HuskerBoard

The most I'll get to do is subscribe to a research journal where you end up placing all of your potential hard work  :dunno  If that's the direction this is going.

Still sounds like a pretty cool thing to get to do. Though I certainly can't say I know the process.

Is this at your new position? If so, you would think your new chair would want to offer some protected time so you can get your research program up and running. If you have not done so already, it might be worth having an explicit conversation about your needed support.

Admittedly, that might not be relevant advice since I don’t know what the main issue is. But, a good chair would find ways to support you.

Whooooooaaaa...NEVER talk to your boss/chair about needing or wanting anything.

Do everything you can to never be noticed and the quickest way to get noticed in education...is to complain at all about anything EVER.

I would guess that if Zoo had a good chair, he wouldn't consider his academic environment to be unsupportive or quite so soul-sucking. The quality of leadership in those sorts of positions makes such a huge difference.

Amen...

@Thanks_Tom RR Yeah, the new position. I've never been in such a dysfunctional department before. The chair and dean are great. Everything else is more or less a cluster. 

It's bad enough that we're probably going to be on the market again next year. I'm a little worried we won't be able to solve the two body problem again and I now have been at two institutes in three years which isn't a great look. 

On the bright side I've been able to get a research lab up and running with two approved IRBs and have submitted two grants this semester all while on a 3/3. 

The pressure of obtaining research funding has to be the most intense issue as a tenure-track assistant professor (double since you and your wife are an academic couple). I was in a funding drought for the first two years starting out (relying on my start-up funds and submitting over 20 grant applications), but the dam finally broke in year 3 where we got 4 grants (including my first NIH R01). I was stressed out all the time thinking about if I could hack it or would have to find another job, worrying about moving my wife and kids (again), and feeling guilty about how it would impact my graduate students. I also dealt with poor institutional support (still do). But, my perspective shifted once funding started to come. Those worries were resolved, and the issues in the department became less burdensome (or at least my perception of them) because I was less stressed overall.

I hope you can define success for yourself. DM me if you want to trade war stories.

The dream of every young professor...is to become an old professor...when you are set