Faculty Facilitator

Megan Mayerle

My goal is to provide strategies and tools to demystify the academic system and enable scientists to succeed.

📍 USA

Sabbatical as a Fiscal Tool

A sabbatical can have many purposes, including a very pragmatic fiscal one. For each unit of time worked, a faculty member earns X many hours of sabbatical time, similar to the way staff accrue vacation time. Then, once a faculty member reaches a minimum amount of accrued time, the faculty

Authorship Order

The order authors are listed on peer-reviewed scientific papers serves as a shorthand that signifies the contribution of each author. Each discipline has its own system in terms of what each authorship position signifies. Here I write from the perspective of the basic biomedical sciences. What Each Position Signifies The

Book review - "Be Useful", by Arnold Schwarzenegger

I’m going to riff off on how James Clear does his book reviews, providing an overall summary and then notes I took while reading. Final Thoughts: The title says it all. I liked this book- it is remarkably practical about its suggestions for how to move yourself closer to

Termination, Layoff, or Non-Renewal?

Termination, layoff, and non-renewal are 3 separate mechanisms through which an employer can stop working with an employee. The process for initiating each, documentation required, timeline, experience of the impacted employee, and perception of the employee by a future employer all vary. Below is a conceptual overview. For specifics to

How to ask for a letter of recommendation

Letters of recommendation are needed for hiring and promotion at all career points, from a first undergraduate summer internship to professional awards for senior faculty. They are also critical for obtaining tenure. You need to know who to ask for a letter of recommendation (LOR), and how and when to

Calculating Indirects as Part of a Total Award Budget

Some funding announcements provide budget information as a maximum allowed total cost along with a rate to budget indirects. The most common error is to calculate the indirect costs off of the total costs. Here's how to do it correctly.

Wellness Checks

A wellness check is when law enforcement or public safety officials visit the home of an individual that friends, family, or colleagues have expressed concern about. This post includes guidelines for a wellness check.

Cost Shares

A cost share is a financial mechanism for interested parties to demonstrate commitment to a project or a plan, and to increase available funds for that project or plan. Cost sharing can be “Voluntary” or “Mandatory”. Mandatory cost sharing is exactly what it sounds like. The cost sharing is required

Employment Level versus FTE

Life happens and sometimes life happening leads to someone wanting to make a formal administrative change to their role to reduce their working hours or job complexity. This is definitely possible, but it is important to realize what various HR terms mean so that the adjustment made to someone’s

Welcome to Faculty Facilitator

My goal is to help current and future biosciences and biomedical sciences faculty, staff, and trainees succeed by providing information and advice on critical but often overlooked parts of the US academic system. My scope includes managing lab and department finances, HR and people issues, grant and manuscript writing, organization