lonely campus podcast | Episode 12: lonely campus podcast with Claire Perrott (Postdoc Episode)

Episode 13 of the lonely campus podcast focuses on postdocs and features Claire Perrott, a Professional Development Postdoctoral Fellow in the Office of Research.  Claire educates the listener on what it means to be a postdoc, with the goal of familiarizing the campus community with the unique postdoctoral experience.  Claire talks about many positive aspects about being a postdoc as well as some of the challenges that come with the role.  

One of the possible challenges postdocs might face is loneliness.  Postdoc positions are transient by nature and postdocs may feel isolated given the intensity of producing high-quality research while preparing for the next step in their careers.  Claire also shares her personal journey, transitioning from tenure-track faculty to administration, and her efforts to support postdocs in building community and professional development. She emphasizes the importance of intentional efforts to find connection, whether through hobbies or university resources. Claire’s work in the newly established Office of Postdoctoral Affairs focuses on creating opportunities for postdocs to come together, to share experiences, and to foster a sense of belonging during their time at SU.

Hosted and edited by Amy Messersmith.  Transcript available upon request. 

 

Creators & Guests

Host

Amy Messersmith

Amy Messersmith is one of two inaugural Office of Diversity and Inclusion Administrative Fellows at Syracuse University. She is the Associate Director of Student Support Services (SSS) and works closely with the Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). HEOP and SSS are two opportunity programs that serve undergraduates at SU, many who are first generation college students. Amy collaborated with a team of likeminded staff and faculty to create The SENSES Project in 2021, which is a student focused recording studio and podcasting program for HEOP and SSS students and their friends. If you want to share your story on the lonely campus podcast, please email Amy at [e-mail].

Guest

Claire Perrott

Claire Perrott is a Professional Development Postdoctoral Fellow in the Office of Research at Syracuse University.

What is lonely campus podcast ?

Loneliness in the United States was declared an epidemic recently by the Surgeon General. Finding community on campus – especially post-pandemic – can be a challenge for students coming to college their first year. The purpose of the lonely campus podcast is to let students who are feeling lonely know that they are not alone, and features students who are willing to talk about experiencing loneliness. Students then share the steps they took to find their community and a sense of belonging. The podcast seeks to bring hope and reassurance to the listener, as well as provide concrete steps to take to find community. This podcast is sponsored by Syracuse University's Office of Diversity and Inclusion and produced by Amy Messersmith, an ODI Administrative Fellow.

Mary Grace Almandrez 00:11
Hi, I'm Mary Grace Almandrez, the vice president for diversity and inclusion. Welcome to the lonely campus podcast as presented by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. This show is hosted by our administrative fellow Amy Messersmith, and features stories about the challenges and triumphs that come with trying to find your place on Syracuse University's campus.

Amy Messersmith 00:39
Hi, everybody, this is Amy Mazur Smith. I'm an associate director for TRiO Student Support Services here at Syracuse University. And I am also one of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion administrative fellows. And my proposed project is a podcast called lonely campus, where we go around and collect stories of community members who might be looking for some degree of sense of belonging and following the steps that they took to find community on campus. And so up until now, we've focused mostly on undergraduate students and some graduate students. And today we're taking a little bit of a different turn, and we're going to talk to a postdoc fellow. So it's my distinct pleasure to introduce Claire parrot. Hi, Claire. Welcome.

Claire Perrott 01:24
Hi, thank you so much for having me and letting me come talk about postdocs.

Amy Messersmith 01:29
Do you mind sharing a little bit about the department. You're in anything about your background that you're comfortable sharing?

Claire Perrott 01:35
Yeah, sure. So I am an administrative postdoc, which makes me kind of an outlier. I'll talk a lot about probably how I'll postdocs are unique. And I'm also unique because I'm an administrative postdoc, not unlike a typical researcher, postdoc, so my position is within the Office of Research, and within that I'm in the office of postdoctoral affairs. So my colleagues like to say that I'm a meta postdoc, I'm a postdoc for postdoc. So try to wrap your head around.

Amy Messersmith 02:05
That's fantastic. You know, this whole, I don't know, you probably haven't seen but down in the basement, we have our audio lab. So let me back up a little bit. Our programs are HEOP and sss. So we serve primarily first generation college students. And we wrote through the Office of Research the cuse camp program, we collaborated with some faculty, and we got like $24,000 to create like a student focused podcasting and recording studio program. And so the student focus recording studio is in the basement of steele. And this is the podcasting space, which has since become my office, we're hoping to get a closer podcasting space, so they're not so separated. But that was the office that helped us a lot to get our proposal up to speed and eventually help us get funded. And that's where this all came. So it's kind of nice, kind of full circle. Yeah, you know,

Claire Perrott 02:58
Well, glad to be part of that circle.

Amy Messersmith 03:01
Do you mind telling us a little bit about how postdocs come to SU, why they end up choosing Su and some of their expectations for their time here?

Claire Perrott 03:11
Yeah, so maybe I'll start with, like, what postdocs are because since there's so few of us on campus, I think that's confused a lot. So postdocs are people who have or scholars who have finished their graduate work, they have a PhD and in their postdoc, they're continuing training. So they're still kind of in this training phase. But you know, they're accomplished researchers, they've completed their PhD and now they're here usually to participate in Su's cutting edge research or creative activities and contribute to that.

Amy Messersmith 03:45
Do candidates like a Pillai to postdocs like they would apply to graduate school or to a position? What's the application process like?

Claire Perrott 03:52
Yeah, so it's really dependent on your discipline, whether a postdoc position is like typical for some disciplines, I don't even want to say which ones because it, it kind of varies then to within, like the topic of your discipline, but for some disciplines, it's pretty necessary to do a postdoc. And then in other disciplines, I'd say mainly humanities, it's not as typical to do a postdoc, but they're still postdocs in the humanities. And so the application process is usually when you're in your final year of graduate school, and it's a lot like applying to a faculty position. It's a lot of the same documents and a lot of the same process. I mean, being a postdoc is actually a lot like being a junior faculty.

Amy Messersmith 04:34
How you find SU postdoc opportunity?

Claire Perrott 04:36
Yeah, so my personal story is actually a little different. Because I am, I moved here with my partner who was hired as faculty and then I started looking for positions at SU and saw this one pop up, and I thought, wow, that's perfect for me. So I applied but typically postdocs will apply for these positions and go through Um, you know, like I was saying the typical kind of interview process, like a junior faculty might, you might have two rounds of interviews. And they usually are looking specifically at certain universities because they want to work with certain faculty. So sometimes when they come in, they already have a relationship with the faculty member that's hiring them. And that can be a really great thing. So networking, I guess, is really important for them early on in their graduate career, (Amy: what is your discipline?). So I got my PhD in Latin American history, okay. But I often follow that up with my discipline is kind of irrelevant at this point. Since I'm now in administration, I see, I was tenure track faculty for a year, I kind of went through the whole process of getting there and worked at all these different levels in higher ed. And then after a year in the tenure track, I realized that that wasn't really for me. And I wanted to kind of pivot over to the administrative side. And I think that gives me an advantage in this position, because I work with postdocs who want to become faculty and I work with postdocs who want to leave academia or do other things. And I understand kind of both routes.

Amy Messersmith 06:06
I started a Ph. D. program. And I left after a semester, I did a fellowship at Rutgers for women's studies. And it was like, oh, okay, this is definitely I, I wasn't sure going in. And after a semester, I was like, Yep, I'm done. I'm good.

Claire Perrott 06:21
Yeah a good time to leave after I feel like I carry a little bit of bitterness of like, oh, I dedicated all this time and effort to this degree. And then it just didn't get me where I wanted to be. And so now I'm kind of restarting my career and rethinking where do I want to go? What do I want to do next. And that's why this position is actually perfect, because for my postdoc, and like, I guess, like a lot of postdoc positions, there is an opportunity for professional development and to think about where you want your career to go. And you can really be intentional about what skills you want to develop during your postdoc, to get to the next thing, depending on which direction you want to go. Yeah, and sometimes, you know, the goal is figure out what direction you want to go. How do postdocs

Amy Messersmith 07:04
transition to SU? And do you have a sense of what their first experiences are like on campus,

Claire Perrott 07:11
just like most other institutions across the US, two thirds of our postdocs are international scholars. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so this means that a large amount of them are coming from overseas, maybe, you know, some of them have completed a PhD here in the US, and then they stay here for a postdoc, or a couple of postdocs, because you can do multiple postdocs, I forgot to mention that. Sometimes you kind of just do them back to back. So yeah, two thirds of our postdocs are international scholars coming from overseas. And so it's, it's really hard to say what their first experiences are like, because it's different for everybody. And they're coming from different cultures, this may or may not be their first time in the US, this probably is our first time in upstate New York, some of them bring their whole families there, they've already completed a PhD. So they're usually in a different stage of life. Some of them already have partners, some of them already have kids. And so they bring them with them overseas, which can lead to a totally different experience. Some postdocs are coming alone, and the only person they know is their PI. So a lot of different experiences. For me, I came with my partner, this was my first time coming to upstate New York, and I'm from the Midwest, and there was a little bit of culture shock for me, even. So I can't imagine kind of what goes through the minds of our postdocs who are coming from oversea. The kind of interesting thing about or the unique thing about postdocs is that they're hired throughout the year. And so unlike students who come in, you know, the majority of them come in every fall, some of them might even start in the spring semester. But you have these cohorts coming in together, postdocs are hired, usually on their own. So they're coming in one at a time throughout the year. And so they don't have this cohort model that you see with students or even faculty who typically all start at the same time. And so that's kind of a unique aspect. And one of the reasons why postdocs probably feel a little bit more lonely is because we all start by ourselves. Oftentimes, we're hired into departments or labs or centers as the only postdoc. Maybe there's a handful of postdocs in the lab, but you're you know, you're not coming in with a big cohort, you don't have that kind of like ready made built in group of people who are all experiencing the same thing at the same time as you which our students do experience. You know, if you're a graduate student, you kind of go through the big milestones together. postdocs are kind of all on their own timeline.

Amy Messersmith 09:41
And I would imagine they're the only postdoc maybe in that department. And maybe the faculty have seen multiple postdocs comes through year after year, and maybe there's a little bit of distance in terms of you know, maybe I don't want to get to know this person too well, because they're going to be leaving and another one's going to be coming in. And so that creates this kind of void offer, maybe,

Claire Perrott 10:01
Yeah. And that could go either way too, because you know, the postdoc position is a transient position. And one of the roles of the supervisor or the PI, or the person who hired the postdoc is to kind of mentor them through that period in their career. But like you said, on the flip side, they know that person is only going to be here for a short amount of time, that's the goal, you know, the goal is to get in, do really great things, make a name for yourself, and then get hired, doing something really awesome. Next, the nature of the position kind of just sets it up to be a lonely, lonely time in your career,

Amy Messersmith 10:37
That makes me feel so sad. Because on the one hand, I would imagine, it's very validating, like, I got a postdoc, like, I'm gonna be working with this department or this particular faculty. And so it's kind of the springboard, but kind of hard to bring forward, when you're lacking that kind of sense of community or that sense of, I don't want to say lacking a sense of support, because I'm not saying that postdocs aren't supported. But to have that sense of, what word am I looking for? I don't know,

Claire Perrott 11:05
Well maybe it's like, hopefully, they get enough support for their professional development and their career. But you know, there's also the component of like mental health. And like, I keep saying this transient nature of the position, just one of the big challenges across postdocs, and this is in this is at institutions across the United States, there's been studies that have been done, and our postdocs at SU also report this feeling of uncertainty. And that's because it's such a transient position. And so you're coming in, you're really excited, you got this great position you're working with, you know, this faculty member that you're really excited to be with, you know, great things are gonna happen. But then at the same time, you know, you know, it's not a permanent position, you don't know what's next. If you're on a visa that might even add to the insecurity, if you have a family who's, you know, attached to you, that also adds a little bit more uncertainty, what's going to happen with them with your next position. And so yeah, uncertainty is a big, big issue with postdocs.

Amy Messersmith 12:07
The next question we've been kind of talking about for the last couple of minutes. But it has to do with specifically the experience of loneliness as postdocs. And I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to add to that?

Claire Perrott 12:20
Yeah so one of the other components, I guess, of this position as a postdoc that I haven't yet touched on is the enormous amount of work that these scholars are putting in at this time in their career. So you know, they just have finished a PhD, maybe they're coming from another postdoc, but they're still in this kind of stage where they need to prove themselves as a scholar, they need to make a name for themselves. So there's a lot of pressure to produce really good work. And they're working a lot. And they're spending long hours doing the research, a lot of times this is in a lab or at a computer, sometimes it's you know, with their lab mates, but a lot of the work is also done alone. And so this contributes to the factor of loneliness and kind of isolation that they feel because they're in the lab all the time. And so this doesn't give them a lot of opportunities to go out and build community outside of their work. And then you know, their, their new did, Syracuse. And so that's another barrier, because it's not like they already have friends or family established here that thing, Gaussian weekends, and whenever they do have time away from their research, they'd have to kind of forge those relationships, and there's just not enough time in the day.

Amy Messersmith 13:40
Right that takes energy in itself. And I would imagine, if there's that kind of pressure to produce in such a limited amount of time, I'm sure there's level of perhaps guilt, that if you do step out, and you know, have fun or enjoy yourself, or you know, have some downtime, there's always that nagging like, I

Claire Perrott 13:58
could be doing more. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's a lot of pressure on them. And I think, also because it is such a short period of time, they're thinking, Well, what's kind of the point I need to spend the next 12 months or 24 months, just really digging into this producing as much as I can. And then you know, and then I'll get to the next stage of my career and things will be more stable, and better. I mean, I can't speak for all postdocs, and there definitely are some that have been able to create a little bit more work life balance, but even if they're doing that they're still feeling this kind of demand of their time.

Amy Messersmith 14:35
My understanding of the postdoc faculty tenure track, lifestyle, I guess, a lot of it comes from a subreddit called Ask academia, where people propose questions and people answer them and the picture they paint is pretty grim. Like it sounds pretty brutal to try to be a tenured faculty. The member in this particular climate at this particular time, and so I would imagine, you know, after you've invested all of this time into your field, and you're committed to a particular goal, when universities seem to be reducing tenure track positions, and there's more PhD degrees being conferred, then I could see how it just, it's a pressure cooker.

Claire Perrott 15:27
Yeah and I and I experienced that myself. And that has a lot to do with my story of pivoting away from academia, because for me, it just wasn't worth it. But I guess from you know, in the position I'm in now, we're our goal in the office of postdoc affairs is really to support postdocs in whatever they want to do. And so many of our postdocs, I don't have, you know, exact numbers, but many of our postdocs do want to become faculty members. And I think a lot of them are going in with eyes wide open, because they see how hard they're their PI's work, they see what it takes. And they're really passionate about what they do. And they really love teaching. And that's, that's what they want to pursue. But on the other hand, there are a lot of postdocs who have maybe already decided or they come in, and during their postdoc, they decide they want to do something besides academia. And we kind of call those, you know, like, people who are going into industry, which industry is like everything other than working in academia. So it's a small term for a lot of different options. But, so, in the office of postdoc affairs, we're trying to support postdocs who are also thinking about going into those types of fields and giving them the resources to be able to pivot out of academia. And for some industry fields, a postdoc is still necessary. So when you're doing a postdoc, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're kind of on the academic track, it could mean that, but it also could be a really good setup to get an industry position,

Amy Messersmith 16:56
I just, I have so much respect and admiration for, you know, members of the university community who are in these positions, because number one, props to you for you know, having a postdoc, I'm sure they're significantly competitive. And number two to come here and to navigate all these different issues that you are talking about, like that's not easy. That is not, that's not easy. And so it takes a lot of, I imagine resilience and commitment and dedication and a lot of self talk to get you through this experience. Yeah. So kind of shifting into thinking about, you know, a sense of belonging, what would you imagine a sense of belonging would feel like to a postdoc.

Claire Perrott 17:37
so, I'm going to try to generalize, but this obviously doesn't count for all of our postdocs, because they come from such varied backgrounds. But I think having a sense of belonging is pretty dependent on the work environment that they're in, because they spend so much time in it. And so if they have a good lab culture, or they have a good research culture within the institute, or center, or department that they're in, and this is a really good way to build community, one of the things that I'm working on is thinking about how we can help postdocs build community outside of their research areas, and build community as a group of postdocs, because, yeah, we're all starting at different times, we're all in different disciplines, we all are maybe even at different phases of our life. But we're united by being in this interesting position of a postdoc, and we are experiencing a lot of the same things we will all be on the job market, within, you know, a couple of years, postdocs are usually not more than six years, usually a lot less, some of them can be about a year. So we're all going through the same things. And so part of my role in the office of postdoc affairs is to figure out how we can build a sense of community and create opportunities and events for postdocs to get together and just kind of find camaraderie.

Amy Messersmith 18:55
That would be amazing. You know, intentionally building that community, I think could be really powerful. Thinking about the postdocs who are on campus now who might be going through feelings of loneliness, or experiencing a lack of sense of belonging, what suggestions or words of advice might you have for them?

Claire Perrott 19:13
So I'm going to draw from my own experience, and I'm trying to think of how many years you know, for the past at least five years, I've been in kind of a transient position, like a lot of academics, where you go, you take a job, you live somewhere for about a year, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less because the pandemic allowed for online teaching online, a lot of stuff online, but all this kind of moving around the United States and living in different places taught me that really to feel less lonely. It takes a lot of intentionality, it takes actually some work and you have to put effort into it. You have to intentionally seek community and for me, you know, that's usually seeking community doing the things that I enjoy, but that could be done Different for anybody, you know, if they're happy being, you know, making community with the people in their lab, and that works, that's a really good place to start. If you belong to a religious community, and there's a community in Syracuse, that's another really good place to start. For me, it's usually doing something athletic or with movement. And so joining a gym or a yoga studio, or something is usually where I start looking for community. But you have to be intentional about it, it takes a lot of time to build community. And as an adult, it takes time to like to make friends. And it's not easy, and it's awkward. And I think the thing that I've learned as I've moved around the country is that a lot of other adults feel this way too. And so if you can kind of be open about it, and just be a little bit vulnerable, and say, you know, I just moved here, I'm looking for a group of friends that want to go for a walk, or play badminton or play pickleball loves what I've been into, or get together and knit or whatever thing, if you can initiate that. So that's where it takes work. But then you're also admitting that, you know, you need to build a community, so it takes vulnerability, I think that can be a really good way to start,

Amy Messersmith 21:12
can you think of anything that the university could do to help facilitate that?

Claire Perrott 21:15
Yeah, and so I mean, this is, this is kind of my role is to think through this, and I've tried a bunch of different things. And we're still going to continue trying different things to get postdocs together. But one of I guess, I'll just say that one of the challenges is the scheduling. So when you have, you know, we don't have the critical mass that, you know, graduate students do, or undergraduates do so when we organize an event, if you know, 10% of our postdocs come like that could be about eight postdocs in 10% is asking a lot, sometimes, especially for weekend events. But I you know, I have encouraged some post, I mentioned badminton because I know there's a group that are into playing badminton, and I hope they're meeting up. And if they're listening to this, I hope this is a reminder to you have each other's emails, make sure you meet up because that's one of the ways to build community.

Amy Messersmith 22:14
I you know, it's funny, my husband and I and some friends, we play Trivia every Wednesday. Yeah, and I would imagine, the postdocs could pull together a really strong trivia team, because you could get people from all the different disciplines and like, have all your bases covered.

Claire Perrott 22:30
Yes, yeah. That's kind of that's a really great idea. Yeah, we've tried a happy hour. And that went, okay. We might revisit that again, next spring or at some point, but yeah, trivia team would be unstoppable. If you had all the different disciplines, history,

Amy Messersmith 22:46
literature, hard sciences, and some degree.

Claire Perrott 22:50
Yeah you guys can make it to the top. You can you win, like some gift cards, usually. Yeah.

Amy Messersmith 22:57
Anything else you want to add about the postdoc experience, or anything related to building community addressing loneliness.

Claire Perrott 23:06
I think I just like if I could, you know, get the message out to anybody, postdocs, but anybody, especially who's kind of feeling isolated, or lonely or even stressed out, I recently, the postdocs, we recently had a little professional development Lunch and Learn where we talked about stress, and how when you're stressed, this reduces your creativity, and really your ability to do good research. And so really, it's important to make time for your life and then work life balance. And I would just encourage everybody listening to really prioritize that, because I know there's this, you know, this push to really be productive, to be working all the time. But I really think it's actually productive, to take time outside of the research and let your brain wander and do the fun things. And, you know, if you're, if you want to build community, you know, trying to make friends and put the effort into that, because I think that's important. Anything else, Claire, so I mentioned that the Office of postdoc affairs, is trying to create spaces and support postdocs in the professional development, and kind of just in there, you know, as postdocs in general, but one of the things that I don't want to forget to mention is that there are a lot of resources already existing on campus for postdocs, and one of the challenges has been before our office existed is connecting postdocs with those existing resources. So I've been really kind of thrilled to find that. We don't need to reinvent the wheel with a lot of things. There are groups like wise which is women in science and engineering that offers all sorts of programming and support for Women and allies, not just in science and engineering because they let me join their writing group and I'm in the humanities. So that's a really great group. There are also a faculty and staff affinity groups, for postdocs who want to find community on campus based upon mutual understanding and identity. So those can be a really great resource. There's also you know, centers like bioinspired, there are resources in the graduate school for postdocs, even though it's graduate school, they do offer a lot of support, especially in professional development for postdocs. So those are places that postdocs can look not only for community, but also for support in their careers.

Amy Messersmith 25:41
One thought that because this is where my head always goes, is recording a conversation of postdocs, we have found that with podcasting, it's just a really special medium, because you're hearing yourself, you're hearing each other, we're all present, you know, we're paying attention to one another. And so recording a conversation, maybe doing like a post, a postdoc podcast, might be a way to number one, familiarize the people at the table with each other's stories, and then you have something to share with incoming postdocs coming in, in terms of you know, this is the postdoc experience, here are the resources, this is my story, here's what I learned after being here for a year. And then I think it's valuable for the people creating the podcast, and then people listening to it later on. So that's, that's my two cents.

Claire Perrott 26:31
Yeah, it could be a really good way to share, you know, experiences and resources. And the kind of interesting thing about postdocs are, you know, I guess is true for any position, but it's like they're hired in and a lot of times are going through the kind of the same things, they have the same list of questions. And I really wish there was a way for us to support each other a little bit more in those first steps. Because when you come in with a cohort, you know, usually if it's an in person orientation, or something, you're sitting at a table with a bunch of people who also have the same questions, you know, like, what is this benefit? Where do we go to get our ID, all these things, but postdocs don't have that readily built in. And so yeah, having a resource, like a podcast would be a really cool way to share those things. The other, the other really kind of missed opportunity that could be fulfilled, I guess, through a podcast with postdocs is the ability to share their research. I mean, these are scholars from across the world that are doing really interesting research or creative activities. And there's not one place where we're all sharing what we're doing. And so a podcast would be a really cool way to have them each sit down, talk about their work, and then they cut all the could share it. And maybe there'll be opportunities for collaboration, if not now down the road.

Amy Messersmith 27:53
And then even if they if it was one of those things where, and we do this with our undergraduate students to knowing how to or getting familiar with podcast production, recording, editing, that's a marketable skill. And they might find that they really like it. And they might, you know, want to start their own podcast.

Claire Perrott 28:12
And i wouldnt be surprised if we have postdocs who already have podcasting experience. I mean, they've already, you know, they've gotten this far, they've gotten this far. And they've already spent a lot of time in graduate school. And so they come in with all these skills. And now right now, they're, they're focused on their research, but I'm sure they I'm sure there's some that can. I mean, if our postdocs was telling me how they know how to fly planes, they have all these incredible skills. I mean, they've lived like a full life, and they have, you know, they've done things outside of their research to them.

Amy Messersmith 28:41
It's just kind of, I don't know, I love learning about people's stories, you know, and hearing about hearing about their experiences,

Claire Perrott 28:51
maybe they'll all rush to be on this podcast, right? I mean, it'd be fun to tell some individual stories, especially from our postdocs who come in and just, I mean, all of our postdocs come in and have really interesting experiences, I think moving here, and shedding some light on those could be really interesting. And if they don't want to do it on a podcast, I hope they can come tell me about it. Because I learned a lot about our postdocs kind of, in general, when I hear these stories,

Amy Messersmith 29:22
I wonder if there is plans in place for something, you know, how there's like the faculty lounge, I wonder if there could be like, a specific postdoc space, where instead of trying to find a time when everybody's available to get together, like there's just a specific space that is accessible, maybe you get the code when you become a postdoc, and you know, and then you can work quietly alongside each other, but you can also bounce ideas but you know, that, you know, in this space, there's others like me, kind of probably feeling similar things that I'm feeling going through similar things that I'm going through. Yeah,

Claire Perrott 30:01
I love that idea, because then it's just a space that's there. And, you know, you can go there, and maybe you'll run into some people that you know, and want to chat with. Or maybe you meet some new postdocs. And in fact, the postdocs do have access to the faculty lounge in the Bird Library, which is a wonderful space that I'll even go use, just because it's fun to sit somewhere different than my office. And then also in linemen, and two to seven, it's kind of like the postdoc lounge. So they have one. So it's sort of, it's actually my office, but it's, but it's big enough where there's a conference table, and we have done communal lunches there, where people can just stop by and you know, grab a cup of coffee, or sit down and eat a meal together, the space is there for postdocs to use and come and mingle. And hopefully, they all know that I'm open to scheduling different times, we've been doing Wednesday lunches as kind of like our communal lunchtime, but I think that's when everybody on campus organizes events. So Wednesday is not a great day. So I've been toying with the idea of doing Friday lunches, or maybe even Friday evening kind of social hours where postdocs can just gather, maybe have a little bite of food, stop by if they want, maybe not stopped by in my office is always open, it's big enough where they can come and sit in and do work and we can distract each other if we need a little break. That's awesome.

Amy Messersmith 31:31
Um, anything else?

Claire Perrott 31:33
I mean, one of the one of the roles, I guess, also of my office, the Office of postdoc affairs is to demystify what a postdoc is, I like to say postdocs are in this kind of liminal space between graduate students and faculty. And a lot of places on campus don't really know where they fit. So part of my like I was already talking about part of what I'm doing is trying to let postdocs know that well, yeah, you you can access the resources at the other graduate school, even though you're not a graduate student, and letting people across campus know what postdocs are, what their role is, you know, they serve as mentors to undergraduate and graduate students, they have this really important role on campus. But since there's so few of us, not a lot is known about us. And so we're kind of or also a little bit forgotten. And so our office is trying to get postdocs brought into more stuff, at least intentionally, like I was saying they're already they already have access to all these resources across campus, but they're not explicitly invited sometimes, if that makes sense.

Amy Messersmith 32:42
Yes it does. One of the things that's, that's occurring to me, as I'm listening to you talk is even the name, it's like, you're almost defined by what you're not. Or you're defined, like, the role itself is the term used to describe the role isn't an affirmative name, it's, you know, post doctorate person. And so even that kind of contributes, I would imagine to this in between roll, you know, and so just rethinking if it was called something else that was more, you know, you can't see my hand gestures right now. But

Claire Perrott 33:20
yeah, something more solid. Yeah, concrete, or, and personally, and this is my personal kind of way of thinking about postdocs. I think postdocs fit in really well, like if you were to categorize them as kind of junior faculty. That's, that's kind of where I see them fitting in.

Amy Messersmith 33:55
Could the the term junior faculty be widened to include postdocs Do you think like,

Claire Perrott 34:01
I mean, then you're up against, you know, like, all of academia. But actually, it's really interesting because the national Postdoc Association has released I think it's podcast series, or at least they're, they're doing a lot to try to define what postdoc means because it's not clearly defined at most universities and postdocs, although, you know, we know they come here, they come to universities to do work. They're supported by a faculty, PII, we get kind of the gist of that, but they're not very clearly defined at most institutions across the US. So in recent years, the National Postdoc Association has really been pushing to create concrete definitions and then kind of my role in that is sharing the definition across campus so that so that offices know who postdocs are, what their role is, and then so postdocs can know where do I fit in?

Amy Messersmith 35:19
Well, I can't thank you enough, Claire for being willing to come here and share with the campus community, the postdoc experience, because I 100% think that you are right, that it's a population that not everybody is 100% familiar with. And I think that there's a lot to learn and knowing what people are bringing to this position and where they're coming from, and then what they experience here on campus, I do, I can see how feelings of loneliness or not having a sense of belonging can kind of find its way into this role. And so I love the idea of thinking about ways of how we as a community can best support postdocs here on campus.

Claire Perrott 36:00
Thank you so much for having me. And I hope people have learned a little bit about postdocs, and you know, I My role is to do all things postdoc, so if you ever hear that word and have a question, send me an email, the Office of postdoc affairs, main email is postdoc [e-mail]. So super simple. And I'm hoping that you know, anybody who does anything for postdocs, or wants to collaborate with us, in support of postdocs, or has questions about postdocs will contact us we're since we're a relatively new office, we're still trying to connect across the university.

Amy Messersmith 36:37
I mean, just the fact that we have that office, I think, speaks to that the university is trying to do something.

Claire Perrott 36:44
yeah, the university has put a lot of effort into trying to support postdocs. And so that's the first stage and we're in the building stage. And so it's really fun and exciting. And there's a lot of trial and error, but a lot of room for trial. Hopefully less error. But that's part of you know, that's part of it. So yeah, it's an exciting time to be in postdoc affairs as we build out this office.

Amy Messersmith 37:08
All right. Thank you. Yeah.

Claire Perrott 37:09
Thank you.

Amy Messersmith
Bye, everybody.

Amy Messersmith
Before we end this podcast, we wanted to let you know that if you’re a postdoc at Syracuse University, you can find resources and a Calendar of Events on the Postdoc Resources SharePoint site. On the Office of Research website - research.syracuse.edu -- just click on ‘Office of Research Units’ and then ‘Postdoctoral Affairs’ and you will find a link to the SharePoint site. You can also reach out via email to [e-mail].

37:24
Armando Martinez: Thank you for listening to this episode of The Lonely campus Podcast. I'm Armando Martinez, Director of inclusion and belonging. If you found this podcast helpful, let us know and feel free to share other ways we can make campus more welcoming and inclusive to all.