Engineer success, pioneer research, teach, and stay human

The second annual New Faculty Orientation marked the start of year two for the Center for Faculty Success. Once again, new faculty were treated to a full day of encouragement and advice from faculty panels and practical information and resources from staff who support their efforts. The program concluded with a second day presentation: Intellectual Property: Knowing and Protecting Your Ideas.

Interim Dean Vijayakumar Bhagavatula advised new faculty to set clear goals, to pace themselves, and to ask for help when they needed it.

“Being an early career professor is very demanding, but it shouldn’t be depleting,” he said in his welcoming remarks.

Throughout the day, faculty repeatedly echoed those sentiments with a thoughtful balance of honesty and reassurance.

During the Engineering Success for Yourself and Your Graduate Students session, panelists confided that overseeing the work of their student researchers might pose new leadership challenges, but Professor of Mechanical Engineering Sarah Bergbreiter said that in addition to providing clear communication and encouragement, opportunities to travel to conferences and meeting deadlines for submitting papers were oftentimes good motivators.

During the Pioneering Research panel, Rosalyn Abbott, associate professor of biomedical engineering, told new faculty to be prepared for rejection.

“We need to normalize failure because there is a lot of rejection in this work,” she said explaining that it was not uncommon for experiments to fail and funding requests to be denied.

Biomedical Engineering Research Professor Phil Campbell softened that by reminding them that often failure and negative results can also be informative and lead them to where the need to go next.

The day also included presentations by staff of the Community Engagement and Outreach and Faculty and Graduate Affairs teams.

Staff from several offices were on hand to talk about research funding. Sumitha Rao, director of research initiatives from the Engineering Research Accelerator, described the support her team provides faculty and stressed that faculty should approach them as early as possible when they need help.

Matt Sanfilippo, chief partnerships officer, acknowledged that federal government funding has shifted significantly, but he also said that he doesn’t want faculty to feel they can no longer seek federal grants.

“We will continue to pursue these opportunities as hard as we ever have,” he said.

Lena Cominos, senior director of corporate partnerships, also pointed out that there are other opportunities for them to explore. She explained that the college has been very successful in funding student researchers through the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Innovation Program.

“Remember, industry still looks to Carnegie Mellon for innovation and talent,” she noted.

Members of the Transformative Teaching panel agreed that teaching a class for the first time will demand the most time and preparation but that the initial work pays off when faculty can teach the same course again.

The final faculty panel, How to Stay Human, concluded day one, giving panelists the opportunity to remind new faculty that they and many others would be there to help them in their new roles.

Peter Adams, head of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, acknowledged that there would be many challenges but reminded them that their new jobs would also give them a lot of flexibility, autonomy, and many pathways to success.