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These are observations and thoughts I collect over the years from my own experience and observations.  I revise them constantly, for me and for other female economists who also enjoy research and teaching.

On teaching  

Contents first.  Without content, nothing matters.  You have to know what you are talking about, from the principles of economics, to the details of an economic paper that you present.  If you don't know, admit that you don't know, then go home and (try to) fix it.  Students are clever these days, they quickly figure out, and you quickly lose respect.  Ignorance has a very high cost. Ignorance without knowing has a much higher one, only that you don't see it.

Relax.  What it really means is confidence. This is trivial but half of the time it solves all remaining problems, once you control for content. It is hard standing there in front of the blackboard with all eyes watching.  Take a deep breath and have fun.  In a classroom setting (it might slightly differ in an economic seminar), once you have the contents, nothing can and will scare you except your own self.  

Speak slowly.  It is especially important for faculty whose native language is not English.  Whether you have an accent or not, when you speak slowly it is much easier to follow.  More importantly, we tend to think faster than we speak.  We say one thing and we already mean the next thing.  It is true especially when the real issue you address is one of endogeneity.  Also when you speak slowly you will quickly find out whether you know what you are talking about.   Most of the time, when you cannot explain an economic concept slowly in two different ways, that means you don't really know it.

Policing discussion.  I am still working on this.  I am a discussion styled and not a lecture styled.  It is a lot more fun but also a lot harder to police.  The one issue that comes up almost all the time is that there always is a guy who monopolizes the class with his questions and comments - someone who always raises his/her hand before you even finish your point.  If you are lucky, these questions/comments are great and to the point.  Most of the time they are not.  Getting around by saying, "great question, but we will get back to that" most of the time does not help. One, it creates a disincentive for other people to speak up since "we will always get to that point."  Two, it does not satisfy the monopoly guy and urges him to formulate even more questions in his thoughts.  In a seminar when that monopoly guy is Professor Big Shot who has lots of questions and concerns, your presentation may turn into a disaster before you even get through motivation and outline of the talk.

Role model.   When you teach, your real full-time job is being a good role model.  It is the most powerful teaching tool.  Students watch you, google you, talk about you in the hallway, in the dining hall, and on Facebook.  It is not a show; young people are smart, they quickly uncover every truth behind your CV.  So every minute, be yourself.  Don't hide. Don't fight.  Think of the union of all the professors you admire and try to live up to each of their admirable characteristic. 

Role models do not have to be perfect. In fact, the less perfection and the more "goodness" in you they see, the easier it is for you to lead. Role models can also mess up, but you have to mess up with integrity.  From getting the math wrong in adding points on a problem set, to a poor explanation of an important 101 concept, face your imperfections with confidence, honesty and full individual responsibility.  Did I mention honesty?  You can lose anything except creditability. 

Being a good model in a classroom is like carrying a baby inside your body, you just have to and you will take better care of yourself.  Men cannot carry babies even if they want to.  I like this job! 

On incentives

Assignments.  This is by far the hardest thing to handle when it comes to student-teacher relationship.  When people are in a relationship they need to work hard to constantly renew it.  But not everyone knows how to.  It is a tragedy. 

Show them that you care. This is one way of acknowledging your appreciation for the relationship. If you don't care about each other then you should immediately skip this idea, give it to your TA and forget about it.  I take assignment creation seriously - it is an expensive item in your basket of teaching responsibilities.  Unfortunately, I think we are more willing to pay for this item when it is most expensive, i.e. the first seven years of pre-tenured teaching. 

Grades. For every assignment there is a valuation which we call grade.  One true pain for all teachers are students whining about grades.  There is no magic to avoid this.  No matter how awesome you are and how enthusiastic your class can be about learning, there always exists a guy who loves to whine.  It's life.

The real trick is to create the incentives that are "just right."  I am still working on how to make assignments "fun" to do  and "effective" to evaluate.  I have learned that, most of the time, at least at my college, students are not avoiding hard work unless it is unreasonably costly.  If we can create just the right combination of challenge and reward, we may not need to work so hard to push them to do good work.  Good assignments take care of themselves. 

Creativity. Assignments are different depending on the level of your courses.  For the introductory levels (principles and intermediate), assignments are a lot more straightforward, and therefore, a lot harder to be creative. Math problems are easier to grade, but also easier to free ride, and in the end the total valuation effectiveness is small.  I tend to give out lots and lots of practice problems, either in class or offline, and go through them in great detail, then allow myself to be creative with take-home assignments (essays, method evaluation, paper summaries and critiques, understanding the news...)  It is a pain to grade (and you will learn over time how to optimize on grading), but most importantly, 1) you learn more and more about a variety of topics because there is no boundary to students' creativity, and 2) students love to be seen creative.

For higher level and elective courses, I tend to go as far as can to let students and myself be creative. The real cost I pay is when sometimes their idea is too cool that I cannot help ignoring, and getting involved too deep in their own project.  But that's a good side effect.

On research

Constantly in touch. Just like going to the gym, synergies matter a great deal.  I don't have great advice here but what I am trying my very best on is to constantly be in touch.  That is, keeping an eye on economic seminars and workshops at institutions you are affiliated with, being in touch with economic advisors and teachers and friends, what they are writing, what they are presenting, even who they are marrying.  Do whatever you can to watch the frontier even if you are behind or off the field.  Economics is fascinating exactly because we all belong to and cannot escape the same nest. Simply keep in touch with the academic world. 

Read.  That's basically how I keep in touch.

Write.  Just write.

Escape from students. Whatever you do you need to find some time for yourself with strictly no offer for students to access, including emails during vacations and breaks.  It sounds mean (to me) but it has to happen by definition.

Don't lose composure. To do economics research we need an economic framework.  It is very easy to write seemingly very interesting or complicated stuff with no real meaning.  This happens very frequently especially when we do regional work.  We will end up citing each other and compiling descriptive statistics.  It is a tearful result of not reading and not keeping in touch with the frontier.  But the true tragedy comes from 1) not having a research idea, or 2) having an idea but not the commitment to execute that idea into some fruitful, completed results, or 3) having an idea, a lever, and a result, but not the courage to be torn apart by advisors or during seminars, and not having the perseverance to pick up the broken hearted pieces and carry on.

This composure problem is even worse when you live in a sufficiently small community where people care much about opinions on the public media.  The public buzz sponsors stupidity.  When there is no idea, there is no opinion. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.

 I don't have a lot of ideas that are going to break the field.  But I know many people can.  If Murphy's goal is to be the best co-author ever, I would like to be the best research assistant ever.  When I find my advisors, I'll do what I can to keep them from losing composure.

Have fun.  No job is worth doing unless you are learning the things you like, contributing to the people you care about, and having fun not at the expense of your family.  So far, my job is perfect.

March 2008