From: sulkanen@xanth.msfc.nasa.gov (Martin Sulkanen - NRC/ES65)
Subject: Re: CS: Post-doc or Visiting Faculty?
Organization: NASA/MSFC
Date: 31 Jul 92 16:59:09 GMT

debray@cs.arizona.edu (Saumya K. Debray) writes:

>kumard@sybil.cs.Buffalo.EDU (Deepak Kumar) writes:

>>                                               it is imperative
>> that sooner or later funding agencies in CS will also start
>> granting higher percentage of funds for post-doctoral positions
>[...]
>> However, this will take a few more years if followed through.

>NSF started a program for post-doctoral research support recently
>(the document I have is dated Nov. 1, 1991) for Computational Science 
>and Engineering.  Among other requirements, one needs to find a
>sponsoring institution that will match the money provided by NSF.

>> Compared to a post-doc (and we have already had a long discussion on
>> pros and cons of that!) the visiting-faculty idea seems more
>> appealing to me. 

>(I've just come into this discussion, so I've missed the earlier long
>discussion on the pros and cons of post-doc-ships: my apologies if
>this is repetitious.)  In my opinion, if your long-term goal is to do 
>good research at a good institution, you're *much* better off doing a
>post-doc at a *good* place than taking a visiting position at a
>not-quite-so-good place.  One reason is that the post-doc gives you the
>opportunity to work with, get to know, and publish with, well-known people,
>and (later) to get them to write letters of recommendation for you
>(a letter from a big name can be a *huge* plus when applying for
>tenure-track positions later).  Another is that teaching can be a
>surprisingly large drain on one's time and energy when one starts out,
>so a post-doc-ship where you're only doing research is likelier to
>allow you to get a bunch of publications under your belt quickly---and
>thereby improve your chances for a tenure-track position at a good
>place later on---than a visiting position that involves teaching.

>-- 
>Saumya Debray
>Dept. of Computer Science, University of Arizona, Tucson
>debray@cs.arizona.edu

I would strongly second Saumya Debray's comments. Visiting faculty positions
are offered to fill *teaching* positions for faculty in abstentia, or 
to siphon off some of the student overflow in the megaclasses that the
current faculty are teaching. Teaching....*good teaching*...is an enormous
drain. I taught throughout grad school, and did some fill-in lecturing as
a postdoc. Man, research will come to a grinding halt (I think I'm still
working on my sleep deficit from grad school, some 5 years ago). If you
want research as an important part of your academic career, you need to
publish a lot as a postdoc, hopefully in a wider range of (sub)fields
than your thesis work. This takes a lot of time to do. Just when you
do get that tenure-track job, and you do teach, have the integrity to 
give your students their money's worth (Dad's not donating it to the 
school, you know).

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