All good grants come to an end… and the one that has supported me half-time at the university for the last almost-three years is just petering out… Sigh. Unfortunately, I also just found out that NSF turned down another grant with which I am involved that would have funded me half-time on a related project for the next three years. This leaves my work options slate wide-open (although we will resubmit the grant in July for a third round, which that may provide options for next fall).
Dana Campbell
Dana Campbell finished her PhD in evolutionary biology from Harvard University in 1999. Since then she has enjoyed the benefits of exploring many topics in biology as an independent scholar and at-home mom in Maryland. She spends summers with her husband and two daughters, ages 5 and 9, at the University of Washington marine biology research labs in the beautiful San Juan Islands.
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January 26, 2011
Some advice I remember from when I was little was “the earlier you can decide what you want to do, the better off you’ll be.” Despite this, I certainly didn’t know what I was going to do in high school. I was slow in declaring my major in college. I dabbled in philosophy, and took a survey of world religions, took a poetry class, economics, psychology, art, music – I squeezed in as many different intro courses as I could in my four years of while fulfilling my biology major.
January 11, 2011
When I was in elementary school I hated school recess. A list with a rotating schedule assigned each classroom to an official “area” of the mostly cement playground where we had to stay, as a class, and play the prescribed game for that arena. For me, recess came with those classic uncomfortable aspects: being picked for a team (last), not knowing how to play the game, not having the skills for playing the game (I could not throw a ball; neither did I want to).
December 15, 2010
Last night I went out for coffee and dessert with eight good mom-friends to celebrate one of them who just graduated from a two-year nursing school program. Cheers!
December 1, 2010
For my husband and myself, our Thanksgiving weekend was pretty low-key. Turkey at our friends’ house (we only had to cook side dishes!), catch-up on work (our computers are forever on), some yard work, neighborhood walks, a family board game. For my 6th grade daughter, there was a school project. The project was to build a totem pole to represent her family. Guidelines: no more than 5 inches diameter; 12-24 inches high; needs to be stable; use more than two different kinds of materials (clay, wood, cereal boxes, pipe cleaners); “Think outside the box”.
November 16, 2010
This morning at the breakfast table (as my husband was hurriedly scheduling his day on his laptop), my seven-year-old said, “I just want a day where you don’t have to always be on your computer.” Turned out that although she agreed a day with the whole family home and no one working – my interpretation of her statement – sounded great, her immediate motivation was that she was antsy for a time when she could get on my computer to complete a school project.
October 27, 2010
(First, an incident that might be slightly off-topic but which I found amusing: ) Last night I get in my car to drive to the local high school seven blocks away for a town hall style meeting with the superintendent of our enormous school system. As I drive up our block, a car turns out onto the street directly in front of me – our new neighbor (at-home father of three young children). He turns, I follow. He turns again, I follow.
October 12, 2010
The other day a friend of mine asked if we had an extra TV kicking around that we could do without. Not for her household, it turned out, for a family she met who has recently moved to our neighborhood for a year on sabbatical from Norway. The house they are living in is huge but completely unfurnished and although their three young boys enjoy sliding around in empty rooms, they really needed some basic furniture other than the few essentials they bought at Ikea.
September 21, 2010
At a recent birthday party one of my daughter’s friends received a copy of the young readers edition of the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. The dust jacket describes the book as “an unforgettable journey behind the scenes of your dinner”. My daughter was intrigued. It is a very readable narrative, and since she found it in the library a last week, she has carried it around constantly.
September 8, 2010
Last week I read a publication newly released by the AAUP (American Association for University Professors) giving “Recommendations on partner accommodation and dual career appointments.
In reading it, I started thinking about some of the many dual-academic couples I know.
