Friday, August 31, 2007

Responsible Conduct in Research

This entire week, I participated as a Facilitator for UNC's Responsible Conduct in Research course, intended for incoming Biomedical graduate students, first year Post-docs, and incoming Junior Faculty. It's been interesting, but I'm sure very overwhelming for the students. I presented one of the topics - Ethics in Animal Research. It was so outside of my comfort zone, mainly because I never did research with animals. At least, not vertebrate animals. (No, sea urchins don't count in this situation.) So I gave my entire presentation on information gleaned from outside sources (Thanks, APS!!!), and luckily for me, I had some help from Tracy Heenan, the Director of UNC's Office and Animal Care and Use, and from Lesley Marson, the Chair of UNC's IACUC. They were absolutely wonderful to work with, and they made the presentation so much better. The breakaway discussions also got the students engaged, which made me feel good. I'm just sad the Turning Point clicker system flaked out on me ... which, believe it or not, got alleviated when I exited the program and re-entered it again, and the fact that my group didn't get their case studies because their sheets just walked away ... ??? ... but all was well in the end, and I'm glad it went well.

So now I can focus on the next things ... like trying to get a job so I can pay my bills ... preparing a lab practicum for my students at Campbell (they're going to be analyzing a note by examining the ink on the paper) ... relearning Boëlmann's Toccata from his Suite Gothique in time for PipeScreams! in October, and I have just under 2 months to get that firmly secure ...

No comments: