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At 8 a.m. the first student arrives. Maddock is supposed to spend only 20 minutes per student but ends up devoting almost an hour to each. One pre-med student gets very specific advice about preparing for the medical school admissions test and how to enhance her transcript to become a better candidate for medical school. Next, Maddock sketches out an academic plan for a sophomore who wants to major in microbiology. "A lot more goes into the job of teaching than most people ever know," she says. "We counsel. We mentor. We advise. It's a lot more than just delivering a lecture." After the counseling session, she has an hour's break. But it's not enough time to work on one of the grant applications or conduct an experiment. "The problem with being an assistant professor is that my life is filled with one-hour chunks of time," she says. "You can't do science in one-hour chunks." Although work in the laboratory has slowed to a crawl during grant-writing season, Maddock has not abandoned her weekly Thursday lab meetings. At 11 a.m. the three undergraduates, three graduate students, and one full-time technician gather to discuss their work. On the white board, graduate student Sally Green has scrawled a note: Arginine is positively charged!!! "Our Janine" laughs at the pun and erases the board. She gobbles a cookie that one of the students has made in the shape of Caulobacter. But her casualness is deceptive. As soon as undergraduate Lucia Cardenas begins presenting her first paper to the group, Maddock is all business. At one point she asks, "How did they know that?" "They guessed," says Lucia confidently. "They guessed? They hypothesized?" Maddock responds. Lucia, taking the hint, adjusts her statement. "They postulated that..." Maddock shines in this small intimate atmosphere, helping students think critically about what they've read. As usual, the lab meeting runs late, ending at 12:50 instead of noon. At 1 p.m. Maddock is finally back in her corner office overlooking the Michigan campus. Though she should be writing her grant application, Maddock instead begins drafting study questions for her graduate course. It should only take 20 minutes, she says. Ten minutes into the questions, undergraduate Jennifer Skidmore volunteers to help locate journal citations for the grant. As soon as Maddock turns back to the graduate class questions, lab tech David Chavez interrupts with a question about some renovations going on in the lab. At 1:36 an undergraduate from her lecture class drops in to chat about an upcoming exam. Twenty minutes later she assures him that he'll do fine on the upcoming test. "Just don't stay up and study until 4 a.m. the day of the test. Remember, the test isn't until 7 p.m. You can study during the day," she reminds him. At 2 p.m. he leaves, and a few minutes later the study questions for the graduate students are done. At last Maddock turns to her grants. But for the next three hours the interruptions are almost constant. Maddock could change that by closing her office door, but she won't. Having an open door invites interruptions, but she prefers that to the message she thinks she sends by keeping it shut. At exactly 5:12 p.m. she bolts out of her chair and heads out the door to get her son, Jaren, from his kindergarten school and then Jenny from her elementary school. By 6 p.m. everyone is home. Maddock fixes dinner, checks Jenny's homework, reads to Jaren, and tucks them into bed by 9 p.m. Maddock leaves the children with her live-in student and is back on campus by 10 p.m. to meet with another faculty member for advice on her grant application. They talk until midnight, and then Maddock heads to her office. With a drawer full of "grant-writing cookies," freshly made coffee, and no distractions, she is finally able to concentrate. For six hours she writes more or less steadily. Then at 6 a.m. she heads home to shower and wake the kids for school. By 8 a.m. she is back in the laboratory to start all over again. |
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oday, Maddock's work day begins at 5:30 a.m. After making coffee she
settles in to work on the two grant applications that are due in two weeks.
For two precious hours, she hunches over her computer terminal writing.
Then she spends 30 minutes going over academic files for the undergraduates
she will counsel that morning. During the weeks preceding a grant deadline,
she will devote almost no time to her research.
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