Amanda J. Sebesta, Ph.D.

Just signed up and watched the trailer. Super excited and grateful for this resource, @BMDewsbury !!

Chef's kiss on this tweet; I really needed the uplift

Professors should not serve as punchbags for the university admins. A story from this article: - Tolu Odumosu submitted for tenure after 5 years at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville). His application was highly supported by the department, but the school rejected it. Why? Because “he hadn’t published any single-author books” (the requirement he never heard of) ▫️ Tenure requirements are becoming more life-draining than before. The main purposes behind tenure requirements are: - Universities want faculty members to secure funding, which generates overheads. But funding is hard to get! So, your profile MUST stand out. - Departments compete for ranking. They don’t want a faculty who is not great. ▫️ As a result: - Fewer people want to pursue a tenure-track academic career these days. - Young faculties experience enormous stress under tenure pressure. This hits their personal life really hard. - Students suffer from overwork and lack of mentoring because (in particular) their advisors are under pressure themselves. I do not defend such faculties, but this seems to be a big contributing factor. - Risky #research is postponed “until after tenure” (and often never pursued), resulting in fewer discoveries. ▫️ My personal opinion: 1. Yes, tenure by itself can give you freedom. However, I don’t see many associate professors suddenly leaving their comfort zone and going into risky research after getting tenured. This prompts the question - what does this freedom pertain to? (a provocative thought) 2. Tenure track is often turned into a rat race. This makes everyone miserable. Students, postdocs, faculties. The requirements MUST be lessened. It’s basically exploitation. Personally, I am not on a tenure track. And I don’t care if I am given tenure or not. ▫️ With this in mind, let me recite another story form this article: Columbia University had been trying to GIVE tenure to David Helfand for nearly FOUR decades. Each time, the astronomer said “no thanks”. Why? “Tenure does more to suppress academic freedom of those who don’t have it”. - he said. (He was on five-year contracts. However, in July 2022, the provost refused to give him a new contract, so he got de facto tenure.) ▫️ The point is: ❗Departments should lessen TT requirements. Excessive competition, ranking and quantities is not why we go into science. We're not here to do business. ❗Tenure has been essential to academia. But fierce competition is not. #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter

This is most certainly a vibe.

Me and my students editing a Google Doc while I’m in a different time zone

This will TOTALLY make an appearance in my next R workshop🤩🤩

If any PIs are interested in recruiting PhD students lmk! I am broadly interested in Biology Education, science Education, Teaching controversial topics like Evolution and Religion, Climate change, Vaccination etc. I would love to chat about opportunities #PhD #Biology #education

@Choosy_Female @ebspeth1 Thank you!! ☺️

Breaking the mold: Study strategies of students who improve their achievement on introductory biology exams buff.ly/44Bf4sI Nice work, @PandaThePostdoc @ebspeth1 !!

@ebspeth1 Congrats to both of us for bringing this work out into the world!! 😊

✨Summer reading list✨ (I guess for as long as summer lasts?? It's July now??)

Does a point of no return come for us all, eventually?

there is, without a doubt, the sense in academia that if you struggle with mental illness, are disabled, that’s your problem—you simply can’t handle the “rigors” of the academy. there are endless performative shows of support, but when it comes down to it we’re often on our own.

Meeeeee. Looking forward to hearing about student motivation and buy-in!

@Choosy_Female @DerekSollberger Always happy to dive into some data! Thank you for being awesome, too!!😁

Public shout-out to two awesome collaborators: @PandaThePostdoc and @DerekSollberger !! Both of these folk are fantistic and making me smile with data this week!!!

In the same way that I thought good instructors never had negative student feedback, I've learned that good instructors aren't even understood to be doing good work from area to area. I'm saddened to think of the colleagues we have lost & will lose bc we don't see it.

@ebspeth1 🤣as much as it can be intimidating to learn something new in R, I do think you'd like it since it makes R Markdown files look more visually organized and readable. Wanted to share just in case 😉

@ebspeth1 I'm saving this for later because it looks really sleek and helpful!

No one: Ecologists: “Well, it really depends on scale.”

@CrystalUminski So, so sorry to hear about Travolta😢 it's been lovely to see pics of him here and all the adventures you've had together! He's had an amazing human. Sending comforting vibes.

Today truly ranged the spectrum of highs and lows. I submitted my dissertation and I got news that I'll have to put Travolta down. He's had a rapid decline following a bad case of anemia. Here's some of my favorite photos with him to celebrate all the smiles he's brought me.