"Welcome" Mini-Orientation Sessions for New Postdoctoral Scholars on Campus
Honors, Scholars & Fellows House, Room 3008, noon (12 pm) on Monday, October 27, 2025
REGISTRATION is now OPEN
All new postdoctoral scholars on campus are invited to the next upcoming new postdoctoral scholar "Welcome." The "Welcome" format of orientation serves to give new postdocs the basics of the full required orientation program in the spans of an hour over the lunch period. It is designed for scholars that initiate their training during the year rather than in synchrony with the start of the school year in August. You can converse with Human Resources representatives about initiating your employee benefits within the 60-day onboarding window, learn about support for global engagements, join the leadership team of our postdoctoral association (PDA), and hear about opportunities for fellowships, travel awards, and professional development activities.
Debi, Director of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs
Agenda:
General PD Opportunities, Expectations, and Professional Development (Fadool)
International Engagements (Schaad/Lawson)
Program in Instructional Excellence (Kelly)
Human Resources - Health Insurance and Retirement Benefits (McLaughlin/Atkins)
Join the PDA!! (Rivers Key)
Biology Department Workshop/Lunch Talks
Dear Postdocs and Grad Students,
Every fall, we host Workshop/Lunch talks on the academic job search featuring new faculty from at least 2 of the areas in the Bio Dept.
The fall academic job talks coincide with the fall postings of academic job ads (*see below). The late fall/spring talks are about opportunities in non-academic jobs.
For our Sept and Oct talks, we are very pleased to have Dr. Guangxia Miao (Sept. 15, 12pm Bio Unit I, Rm 320) talking about the academic job search from the Cell and Molecular Bio perspective and Dr. Kayla Stoy (Oct. 13, 12pm Bio Unit I, Rm 320) from the Ecology and Evolution perspective.
Dr. Guangxia Miao
Cell and Molecular Biology
Dr. Kayla Stoy
Ecology & Evolution
Even though this is an uncertain time, Life Sciences job ads are being posted. We encourage you to register for ScienceCareers job alerts even if you are not yet ready to look for a job.
https://jobs.sciencecareers.org/jobs/life-sciences/north-america/
If you would like to register for the Bio/Neuro Postdoc Canvas Site. It is open to Graduate Students as well. Just send an email with your FSU 'username' to kmjones@bio.fsu.edu and an invite will be sent to you through Canvas.
Parental Leave Survey - We want your input!
The PDA and OPDA invite faculty and postdocs to follow a survey
FACULTY SURVEY - HERE
POSTDOC SURVEY - HERE
A literature review conducted in 2017 found that paid parental leave was associated with improved infant and maternal health outcomes (Heymann et al., 2017). In 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 17% of all civilian workers had access to paid family leave, and 89% had access to unpaid family leave (including maternity and paternity leave, adoption leave and caring for a sick relative) (Statistics, 2019). Under federal law, postdoc fathers and/or mothers who have worked at FSU for at least 12 months have the right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in accordance with the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Currently, tenure-track faculty at FSU have access to 16 weeks of paid parental leave. However, there is currently no paid parental leave policy in place for FSU postdocs.
We are interested in learning more about the thoughts and opinions of faculty members regarding a proposal for paid parental leave for postdocs. Please answer several questions to allow us to better understand the opinions of faculty. Your answers will help us in formulating a proposal for postdoctoral parental leave tailored to the needs of our institution. We will share the results of the survey with the Postdoc Advisory Board that governs postdoctoral scholars at FSU.
Please note that this survey is anonymous and you will not be able to be identified.
This survey should take approximately 5 minutes of your time.
Thank you!
Shannon Montgomery, PDA President
References
Heymann, J. et al. (2017) ‘Paid parental leave and family wellbeing in the sustainable development era’, Public Health Reviews, 38(1), p. 21. doi: 10.1186/s40985-017-0067-2.
Statistics, U. S. B. of L. (2019) Access to paid and unpaid family leave in 2018. Available at: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/access-to-paid-and-unpaid-family-leave-in-2018.htm (Accessed: 24 March 2021).