Science can be much better. It can strive to create supportive interpersonal environments for scientists to be creative and collaborative. Laboratories can aim to be nurturing places that help students reach their full potential as scientists and human beings. Scientist can have a shared language about the interpersonal and emotional issues that are part of our day-day life in the lab. The result is scientists that are more secure to go after the questions they value, leading to a deeper and more creative understanding of natural phenomena.
How can this cultural change be made? Experience from other cultural changes points to education as the primary means. We can add workshops and courses at key points in the science career that discuss interpersonal and subjective aspects of science: How to choose a lab? How to choose which problem to work on? How to listen to a student in trouble? How to handle conflicts? How to give talks and write papers and referee reports? -- with emphasis on interpersonal skills.
These workshops will be
Universal: the same language for all natural scientists
Given at key career points when people are most open: first days in graduate school, first days in a postdoc, first days running a lab, and first days as a department head
The workshops will mix people at all of these levels, from beginning students to new department heads
The workshop leaders will present simple concepts, followed by discussions between workshop participants: the new dept head will discuss with the new grad student etc.
Role playing and experiential learning will make these workshops enjoyable and memorable.
Sanctioned by institute leaders, sending a message that these topics are valued.
The aim is not to change people, but to change the culture. Not to prescribe
one method but to present helpful possibilities. This education will add to
science a shared language about the emotional and subjective aspects that are
universal to our daily practice. This shared language will lead to emphasis of
interpersonal skills in our profession and attract to science a more varied
range of people and points of view. The result is a science that is more
creative and powerful, and scientists that are able to achieve greater
self-expression as they understand the natural world. In other words, we aim
to nurture science by nurturing scientists.
In this website, Materials for Nurturing Scientists, you can find essays on
nurturing that can serve as a basis for discussion in these workshops. Please
write to me with feedback.
Uri Alon
Dec 08