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"In the current environment, any increase is welcome." --Dave Moore, AAMC

Jones believes that senior scientists have "lost a sense of accountability to the next generation insofar as all of our interests in them are self interests ... so that
our career can get advanced but not necessarily
their career."

“Reduced economic opportunities in some fields relative to others … may be an important factor driving native students to enter particular occupations and avoid others.” --George Borjas

Although efforts to provide real career opportunities for more scientists would create stronger incentives for Americans to seek science careers, the political momentum appears to be on the side of granting more H-1B visas.

"If, in the course of the day, faculty spend some time talking about their career and careers in general, it wouldn’t be something they would have to keep a note of in a logbook and say, ‘Oh, this isn’t research-related.’ ”--Joseph Ellis

GREAT is now transforming its committee on postdocs into a body that will have its own independent, university-appointed membership, elected leadership, and meetings.

"The ivory tower is getting worn and dingy [and] the provost sold the ivory ... to build the new administration wing." --Phil Clifford

"Programs should provide all NRSA trainees with additional professional development skills and career guidance."

[F]or all the stump-speech hyperbole, a single, remorseless reality must govern the next president's actions, no matter who he is. The huge budget deficit, the war in Iraq, and the war on terrorism will combine to squeeze federal scientific agencies not directly involved in defense, homeland security, or several earmarked projects. Competing for scarce funds with a myriad of other money-strapped domestic agencies, the civilian science agencies face the likelihood of budget cuts, some quite substantial.

“We very much support employees’ rights to choose for themselves whether or not they think unionization is beneficial.” --Paul Schwartz

" Narod has spent 2 decades simultaneously "at the vanguard of a brand-new science" and at the helm of a corporation lucrative enough to support overseas mountaineering trips and a handsome home in an upscale neighborhood."

Correcting the problems and inequities that bedevil postdocs will require changing the culture of labs and universities across the country, and the National Science Foundation can and should take steps to catalyze reform.

"Our main target ... is [for] the postdocs being trained to go out and get jobs of their own. There are so many different types of jobs that it's hard to provide a good training environment that's right for everybody. So we're trying to figure out what types of things people would like to have." -John Lipscomb

"Cost of living adjustments? Nobody's getting those," says Shawn Hayes, chair of the statewide University of California Council of Postdoctoral Scholars and a postdoc at UC Davis. There's also discussion of "the possibility of a 10% across-the-board salary cut for everybody, including faculty."

" According to the NLRB decision, Brown graduate assistants are ineligible to form a union because they are not employees. Rather, they "are first and foremost students, and their status as graduate student assistants is contingent on their continued enrollment as students."

"Nowadays," she continued, "people have much more freedom in their personal lives and professional choices than they did when they were sold to an apprenticeship in the old days, and yet, at the same time, they're buying into this almost feudal system in which once you dedicate a certain number of years, you are bound by the amount of time you've spent." --Allegra Goodman

Far too many postdocs let unrealistic expectations lead them to become apathetic about their own career development.

The postdocs take particular pride that dire predictions of spoiled relationships with mentors have not come true. The negotiations, in Wallace's words, "were very harmonious and productive."

"If [the union] is open, honest, and transparent, I think that postdocs at UCSF would welcome discussion." --Anne T. Union

A new California plan promises uniform health insurance benefits for all postdocs.