Here’s a review of some topics we discussed at last night’s member meeting. A full list can be found here on the WCS-UW Google Drive.
1. The Managing Up workshop with the graduate school was a great success, and Sarah is working on a recap/resource to distribute (via our mailing list and blog, but also through the department). Joan and Scott are also adapting MIT’s Postdoctoral Mentoring and Advising Toolkit for grad students. Using the toolkit will involve meeting with your advisor to go through a worksheet and have a discussion that clarifies your goals and expectations. Joan and Scott will send out the toolkit soon with more details for how to use it. We hope to have an event later this quarter where people can discuss their experiences using the toolkit and how to make it more widely used in the department.
2. Our next event will be a workshop on impostor syndrome with Professor Alexes Harris from the sociology department. This workshop will tentatively take place at noon on April 23rd, location TBD. More details will be posted soon.
3. This summer, we’re having a book club! Meetings will take place during lunchtime, probably every other week. We’re looking for ideas for science-related and/or women-related books. No particular preference for fiction or non-fiction, but a collection of essays or short stories might work well. Add your ideas to the brainstorming document on the WCS google drive, and we’ll vote later in the quarter.
4. Our budget includes funds to bring in one out-of-town speaker per year. We’d like to decide on a speaker and invite them this spring/summer for the inaugural WCS-UW Lecture this fall/winter. Add your ideas for speakers to the brainstorming document, and we’ll discuss and vote on which to invite at a future meeting.
5. The WCS blog is always looking for more content – upcoming events of interest, recaps of past events, reflections on articles or papers. Just register or log in via the links on the right-hand side of this page, and we’ll authorize your account to post entries if it isn’t already set up.