Wednesday, 15 June 2016

tenure track - Startup package, for assistant professor in USA: should I ask for a an extra PhD or an extra post-doc?


I got an offer for a tenure-track assistant professor position in USA, Department of Engineering. The university national ranking is between 35th and 65th at the US News website. I was offered a single PhD, fully supported for 2 years (partial support for the remaining 3 years) and then I was asked how much I need for equipment. I have two questions:





  1. Should I ask for a second PhD or a post-doc (I think for 1 year)? Some people told me to get a PhD since supervising a post-doc does not really count much for getting Tenure, while it matters a lot if one is mentoring PhDs. Other people say: get a Post-doc, he/she will be much more productive and he/she will get you papers out fast, and your mentoring effort will be on the PhD. What is your suggestion?




  2. I am actually also debating if I should also try to ask for a third person (in that case surely a PhD) since I am not asking too much money as for equipment (just computing cores in the supercomputer). And I need workforce since I have various good research ideas. Would I sound too greedy?




So basically, should I ask for a total of 3 persons (2 PhDs + 1 post-doc or rather 3 PhDs?) or 2 persons (2PhDs or rather 1 Phd + 1 Post-Doc?)?




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