“Find three mentors and meet with them once a month.” — Carol Gross
4:15 PM. I just finished filming the training video that required me to learn how to use makeup. The filming went better than I expected. I know what it feels like to be an assistant professor, and I am scary when angry. M y face scowls like my dad’s. The woman who will edit the film, who knew nothing about me, said, “She has the perfect presence. It feels as if she’s done this before.” You will be able to judge my performance for yourself, because it will be available on YouTube…
The video will be part of a series (by the SoM) for faculty mentoring faculty. For me, I identify by knowing firsthand how hard it can be for junior faculty to obtain mentoring from senior faculty. When an assistant professor from 2000 until 2006, I faced two struggles: The senior faculty were so busy that I felt terrible taking up their time to mentor me. Second — and this situation might have been particular to my field — the mentors who enthusiastically supported me worked in research areas very different than mine, e.g., one mentor was a fluid mechanician. (I worked in a chemical engineering department.)
My experience as an assistant professor was fraught. In 2002, I attended the Microbial Stress Response Gordon Conference in Newport, RI. There while socializing with Amy Gehring, a young fellow Streptomyces researcher, we happened upon Carol Gross. Carol Gross asked me, “How is it going?” Immediately I knew that she understood my predicament — that I had no clue how to run my lab — and I began to cry. She said firmly, “Find three mentors and meet with them once a month.”
17 years later, maybe Carol Gross would add more to this rule. But I put her advice from long ago as my first post on Jenn Kong’s website so that you who aspire to be faculty — or who aspire to do anything challenging but hopefully rewarding — can know about the rule.