Shared Lab space with new faculty member

Our department is trying to allocate me lab space ( yes I know it is verry late !) but they have been struggling due to pressure on the lab space. Note that the faculty member who started with me (lets call hir prof. L) as assistant professor has hir own lab space.

Today people from the administration came and showed me and prof. L, a huggeee lab space. They want me and prof L to share this space for our equipment and students.

First this seems unfair to prof. L who already has a lab space and are kicking hir out.

It is unfair to me since I wont be getting a lab space that is ALL mine. It will be shared even though it is huge.

But I am still keeping an open mind. I have worked in shared space between members but it has been a shared space between members of one lab, not two as is now being suggested. So I do not know how it will work out and I do not know how to feel about it.

So the question that I have to all of you guys:

1) Do you have experience in shared space between two or more labs/faculty members?
2) If yes, how did it work out. Are their conflict between students, faculty etc.?
3) How was setup done for the lab space? cubicle, open space with desks? or what do you think is optimal setup and/or works?

Board dimensions for office

I am looking for white boards that I can put in my office so that students can come and scribble on it. I like to scribble on the board as well. I do not have any space in my office to put it on the wall. So I am left with two options:

1) Make a call and bring in the maintainece guys to lift one of the gigacntic book shelf ( I have two). However, I am not sure what my future needs are going to be so I am kind of reluctant to do that.

2) Get a decent size white board which has a stand with it. But I am not sure what dimensions to pick. Too small and it is useless ( I have a collegue who made this mistake recently). Too big and it is going to be a burden on my office space (that I have worked so hard to get..haha)

I am inclined towards the second option. So any advice on the dimensions of the white board with a stand ?

Tell me who, when, where and how.

I do not like when people tell me we are going to meet X.


and then skip all the info about
when:
where:
who:
what:
and the amount of time we are suppose to meet so that I can put it in my calendar.

I do not know why people do that. I guess they are not as organized in their thoughts and patterns as I am? I do not expect this from the faculty.

Assistant to a Professor

I was doing a science-high-school-outreach activitiy last week. I was wearing a badge that said "assistant professor" blah blah. On a number of occasions I had students talk to me and refer to me as: "so you are an assistant to a professor, what do you do or how does it work?"

I did not know if I should be offended or educate. I opted for the latter each time but I am still perplexed. Does this happen or happened to people often? How come ?

Deciding on a student

I have started getting emails from prospective PhD students. The emails are getting from places that I do know about and from places that I have no idea about. For example I am getting a lot of email from Country A.

I do not know anything about this country A's education system and their grading techniques/processes. So I am unable to judge these students that may come from different institutes in country A from their GPA's. This is with the assumption that grading policies in different institutes will be different.

These are primarily undergraduate students but some of them have been exposed to research questions. This is evident from their CV's  that they have published some papers. However, the papers are mostly in regional journals and conferences. Also it is difficult to assess how much they might have contributed.

Many of these students need a RA or a TA and I have limited spots. So how do I decide?

One way to decide is to engage a faculty from that country and forward the students info to them to see what they think of them.

Any tips?

My first Grant..yayyy

Email: Congrats, you have won our grant and we are glad to support  your research !

Oh yes, my first grant as a PI. This is a teeny-tinnny grant but still I am the PI on this grant. No co-PI's no nothing. All me ! yayyyyyyy

M happy and singing and dancing. I like the small victories in life.

Forced Service ?

I got an email message from a senior administration person that he will like to recommend me for a certain service. Then he went on to ask if I will like to do so.

I did not respond to him for some time since I wanted to know what the service is about and how much time will it take.

Today I got an email that I have been assigned the service, which I did not agreed to till now. Needless to say I am pissed.

Is this normal?