Life between the borders

PHOTO: OWEN EGAN

Life between borders

PATRICK McDONAGH | Somewhere in the misty gray land between the doctoral dissertation and the tenure track there lives a shadowy being, flitting in and out of departmental offices, lurking in labs and library stacks, toiling invisibly to turn the wheels of research.

There are 123 confirmed sightings of such creatures at McGill, although unofficial but informed estimates suggest that the number may be well over 200. We refer, of course, to the elusive and barely understood post-doctoral fellow.

Why, one might ask, is the post-doc (as they are frequently known) so little understood?

Recently the Association of American Universities' Committee on Postdoctoral Education struggled with the status of the post-doc, likening it to the obscure role occupied by PhDs at the turn of the last century.

The post-doctoral fellow has, by definition, completed a PhD and has received funding for a temporary research position, usually under the supervision of a faculty member, a department or, perhaps, a research lab. Then, in the time allotted for the fellowship, the post-doc carries out research and writes academic papers.

This much is understood, but it hardly explains the life of the post-doc.

"We are the most ambiguously defined people in the university," says Iain Macdonald, a philosophy post-doc presently working on Adorno and Heidegger.

He is not alone in this assessment. Says Joanne Paradis, who is working on speech pathology in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, "It's a strange situation; we are somewhere between faculty and students."

There are, she notes, tangible consequences to this liminality: "I wonder, can I really use the photocopier or the fax machine freely?" Fortunately, she says, such departmental facilities are open to her.

Such quotidian concerns are only the tip of the post-doctoral iceberg. Consider the spectre of unemployment or the threat of being a research assistant in perpetuity, watching your career languish on the fringe of the academic autobahn.

Finishing graduate work provides no guarantee that a job will appear, so post-docs are frantically scanning the want ads while at the same time trying to maintain their research regime.

The hunt takes a toll. "There is a lot of anxiety between finishing the PhD and getting a tenure-track job," admits Paradis. Part way through the term of her fellowship, she received a job offer. "After that," she says, "my post-doctoral work became more productive. I had spent so much time in applying for jobs that there were points where I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. 'Why bother,' I sometimes thought."

But what alternatives exist? "Being a post-doc doesn't change my level of anxiety," says Macdonald. "If I didn't have this, I would be a sessional lecturer somewhere, in much the same position regarding jobs."

Indeed, in the humanities, where fellowships are relatively rare, a post-doc gives one a chance to build a publication record and thus make oneself more employable.

In science, medicine and engineering, however, post-doctoral experience is much more common; indeed, jobs in many fields -- biochemistry, for instance -- cannot be had without it. As a result, these post-docs are in a more vulnerable position. They have made it successfully to another plateau, but with no guarantee they will be able to find a job vindicating the years of effort.

Constant mobility is another stress point. Post-docs are peripatetic folks, whether they like it or not. The standard trajectory sees one take a PhD at one university, a post-doc at another and, if fortune smiles, a job at a third.

"Some people spend five years at their post-doc," explains Paradis. "They're almost 40 with no place to live and a disrupted personal life; it's no wonder if they feel a sense of desperation and anxiety."

According to Renée Hulan, PhD '96, moving around also affects one's academic output. After receiving a doctorate in English from McGill (focusing on aboriginal writers), she moved to UBC on a SSHRC fellowship.

"I found the hard part was leaving Montreal for Vancouver," she recalls, "because I had built up a research community and going to Vancouver disrupted that. I had more contacts in Quebec than I was able to establish in Vancouver."

Hulan's tale ends happily: part-way through her fellowship, she was offered a job at St. Mary's University in Halifax, so when it ended she moved across the country -- again.

Recently, McGill has begun to pay more attention to post-docs.

Says Associate Vice-Principal (Graduate Studies) Martha Crago, "There is a growing feeling that post-docs are a more central university concern." Indeed, an article in the September 3 Science magazine argues that cheap post-doc labour is the key to American research productivity: they are the "unsung heroes" of the technology revolution.

For instance, post-docs were credited with making vital contributions to two of McGill's most lauded research discoveries of the past year. Post-doc Sanjoy Bhattacharya was part of pharmacology and therapeutics professor Moshe Szyf's team when Szyf pointed to an enzyme that controls how cells operate.

Post-doc Mounib Elchebly collaborated with biochemistry professor Michel Tremblay as they examined another enzyme that plays a crucial role in the onset of obesity and type II diabetes.

To address their importance, the graduate faculty is expected to adopt a set of guidelines defining certain aspects of post-doctoral life: things like pay and work hours.

Paradis and Macdonald both sat on a University committee, headed by Crago, that examined the position of post-doctoral fellows at McGill. Says Paradis, "We form the least-organized group on campus. We just don't know who the others are." The isolation not only breeds a sense of displacement but also makes possible abuses in the system. Indeed, with the status quo, there barely is a system.

Also, because of new regulations imposed by the provincial government, post-docs are expected to register with their universities. While this process will enable McGill to keep closer tabs on its post-docs (and should make counting the University's post-docs a bit easier), some see it as a further instance of their position's ambiguity: are they students or faculty?

Says Paradis, "Most of us don't really like the idea of registering because we don't want to be students again. Through the grapevine I sense some passive resistance to this measure."

However, if registration can ensure greater access to services, as Crago says it will, post-docs may grow more accepting of it. Registering will also exempt out-of-province post-docs from paying Quebec income tax, notes Crago, and should help the University to monitor their work conditions more carefully.

While post-docs never get rich doing what they do, McGill's new regulations should at least keep them from sinking into poverty, which has been known to happen.

Usually, post-docs receive funding from NSERC, FCAR, SSHRC or a similar governmental funding body; in those cases, they have a guaranteed income which may not be princely but is at least stable. However, sometimes they are paid out of a professor's grant, and this is where things can get difficult. "My situation is excellent," says Paradis (It should be; her supervisor is Crago.), "but I've heard of some hellish ones: post-docs in the lab 60 hours a week for workaholic profs..."

For the most part, though, the post-doctoral researchers are a relatively happy lot. Despite the instability of the position, they are doing what they like to do: research. And if the realm of the post-doc is still an academic no-man's-land, it is clearly becoming more inhabitable. Post-docs of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your invisibility.