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"Key to the problematic status of most non-tenure-track scientists is universities' widespread refusal to allow them to apply for their own research funding, the
sine qua non of scientific credibility."

The glue holding together the two parts of the increasingly creaky system—and the rationale for thousands of men and women with a decade or more of university study to accept salaries that according to the Sigma Xi data average $38,000 ($7000 less than the average earnings of a similarly aged college graduate)—is the widespread but usually futile hope of becoming an independent university researcher.

"The future begins in California."

"We need to tell society and our community that [postdocs] exist and play a major role in our research labs and our research organization." --Gary Slater, dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, University of Ottawa.

Although the course emphasized a few issues that are unique to academia, many of the subjects covered--general management, project planning, time management, and interpersonal principles--are crucial to all professionals, no matter what career they ultimately choose to pursue.

“The pressure [in science] is enormous. When I was running the IBM research labs, that was one of my biggest challenges [in] sustaining quality.” --Randy Isaac

"I've changed careers several times. If there's something you want to do, do it. If you're 2 years into it and you decide you don't want to do it [anymore], that's OK. It's not wasted time." --Victor Sloan

“You bet your career. We bet ten million dollars.” --Gerald Rubin

NIH plans to make grants that give "principal investigator status to not one investigator, as is now the norm, but to all key members of the research team." Whether postdocs will attain that coveted designation is not yet clear, but "it would at least be allowable as far as the agency is concerned."

For agencies devoted to seeking knowledge, NSF and NIH have shown strikingly little curiosity about many of the scientists doing the research they support.

"Before the kids, I pondered molecular biology questions while relaxing in the shower. Now, post-kids, I ponder how to stop the bickering and how to feed and clothe them. Gone are the hours of solitude for thinking."

"There’s a second way of evaluating this, in terms of the intangibles, things that you get out of it that don’t fill your stomach but that fill your soul: respect, which I think is number one; the ability to go to work and not have to put up with being treated like a second-class citizen." --John Wagner

If NSF's base postdoc stipend remains unchanged until FY 2005, the pay of NSF graduate fellows will be bumping up against it.

"For postdocs dependent on federal dollars, therefore, the figures in the Bush budget proposal are largely a matter of read 'em and weep."

"Basically, we don't quite understand NIH's position. We're going to go along with what our legal counsel has advised us. We're going to start paying FICA." - Joel Oppenheim, senior associate dean for biomedical sciences, New York University School of Medicine.

Scott Lilly's best-case funding estimate for the next 5 years, which assumes a swift American exit from Iraq, foresees a 25% decline in real dollars for American science. In the worst case, he sees a drop of twice that size.

"Flooding the market with additional workers ... is going to make engineering even less attractive as a field than it already is. ... The smart ones will be even more likely to opt for a career in law, medicine, or management." --Tom Cross

Today's large postdoc pool "is in fact desirable." --The National Research Council

"The number one thing that every postdoc needs to think about is what they want to do when they grow up." - Ida Chow, executive officer of the Society of Developmental Biology