[FUN_Mail] FUN Newsletter - President's Message and Conversation

[Ilya Vilinsky]

This is a great topic for the FUN community to discuss, and take a public position on. We definitely need to be active participants in this conversation on the national and international level. Thanks to Jeff for the article, and to Bob for his thought-provoking reply.

As the main advisor for neuroscience undergraduates at my institution, I deal constantly with issues of career choice and the future of neuroscience research. One aspect that I have not seen discussed is the perspective of other fields where the career outcome is tenuous and not pre-determined. I see traditional careers in basic neuroscience research (and biological sciences generally) as operating on a tournament model, in some ways similar to the performing arts, fine arts, or even professional athletics. Programs in the arts must deal with similar career choice issues constantly, and they probably have longer experience with such questions than STEM-oriented programs. I think it would be very useful for us to have some perspective from colleges of fine arts, music, theater, and the like.

I am very much looking forward to the conversation at the August workshop,

-Ilya


Ilya Vilinsky, 
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Cincinnati