Bridge(s) Over Troubled Waters: Traditional and Non-Traditional Careers for Personality and Social Psychologists

2010 SPSP Training Committee Pre-Conference Co-Sponsored by the SPSP Graduate Student Committee

Co-Chairs: Marti Hope Gonzales, University of Minnesota Austin Lee Nichols, University of Florida

Pre-conference Overview

Dwindling support from state legislatures, shrinking investments and endowments, hiring freezes, and delays in the retirement plans of senior academics -- to name but a few consequences of the downturn in the U.S. economy -- mean that graduate students may be forced to consider alternatives to traditional career trajectories. This pre-conference is designed to provide attendees with information on both traditional (i.e., postdoctoral positions and tenure-track positions in research universities and four-year colleges) and non-traditional career options for personality and social psychologists, including academic appointments outside psychology departments, appointments in universities outside the U.S., and work in both the public and private sectors. A number of distinguished personality and social psychologists who have pursued both traditional and non-traditional career paths will speak of unique challenges and opportunities, both inside and outside academia. Among the topics to be covered: the work demands of traditional and non-traditional careers for personality and social psychologists; similarities and differences in securing professional positions; and the skills that it takes to succeed. In short, this pre-conference should be valuable and relevant for both junior psychologists who face immediate career challenges, and for senior psychologists for whom information will be valuable as they train the next generation of personality and social psychologists.

Given the intended training orientation of this pre-conference, ample time is reserved for questions and audience involvement. In particular, a roundtable lunch hour will present pre-conference attendees with the opportunity to discuss and receive feedback from speakers about career options. In addition, to round out the day, there will be panel discussion in which audience members can ask the speakers about the ins-and-outs of pursuing both traditional and non-traditional careers informed by expertise in personality and social psychology.

Registration

We apologize, but we have exceeded our target, and registration for the preconference is now closed..

Program of Events

8:30 - 9:00	BREAKFAST AND INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
9:00 - 9:30	Psychology Tenure Track Positions: Things I Wish People Would Have Told Me	Stacey Sinclair Princeton University
9:30 - 10:00	Liberal Arts Colleges: Life in the Slow Lane	Sheldon Solomon Skidmore College
10:00 - 10:30	Postdoctoral Positions: On the Challenges and Rewards of Postdoctoral Positions	Sophie Trawalter University of North Carolina
10:30 - 11:00	BREAK
11:00 - 11:30	Medical Schools: A Career in Medical and Health-Related Research	Meg Gerrard Dartmouth & Norris Cotton Cancer Center
11:30 - 12:00	Business Schools: The Promise and Peril of Being a Psychologist in a Business School	Adam Galinsky Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University
12:00 - 1:30	LUNCH & TABLE DISCUSSIONS
1:00 - 1:30	SPSP PRE-REGISTRATION CHECK-IN
1:30 - 2:00	Jobs Overseas: Across the Ocean: Social Psychology in Germany and Beyond	Fritz Strack University of Würzburg, Germany
2:00 - 2:30	Public Sector: Were not in Academia Anymore, Toto; One Social Psychologist's Experience Finding and Enjoying Work in Government Labs	Marisa Miller U. S. Army Research Institute
2:30 - 3:00	Private Sector: I didn't want that $500 suit anyways.	Blair Jarvis Empirisoft Corporation
3:00 - 3:30	BREAK
3:30 - 4:30	PANEL DISCUSSION	ALL SPEAKERS/AUDIENCE

Participants, Titles, and Abstracts

Adam Galinsky Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University The Promise and Peril of Being a Psychologist in a Business School	Business schools offer psychologists unique opportunities and hurdles. The classroom experience is more demanding, but often more rewarding than undergraduate psychology classes. Regarding research, business schools both expand topics and approaches, and expect researchers to articulate the practical relevance. Success requires open-mindedness and mastery of a new "cross-cultural" language of finance and economics, but many colleagues are eager to learn our language and understand our insights. As they are not for everyone, and I will address how to diagnose whether a business school is the right fit. Finally, I will discuss how to prepare today for business school opportunities tomorrow.
Meg Gerrard Dartmouth & Norris Cotton Cancer Center A Career in Medical and Health-Related Research	Many psychologists reap the benefits appointments in medical schools and cancer centers provide. Research is usually interdisciplinary and traditional disciplinary boundaries are less of a factor in faculty recruitment and research. This creates research opportunities that can be extremely varied and interesting. Also, the unique set of skills psychologists learn in graduate school make us valuable team members in investigating medical questions. Although psychologists in medical settings typically earn higher salaries, there are drawbacks. Primarily, most research positions in medical settings are "soft money" positions. Overall, I will discuss both advantages and disadvantages to careers in medical research settings.
Blair Jarvis Empirisoft Corporation I didn't want that $500 suit anyways.	After eight years of graduate school, I hit the job market. I had a respectable vita, along with the 1998 SESP dissertation award. But with each application came rejection -- not even a single interview. My post-doc and student visa were running out and my debts were showing no mercy. So, I curled up in my Eeyore sleeping bag and pondered the universe. The answer was ridiculously impossible -- move to New York City and start a software company. A decade later, Empirisoft provides MediaLab and DirectRT to over 1,000 universities worldwide, generating over a half million in annual revenue.
Marisa Miller U. S. Army Research Institute Were not in Academia Anymore, Toto; One Social Psychologist's Experience Finding and Enjoying Work in Government Labs	The U.S. Army Research Institute (ARI) for the Behavioral and Social Sciences employs PhD psychologists trained in several different sub-disciplines and offers research opportunities on a wide variety of topics. This provides a uniquely engaging work environment, collaboration, publishing opportunities, and the satisfaction of knowing that one's research is regularly considered by top Army decision makers in making real-world decisions. Of course, research outside of the academic lab has real-world restrictions. Included in this talk are the pro's and con's of working for the federal government, particularly the military, and tips on how to find and land such positions.
Stacey Sinclair Princeton University Things I Wish People Would Have Told Me	This talk will focus on topics relevant to the early years of a career in a research-focused department, such as the transition from graduate student to professor, getting tenure, and life right after tenure. In talking about this period I will attempt to distill and articulate the pitfalls, lessons and surprises that I wish someone had foreshadowed for me. Given my experiences, I will consider how being a person of color, a woman, and at a public vs. a private institution shapes the experiences one encounters during this period.
Sheldon Solomon Skidmore College Life in the Slow Lane	A position at a liberal arts college has been compared to winning a shit-eating contest, and is traditionally viewed as disadvantageous: no graduate students, low publication rates, limited extramural funding, and other limited professional opportunities and accolades. Still, liberal arts colleges afford other opportunities: gaining expertise in academic disciplines beyond psychology, the time to develop ideas unlikely to arise in a typical "publish or perish" research university, direct work with undergraduates, and a life as well as a career. I will pontificate about my experiences at Skidmore College, and offer some advice to graduate students pondering (by choice or necessity) positions in this environment.
Fritz Strack University of Würzburg, Germany Across the Ocean: Social Psychology in Germany and Beyond	Having been a student and a scholar in both Germany and the US, I would like to share my experiences with the different university systems. Specifically, I shall attempt to compare German and American institutions with respect to their different cultures of teaching and doing research. I shall also tell you about the various influences and encounters that have shaped my own career and shall try to identify the lessons that can be learned.
Sophie Trawalter University of North Carolina On the Challenges and Rewards of Postdoctoral Positions	In this kind of economic climate, a postdoctoral position offers a rewarding alternative to a tenure-track faculty position. It provides the time and resources to learn new skills and hone old ones, pursue new ideas, and develop new collaborations without the constraints of a tenure-track faculty job (e.g., teaching, committee work). In the present symposium, I will talk about the challenges and rewards of postdoctoral training. More specifically, I will share my experience: (a) deciding to apply for postdoctoral positions, (b) applying for postdoctoral positions, (c) conducting postdoctoral research, and (d) applying for tenure-track faculty positions as a postdoctoral scholar.