In my graduate course on Adolescent Development, I encourage students to have a final project that they can use in one way – a master’s thesis proposal, a grant proposal, part of a manuscript… something that fits with their current professional needs.

One option I provide is a creative project, “something, based on past research, which you will disseminate on the internet. This project should include a similar number of references as a literature review, but will be summarized for laypeople, not academics. You should also include a short (2 pages?) paper with a reference list that describes how the literature informed your project. There are a number of different possibilities, such as a Wikipedia entry, an on-line quiz, a website that provides advice to a particular population, or a video on YouTube.”

Students do not frequently choose this option, but when they do, I always find the outcomes interesting. This year, a doctoral student in education, who has worked in the school system with students with autism, created a website that provides resources for children with autism. I encourage you to check it out, both as an example of a creative project, and in case you know anyone who might need such resources.

A previous year, a student wrote a website to provide resources to immigrant parents. And once, a student, who was trying to get a job as an academic adviser, wrote a website that targeted at first year college students.

I think it’s great when students are able to use class assignments to push out a manuscript, and I encourage it. But sometimes students want a break from standard academic writing and I enjoy giving them an outlet for this very different type of writing as well.

“The post Last week in Adolescent Development: Creative project examples first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 15, 2016.”

Do me a favor. The next time someone tells you that they are moving, please hug them or buy them a strong drink. I promise you, they need it. And having lived in the same house for 14 years, and the same city for 18, I wish I had been much more sympathetic to people pre- and post-move over the past couple of decades. My move in 1998 as a single, apartment-renting, graduate student was nothing like my current move. Nothing.
 
Moving on.
 
In my last post, I discussed why the timing worked out to leave Penn State. Now I want to discuss reasons why it made sense for me, and us, to accept positions and move our family to UCONN.
 
I have been approached before about applying for other department head positions, but they have always been places that either did not seem like a great department fit for me, or not a great geographic fit for our family. When UCONN approached me, it was the first time that I thought it was a region of the country I would want to move to. I actually grew up in CT; almost all of my extended family lives in the CT/NY/NJ/MA area; and my husband and I are both fond of New England.
 
However, I would not move simply based on geography. What struck me from my first conversation with the search committee chair is how much UCONN HDFS reminded me of Penn State HDFS. I repeatedly heard from people about the support and sense of community within the department. I was impressed when I looked at the faculty and students in the department. When I visited, I enjoyed all of my meetings and it became clear that I would be quite disappointed if I did not receive an offer.
 
There has been excellent growth in UCONN HDFS and UCONN more generally as well in recent years. UCONN has been in a strong hiring phase at a time when most universities are constricting. The HDFS department has hired several people in addition to a new head over the past few years, resulting in, as of this Fall, eight assistant professors.
 
It is an exciting time for research in adolescent development in UCONN HDFS. There are at least seven faculty within HDFS whose research focuses on adolescent development, including work on peers , youth mentoring, cultural influences on families , self-regulation and risk taking , and as of Fall, LBGTQ youth, and sexuality development . There are also other researchers interested in sexual health and risk, and romantic relationships, as well as the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy (InCHIP).
 
A question I’m frequently asked is, Why do you want to be a department head? I received this question multiple times throughout the interview process, and continue to receive it when people learn of my move. Sometimes it’s phrased more as, “I thought no one ever wanted to be department head.” In terms of why I developed interest in becoming department head, it’s important to note that I was not on the market for a position as department head. I saw a particular fit between the opportunity at UCONN and my experiences and interest. It felt like a logical next step in the administrative aspects of my career. I have enjoyed my role as undergraduate program director, and even more so, as graduate program director. I’ve had increasing experiences mentoring faculty, and I look forward to the opportunity to expand that role. One aspect of being Graduate director I’ve most enjoyed is working with graduate students and faculty to shape change within the department. Thus, I look forward to working with faculty, staff, and students at UCONN to develop a vision for the next few years, and collaborate on enacting that vision.  I couldn’t imagine agreeing to be a department head in a department that needed serious “fixing”. Instead, I see myself joining a department that is already strong, has strong faculty, staff, and students. A department with an existing emphasis (among other things) on health and on culture, two areas that I particularly value. I was raised in a very supportive department, and thus, joining an equally supportive department, with the opportunity to give back to junior colleagues in particular, is appealing. I believe that I have been relatively good at administration, and (for the most part) I’ve enjoyed it.
 
From a family perspective, my husband was also offered a tenure-line position, and it was hard to imagine when we would next both be offered good positions at a great university in a part of the country we would want to live. Our children are toward the end of elementary school, and moving them now seems much easier than moving them in 3 or 5 years. For all of these reasons, it felt that either we move now, or probably wait another decade to move. We would have been quite comfortable not to move. But the move has a fair bit of excitement to it, and at some point, it felt that the potential loss of an opportunity would be worse than the comfort of the status quo.

So there was no turning point or aha! moment. But after lots of contemplation, discussion with my husband, discussions with our children, and talking it over with friends, family, and colleagues, we came to a decision that worked for our family and that we are all excited about.
 
“The post, Moving Institutions, Part 3B: Why Go first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 12, 2016.”
 

It has taken me a while to get back to the story of our move, less because it’s hard to write about, and more because of the busy-ness of moving. When you tell people you’re moving they say things like, “that’s the worst” or “that’s second on the life stress scale onto to death in family and divorce.” In May, we put our house on the market (including painting, floor replacement, and a bunch of packing); had a yard sale; are in the process of buying a house; have started the goodbye celebrations; I have less than 4 weeks today to transition my Grad PIC replacement into the new role; I have started (minimal) responsibilities for my new position; I continue to mentor my current graduate students. All this, while trying to maintain some sense of normalcy for two children (e.g., fitting in a trip to the library this morning so they have books to read), and all of the end of the year school stuff, like celebrations and field trips. And oh yes, we decided to throw a weeklong vacation to California into May, because it didn’t feel crazy enough.

But I’m back, to talk about the reasons that I, that we, decided to make this move.
 
I also wanted to mention that I’ve received many communications from people about my last post. Clearly my experiences struck a chord for many who are going through or have gone through similar experiences. Some also explicitly mentioned that they couldn’t find much online to discuss the topic of moving institutions and the challenges of the decision. These responses have compelled me to continue discussing it, despite both the busy-ness of my life, and the sometimes intimate nature of the decision making process.  

I was recently at a retirement celebration for my colleague Mark Greenberg. I would never try to compare myself to Mark, because he is phenomenal in all domains and is a one-of-a-kind superstar. That said, I was struck during others’ speeches about his amazing accomplishments during his 19 years at Penn State. The speeches and presentations were making me feel remorse that I was leaving this amazing department and institution. And then Mark got up to speak, and he said something that almost completely turned around my sentiment in that moment – he mentioned that he spent the first 20 years of his career at University of Washington. It immediately struck me that Mark has had this amazing second half of his career at a new institution, and had spent the first two decades of his career elsewhere. It reminded me that people do not have to stay in one place forever to establish professional connections and have an important influence on their institution. It’s relatively common in our field to do so at multiple universities over time.
 
In fact, I think that within an institution, people sometimes have more cred if they come from outside post-tenure. Faculty may have an easier time being seen as a peer to senior colleagues if they move to another university after tenure. I have been at Penn State long enough that I believe I’m already through that in between time. But I did have this experience in my early post-tenure years. In my first year post-tenure, I was a speaker at a conference on campus, and in the program I was listed as Assistant Professor. About four years post-tenure, a senior colleague introduced me to a visiting speaker as an assistant professor. I started at Penn State at 29, and I think it was hard for many years for senior colleagues to see me as a peer. In contrast, new hires a similar number of years post-tenure were often treated more as peers. At this point it isn’t really an issue for me, because the majority of my colleagues joined Penn State after I was tenured, but it’s something that others might consider in deciding about a mid-career transition.  
 
Something notable in the timing of leaving is that in January, I realized I had accomplished everything on my list of things to do as Graduate PIC. In my first couple of months as Grad PIC I spent a lot of time meeting with graduate students and colleagues, and thinking about improvements to the program, and those items have all been addressed. It doesn’t mean that I couldn’t do more in the coming months/years (or, in hindsight, that I couldn’t have tackled the list a bit more slowly), but it does mean that it feels that I’ve done the things I set out to do in the beginning. I could keep doing this position for four more years, and that would likely be quite easy, but I no longer have a particular agenda.
 
This post has become longer than I anticipated, and so far I’ve only written about why the timing was right to leave Penn State, and haven’t addressed why I/we decided to go to UCONN. I think I will have to make that my next post. Stay tuned.
 
“The post, Moving Institutions, Part 3A: The Why Leave first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 6, 2016.”