-track position as an assistant professor in chemical oceanography, I watched my department rally around a multi-million-dollar robotics program. The goal was to make a splash (pun intended) and impress funding agencies and other institutions with a plan to leverage autonomous vehicles for underwater exploration. The program included the design and construction of a 20-foot-long testing tank, housed in a new 27,000-square-foot building with space for eight laboratories.
I wasn’t exactly surprised. Since faculty orientation three years prior, I had been haunted by our administration’s battle cry to “diversify your funding sources!” As a junior faculty member, I was released into the “publish or perish” combat zone, where survival — and tenure — typically depend on securing at least one major grant in your first four years. I frantically wrote grant applications to every government agency and philanthropic foundation with cash to give, submitting eight proposals in my first two years alone.
More here.
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