What does tenure mean in academics? #writinglife

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

It's come to my attention that most people have no idea what I'm talking about when I say that I'm planning on applying for tenure in the fall. I get asked things like, "Don't I already have that?" (I'm tenure-track, or eligible to apply for tenure.) Or, "Does that mean they can't fire you?" (It makes it harder, sure, but not impossible.) Or a whole host of things. So, here's the low-down in case you're ever writing about professors or anything set in an academic setting :)

Teaching courses in a University setting (and I'm not talking about Teaching Assistants--TA's), you're likely to see:

• Graduate students. These are just that: students. Usually doctoral students who are earning money/tuition by teaching on the side. It's a great opportunity to learn how to teach, because most of the time (and by that I mean almost always), professors receive almost no training on how to teach. It's all about observe other and learn the ropes yourself.
• Adjuncts. These are individuals, often with a degree (doctorate or sometimes Master's) that teach courses on a course-by-course basis. They are almost always underpaid and overworked.
• Lecturers. These are individuals who are teaching courses by not on a tenure line (as in, they don't have the opportunity to get tenure). Again, often doing lots of teaching with little pay, but they are often on a contract that allows them more security. They always have a degree (PhD, and more rarely, MA). These positions don't always have a time limit and I've seen people spend their entire careers as them, which is fine if that's what you like and your institution is stable enough to handle that. You definitely don't have to deal with some of the tenure/research/department BS :)
• Visiting Assistant Professors. These are pretty similar to lecturers, but often on a yearly contract that is scheduled to end at some point. Often they're a place-holder for a tenure faculty until the official person is hired into the tenure line (which can be either the visiting person, or another person--a nation-wide search will have to be held no matter what).
• Assistant Professor. This is where tenure starts to play a role. The individual hired as an assistant professor is on a tenure line, meaning that later they are eligible to become tenured. There are three main components to this job: teaching, research, and service (to the university). They may be weighted differently, depending on the institution, but you're expected to excel in all three to get:

~*TENURE*~

• Tenure application. Applying for tenure and applying for the jump to assistant professor are actually two separate things. They can be done in conjunction, or you can apply for associate professor before tenure (and this varies a little from place to place). The application process also varies a lot, but generally means turning in a portfolio of some kind with evidence of all your awesome work that you've done over the 6-8 years prior years, while at the same time convincing everyone they like you enough to keep you. It's basically one majorly stressful time, and since I'm staring it in the face right now, kind of makes me want to run and hide....
• Associate Professor. After being awarded tenure and the jump to the next rung on the ladder, you're now tenured (which everyone says means that there's more freedom...we'll see if that's true), but it does mean that someone isn't breathing down your back as much about funding and projects and doing all the things at once. You're still busy with the three main things (teaching, research, service), but there's more flexibility to say 'no' every now and again...or so I'm told.
• Full Professor. After another ~6 years, after demonstrating excellence again, it's possible to apply to be a full professor. This is one of the top rungs, and often people who are full professors have proven themselves in their field to be strong advocates, successful scholars, and definitely hard workers.
• Emeritus Professor. This is usually after retirement where professors either do research or teach or something to continue contributing. Mainly because after working so hard for your whole damn life, it can be hard to just leave behind :)

There are a TON of other variations on these, depending on the institution, the country they're hired in, and just how things work. These are the common ones at my university that I've also seen elsewhere. But, at research institutions or medical schools, things are vastly different. However, hopefully this gives you a general sense of how things work :) 

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After Reading: the Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

So, this series has sucked me in lately and left me hanging on every last word. It's just *sigh* so good. The series (A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, and A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab) is just amazing. It's one of those worlds where it feels like it's real enough to reach out and touch. Every little nuance and detail is there, bringing together the fantastical and deeply human emotion of the characters in a way that's heartwarming and gratifying. The characters are all so well drawn, so very real that they leap off the page, that I just want to hug some of them (and maybe book-slap a few others ;). I wrote about this on my instagram page on Sunday, but as I make my way through the last book, I'm reading slowly, savoring, just so the ending takes as long to come as possible. I will deeply miss this world, it's magic, and the perfect escape for a very dreary and stressful February it has provided.

Anyone else read these? Enjoyed them? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

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Science for Authors: Mitochondrial DNA and Tracing your Ancestry #amwriting

By: Meradeth Houston on 4:00 AM

Today I thought I'd delve a little into my own research and talk about mitochondrial DNA and tracing ancestry with it--both are quite a bit of fun, if I do say so myself! :) (*Just a note to say that while I teach many classes on mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA), this is a basic review for authors themselves, not meant for other uses.*)

Okay, let's start off with the basics: what the heck is a mitochondria? Well, it's a small organelle in the cell (possibly incorporated into cells long, long ago in a symbiotic relationship, but that's a whole other story) and is often referred to as the "power house" of the cell. It makes the ATP, or energy, all cells in our bodies run on. Pretty important right? Well, it also has its own little genome--a small circular bit of DNA that it uses for purposes within the organelle, referred to as a mitogenoe (which I've always thought was kinda cute). It's this little piece of DNA that I allows us to trace human history through the female lineages of human history.

There are some really unique features about mitochodrial DNA (mtDNA) that I should point out:

• It is inherited solely through the matriline, so everyone on earth has the same mtDNA as their mom, but only daughters will pass it along to the next generation (basically because sperm don't introduce any--or very little--mitochondria to the egg cell in fertilization).

• It mutates rapidly. Meaning that changes between mother and daughter's mtDNA happen more often than changes in nuclear DNA. This is mostly harmless (with a few exceptions), but allows for looking at differences between groups that are much more recent, as if there weren't any mutational differences, it would be really hard to tell groups/people apart based on their mtDNA.

• There are lots of copies per cell, which is really handy when working with old samples because more mtDNA copies means there's a higher chance of recovering the DNA to analyze it.

There are lots of other interesting things about mtDNA, but I'll leave it at that for now :)

So, with mtDNA, it's possible to trace ancestry. Chances are, if you've sent in a spit-sample to trace your ancestry to one of the many companies that does this, they told you what mtDNA haplogroup you belong to. These haplogroups, lettered by the alphabet, are a way researchers have broken down the different lineages of mtDNA. I personally belong to haplogroup X2b2 (sounds much more mysterious than it really is :), which is found in some people of European ancestry, and spilt from a common maternal ancestor a long time ago to form the X branch that's also found in some Native American lineages--this happened way, way back when our ancestors were in the East Europe/Middle East region (with some debate about this).

How do these haplogroups, or lineages, work?Well, as I mentioned, mtDNA mutates from time to time--meaning that at one of the base-pairs (the A,T,C, or G that makes up all DNA) spontaneously changes into one of the other bases. So, think of it this way: a mother has five daughters, and she passes along her mtDNA to each of them. But due to some random chance event, in one of her daughters, the mtDNA she passes along has a small change in it, so all the daughters and granddaughters from that line now carry a small difference. This mutation that happened splits the lineage, and it's possible that the mother and daughter would be placed in different (though related) haplogroups. It kind of works like a family tree, only with DNA.

Today, when we look at lots and lots of people's different mtDNA's, and the mutations they all have different from one another, it's possible to group them into lineages based on who all share the same mutations. These mutations can then be traced backwards through time, like the reverse of the mutation process in the previous paragraph: your direct maternal ancestors and relatives all share X mutations, but a larger group will share X-1 mutations because they're in a different branch, and so on back to the "root."  

In humans, we can do this with all mtDNA to finally reach a single haplogroup that is found in Africa. Sometime a long time ago (based on how fast mtDNA mutates, probably about ~200kya), when modern humans first appeared, there was a small population with the same mtDNA haplotype, and this was passed along to all modern humans that live today. This is often confused with a single person who lived back then, referred to as mitochondrial Eve, though in reality it was probably a small group of people. By chance, one of the mitogenomes was the one that is now found in all humans, but plenty of nuclear DNA (in the nucleus of your cell) comes from many different ancestors, male and female, Neanderthal, and Denisovan, and probably a few other hominin species to boot! Still, it's pretty cool that it's possible to trace the matrilineal lineage of all modern humans to one spot and group!

Have you had your mtDNA or Y-chromosome DNA tested?

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