pandemic

Why I don’t have trouble finding peer reviewers

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I see this very often in social media, and also in conversation with other academic editors: it’s getting harder and harder to get find people who agree to review manuscripts.

I have no idea whether this reflects the general experience, or if it’s borne out by data. I of course believe the lived experience of my peers, and their accounts make sense given the steady (and absurd) increase in publication rates, with so many people working the manuscript ladder chasing prestige, all compounded by the difficulties of the pandemic. I imagine that some journals have tracked the invitation acceptance rate and how it’s changed over time and perhaps shared this — or maybe it’s in the bibliometric literature — though over the span of a couple minutes my searching powers came up short.

That said, I have to admit that getting reviewers to say yes hasn’t been a problem for me in the course of editorial duties. Even in the depths of this pandemic, I usually haven’t had to ask more than three to five people in order to land two reviewers. Each year, I’ve been handling dozens of manuscripts, so I can’t credibly pin this on the luck of the draw. I don’t know why I don’t have much trouble finding peer reviewers. It presumably is a complex function of the function of manuscripts themselves, the society affiliation of the journal, how and who I choose to invite, the financial model of the journal, maybe if people are more likely to say yes to me as a human being (?), and who knows what else. If you ask people why they say no, I’m sure everybody just thinks it’s because they’re too busy. But if you ask people why they say yes, then that where it might get interesting.

The title of this post is off because I clearly don’t know why I don’t have trouble finding reviewers, but it might be informative because I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing, and that might help y’all come to your own conclusions about the Why. I’ve just stepped down from all of my editorial roles, so I thought now is a good time to step back and reflect on how have I identified potential reviewers, and make an attempt at some generalized take-lessons from this experience.

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On the exodus of faculty

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A lot of folks, with tenured positions, are choosing to get out of the university game to do other kinds of work. A recent issue of Nature has a particularly strong piece of journalism that dives into “the great resignation.” This article has resonated with a lot of people. Perhaps we’ve only seen the the above water portion of this iceberg.

In my university, I can think of some recently-tenured faculty members who have stepped out for jobs in consulting, industry, and funding agencies. These were people who were good teachers, productive researchers, and appreciated by their colleagues. Who enjoyed their students. From where I sit, this leaving-professoring-for-another-kind-of-job is a very real thing.

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Yes, things are hard for everybody right now

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This was the worst semester ever. We all are worn too thin. I’ve had one conversation over and over this semester, with colleagues who are now in their fourth iteration of pandemic teaching:

“Is this the worst semester ever for teaching?”

“Yes, yes it is.”

While each phase of this pandemic was rough, the consensus seems to be that this semester might have been the roughest. A lot of us have already tapped out our reservoirs of resilience. We’re also seeing an amplification of a mental health crisis.

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Planning lab “boot camps” for after the pandemic

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A pair of gloved hands holding a micropipette and twisting it to adjust it.
image by Figueiredo

My department just had a great idea: We’re planning “boot camps” to train students with the basic lab skills that they missed out on during the pandemic. The pandemic isn’t over yet, so we’re still in the planning phase. What is your department doing to get your students caught up?

The idea is that over winter, spring, or summer break, students can sign up for a 1-unit course (at no cost to them), and they will be able to do the stuff that we couldn’t do when labs have been virtual. Lab skills like pipetting, serial dilutions, PCR, electrophoresis, microscope use, slide preparation, plating, centrifuging.

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Adjusting scholarship expectations after the pandemic ends

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For most of us, academic productivity has taken a huge hit over the past year. And that’s fine. If you’re working from home full time while raising young children doing remote schooling, I can’t imagine how you have done anything above the bare minimum. For the rest of us, it’s entirely reasonable to have not done that much either. I’m glad that many of our universities are scaling expectations based on the reality that academic productivity during a pandemic is difficult, at best.

But honestly, I’m much more worried about what will happen once the pandemic is over. The downstream effects of the pandemic on our academic productivity might be greatest a few years down the line. This varies among disciplines, but for most of us, I think most important publications originate in our research pipeline multiple years before they come to press.

For example, in the past year, my productivity doesn’t look hideous, on paper. I published a couple articles and an actual book. All of those things were deep in the works before the pandemic started. The real cost of the pandemic is going to be seen in the next few years. I’m thinking about all of the projects that we didn’t start during the pandemic, and the ones we had started before the pandemic that haven’t been advanced forward. And even worse, the ones that we started and then because they stalled, and will need even more effort just to ramp back up to where we were. Not to mention all of the grants that we didn’t submit.

Please know that the impact of this pandemic is highly gendered. The data clearly demonstrate that women are submitting fewer manuscripts than men, because of the pandemic. This will have lasting effects on our academic community, especially if our institutions don’t adapt expectations of scholarly productivity not just during the pandemic but for several years afterwards. (It sure would be a lot better if men did equal amount of domestic labor and institutional service work, but apparently that’s still not happening? This is presumably why providing parental leave actually increases the academic productivity of men, and results in higher tenure rates, even though parental leave for women results in causes lower tenure rates? What the hell??)

I can imagine that a lot of people running universities will underestimate how a 1-2 year interruption of academic research will result in a long-term disruption of productivity. Keep in mind that for many of us, our labs will have lost people with expertise, who haven’t had the opportunity to provide hands-on training to the next generation. A lot of labs operate on momentum, and when that momentum is lost, it can’t just be regenerated quickly, it will take a while to get up to speed. As currently funded projects are being slow in creating results, submitting for a new project is more difficult, too.

In our university system, an organization is providing extremely modest ‘restart’ funds to get our labs ramped back up after having to shut down. But the amount of this funding is very limited. I sincerely appreciate the intent and also the fact that funds are very limited. What we really need more is a recognition that it’s okay to experience disruption, and some understanding that it will take a while to get up to speed.

What we keep seeing — in all aspects of our society, including science — is how `the pandemic is amplifying existing inequities. Just as we mustn’t shortchange those of us who are harmed by the pandemic, we shouldn’t be showering rewards on those who have suffered the least negative effects of the pandemic. Operating with an equity lens in the aftermath of this pandemic will require us to become more informed about how the pandemic is affecting different members of our community. It’s not enough to be open to empathy, we’ve got to do the work to listen and understand, and then translate that into institutional policy.

Are you a chair, or a dean, or on a tenure committee, or on a decison-making body of some sort, or do you have an opportunity to set university policy? Then you’ve got to make sure that all of your prior diversity recruitment efforts are backed up by action and resources to retain and support the people in your community who are experiencing more stress and performing more labor because of the pandemic.

Thoughts on the absurdity of teaching on campus in the Fall

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Over the past several months, higher education has been a theater of the pragmatic and the absurd. At this writing, most colleges and universities in the US are planning to return students to campus and hold classes in person, with some kind of fig leaf precautions. At least, that what they’re saying they’re going to do. Looking at the landscape of the COVID infection rate, this makes absolutely no sense.

In sizing up the pandemic plans of most universities, I have no idea how to identify the boundary between denial and deceit.

Bringing people together on campuses is a recipe for spreading the disease. It doesn’t have to do with the dorms, or frat parties, or any of that. It’s just that teaching in classrooms will circulate the virus. This is known.

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