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How should I ask my new chair not to hire someone?
I recently received an offer to join another university (in the US). I have not told my new university this, but one of the main reasons I want to leave my current university is because of another member of the faculty (let's call him "Joe").
Joe and I were in the same lab as PhD students and quarreled a lot. Later, we ended up on the faculty of the same university. I have moved on from these quarrels, but Joe continues to hold a grudge. Over the years I have tried to ignore him, but he continues to go out of his way to make my life miserable.
I'm leaving to be rid of Joe. However, my new university wants to hire more faculty in my research field, and Joe was suggested as a possible target for recruitment. They are prepared to make their next recruit a very attractive offer, so Joe may accept.
I haven't yet signed my offer, and I am not interested in it unless I am assured that Joe will not come to my new university. I can think of two ways to make a case against Joe to my new chair.

The diva approach
I directly tell the chair that I won't come unless they agree not to hire Joe. After their considerable time investment into recruiting me, they may agree to seal the deal.
The obvious downside is that this approach makes me sound immature, gripey, and dramatic to my new chair.

The good citizen approach
I make the case that Joe is bad for the department.
One major downside is that Joe did not have issues with many faculty at my current university. If my new chair tries to vet my claim with one of his contacts at my current university, my story may not hold up. Also, this approach won't provide an assurance unless I make it about me (e.g., "Joe is bad for your university, and I can't join a department with someone like him in it"), which still makes me sound like a diva.

Can anyone suggest a way for me to keep Joe out of my new university while minimizing the damage to my own reputation?

Does Joe mind your presence in the same department as much as you mind his? If so, I can imagine the possibility that by joining the new department you will automatically make the idea of moving there unappealing to him.

@DanRomik: On the other hand, I've known personalities who enjoy bullying certain people (in their minds it's "being provocative" or something, for the lulz), and thus this might be extra attractive for the bully.

Of course you let them know why you're leaving! If you don't, then you will only have yourself to blame if Joe gets hired. Just imagine how you'll feel then! It's not worth the risk.

"…over the years…" How many to be precise? How does he make your life miserable? Does he do it when no one is listening? In private messages? Begin recording the snipes, the attacks, the incidents of sarcasm etc. List the dates and time of day when they occur, and as far as possible, describe the verbal abuse (bullying) in as much detail as you can. Keep updating it, bring it to the Dean's attention if despite all efforts "Joe" gets hired and continues to harass you. Do not let him have this power over you.

Would they be recruiting this summer? Or is this a next year problem you can deal with once you have made friends in the department and have some sway?

@DanRomik: Despite that he clearly doesn't like me, he has gone out of his way to be a part of my life, so he seems to enjoy our toxic relationship. Sometimes I think picking on me is cathartic for him, and he feels safe doing it (since he probably doesn't think I will push back). Other times I think that my strategy of ignoring him actually drives him crazy.

@Trunk: It's unlikely that Joe had other offers when he started at my current university. I think it was just a coincidence that we ended up at the same place. I didn't try to prevent him from getting hired because I didn't anticipate he would hold this incredible grudge.

@Dawn: I would start at my new university in the next academic year. Apparently they want to begin recruiting another candidate within the next few months.

@DanielR.Collins: Sadly, this seems to be the case here.

have you tried communicating with him about that issue and try to make peace or like agree to disagree of some sort. or is Joe just plain bully and nothing from you is gonna be regarded by Joe? or maybe ask for a third party to help mediate your case with Joe, someone that know both of you.

You could let your new chair know that part of the reason you left your previous institution is because of personal differences with Joe. You don't have to give any details or make accusations against Joe. You can just say that the two of you don't get along well. It's important to avoid assigning blame to Joe, because that can make it seem like you might be the problem. By maintaining a neutral tone, you are communicating that you are capable of maintaining professionalism despite interpersonal conflicts. After explaining the problem in a neutral tone, you can then express your concern about Joe joining your new department without making any immediate demands.

To add to this: after explaining as you said, OP can wait for the answer, and then she herself should decide whether to join or not. I.e., steer the discussion in the direction of whether that guy will be taken or not; not that he should or should not be. This way she avoids putting the new department under decision pressure.

I also agree and wanted to add - communicate with the new place you'd prefer to not work with Joe and the old one. Just say it's your preference, no ultimatums. If Joe follows you to the new place, your old one is out of two members. Since they will know you only left because of Joe, they should be happy to take you back.

A few days ago, I received an unexpected office call from my new chair. He seemed to be wondering why I haven't signed my offer yet. Without time to plan a response, I went with your advice. It worked, and my chair offered to leave Joe out of their next search. Thank you!

While this is not yet a completely adequate answer I think it is important to note the following insight which may help the OP from inadvertently underplaying their interaction relative to the hiring committees possible future activities.
There is a danger to OP that the hiring people might think OP would appreciate a familiar face and that may count in Joe's favour (not knowing the impediment) and so some information may need to flow about the interpersonal conditions.

Walk left of road, good. Walk right of road, good. Walk middle of road, get squished like grape. If you don't yet have enough rep to comment, try to engage with the site for a while. The site frowns on posting comments in answers. That said, welcome.

@MindwinRememberMonica Love the Miyagi quote.

This could be turned into an answer, remove the part about it being a comment and re-phrase this as "This is why it is important to address this in a neutral manner so that the chair knows OPs concerns. But as it stands it isn't an aswer.

This is certainly fine as an answer and I think it's a good one, and it's obviously well received.

@MindwinRememberMonica Though Mr. Miyagi, in that quote, may have forgotten the many divided highways and streets some indeed with pedestrian friendly medians, so often there is a middle way. My 'answer' has now afforded me the ability to 'comment', I appreciate the patient forbearance.

Forcing people to move between two bands of mechanized traffic is hardly "friendly".

If you really don't want to work with Joe again, I would be as clear as possible about this.
It does not help to find a weak and polite formulation. I would say something like:
"There is an important thing I need you to know: I heard that you consider to hire Joe. Joe and me do not get along at all. If you hire him, I will probably leave."

Unless I have read this incorrectly, surely, if Joe is leaving, then there is no longer a need for you to leave your current university (unless Joe isn't the only reason that you wish to move, although you haven't specified that)... Joe moves on and everyone is happy. You could even turn down the offer from the new University and recommend Joe in your place, that way you increase the chances that Joe leaves.
However, if Joe is leaving and applying to the same university that you are applying to, purely because you are moving and applying, then that changes things - if you then decide to stay put, Joe could also do the same, just so that he can continue annoying you.

You have read it incorrectly. The author of the post is leaving, and  is concerned that Joe may follow.

But the main reason for the OP leaving is Joe being in the same Faculty. To quote: ... but one of the main reasons I want to leave my current university is because of another member of the faculty .... Therefore, if Joe is planning on leaving anyway, then there is no need to leave.

Why do you think he is planning on leaving?

Ah, yes... the new Uni is planning on head-hunting him, my mistake.


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What are good database/grade book software?
I am in the market for a (hopefully free!) grade book software and  would like to see some suggestions. This would be used for a math class and I am planning for many grades (15+) per semester.
In particular, if a gradebook has any features that make it stand out from other gradebooks or spreadsheet solutions, I would appreciate knowing that information.

Excel? (or OpenOffice)

Hi Maesumi, welcome to Academia.SE. In order to get a positive response here you should show you have done at least some work trying to find the answer yourself. A quick search turned up quite a few options.

If you have more specific requirements, this would be a more “answerable” question, but in the current state it's just asking for a long list of software…

@F'x I wrote my grade book with Fortran and then with Matlab. Then I used some online service because I wanted to enter grades while in class and so a web-based service made sense. However I eventually went back to paper. It takes a semester of experimentation to see if some software is worth bothering with. The solution should work in class as well as in my office, so it has to be web-based.

@BenCrowell I use Windows.

I'm guessing this question will get closed, but there are many options (as earthling highlighted in the comment). When I taught high school, I invested in Easy Grade Pro and was happy with it. It is not free.
Lately, I've been using a home-made Excel spreadsheet, which has been pretty easy to do, although I have a fair amount of experience with Excel. As F'x said, OpenOffice has a spreadsheet and it is free, and Google Docs also provide a free spreadsheet solution. You can also find pre-made Excel spreadsheets for grading, which you can tweak for your own use.
Another option is to see if your school has a gradebook built-in to it's student-database system. This is a nice solution because you don't have to transfer grades from one system to another, and the students have easy access to grades along the way so they can explicitly track their own progress.

We use Blackboard, which has a gradebook, but it is terrible. It is incapable of doing even basic arithmetic (i.e. take the weighted average of Column 1 and Column 2, with Column 1 counting twice as much) I second Excel or OpenOffice.

If the solution has to be webbased, I think Google Docs (https://drive.google.com/) makes a lot of sense. At the very least, the learning curve is very easy and being a complete spreadsheet solution it has complete flexibility.
I can even imagine that if you create quizzes based on online forms (created from google docs) you could have grades going automatically into your form in some way.

I have found good results in using Edmodo's grade book. Even if you do not wish to use the site's other features, such as on-line homework submission or on-line quizzes, you can still add grades to this from work that students submitted on paper.
Edmodo's grade book does not have a great deal of advanced grading features, however, the advantage of using this over software-based grade books is that students can log into their own accounts to check their grades as often as they like. After I began using this, I stopped getting weekly E-mails from students asking me to tell them their grade. Additionally, by providing such transparent access to grades, it gives students pressure to get their work in. If you want to compute adjustments to the grades once the grades are finished, you can export them to a CSV and analyze the figures in a spreadsheet.

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Is it okay to send a thank-you-for-teaching to a professor who taught a course a few semesters ago?
In my first semester of Ph.D., I took a course about machine learning (ML), because I find it very fancy and interesting (however, my field of research is theoretical physics, far away from ML).
The professor who taught ML was an old and super cool guy. He made this course a real fun to learn. Now after one year, as a side project, I wrote a "deepfake" ML algorithm (of course, it had already been done, and I took a lot of help from GitHub), but still, the content that I learned in my ML course was very helpful in all this process.
I was about to write an email to the professor who taught the ML course. I wonder if it is okay to send something like, "Professor, I am really very thankful to you for putting all the effort into making the ML course easy and fun. Here is what I have achieved from the content that you taught me [attachments]"?

This looks completely OK to me.

I cannot imagine any gifted teacher that is not pleased to see his students making good use of the skills acquired in their course.

I recently sent an a thank-you email to a professor who taught a course I took in my second last year of undergrad, which was well over 5 years ago, since then i had done a PhD and then gone into industry, where his teachings were suddenly very relevent. He (i suspect vaguely) remembered who i was and was please to hear what i had been up to and how useful the things he taught me were. He seemed happy to get the email.

Deepfakes is potentially a bit of a controversial subject due to the ethical concerns. I would be at least a little hesitant to mention working on that to someone, even on the assumption that you're neither doing anything questionable with it nor furthering research on the topic.

I put in practice something that an instructor taught me about two years prior, and I was sure that my success at implementing it was directly due to that instructor's influence, so I wrote an email to her. She always gave curt 1 or 2 line responses to emails or our class message board when I was her student, but she responded to me with a three paragraph message talking about how excited she gets when her students are able to use their skills in the real world. Not every teacher may be that excited, but I can't imagine anyone not being happy to hear about how they assisted your success.

Please ask yourself instead, how it could not be appropriate? What doubts do you really have?

Yes, it is entirely appropriate and will be appreciated. Let the person know a bit about your current activities - especially successes.
Even better, if it weren't for the pandemic, would be to pay them an in-person visit during office hours. Too few people get a chance to thank their important mentors, I'm afraid.

I'm surprised you're suggesting to drop in. I would expect that at least some teachers don't want to take the time to chat a bit when they have other things that need to be done. (I'm a student, to clarify my perspective)

@lucidbrot Everyone takes breaks. There is probably a coffee room somewhere, also. By "office hours" I intended the time set aside to see students. Most places require a few hours a week.

@lucidbrot As long as you're mindful of social signals (don't barge in if the door is closed, don't stay talking while they keep looking at their watch) most professors are happy to see past students. Especially the type who spent the time to make their course cool and interesting, and especially if you are coming to tell them nice things about how you enjoyed their course.

I also would think office hours are no good idea. The professor may be a bit nervous about having reserved the time for student questions and maybe needing to stop chatting with you when a student comes to ask something. If you did something cool, maybe you could arrange a separate appointment where both of you now you have time without interruptions from people who have a legitimate interest to interrupt you.

Yes it is entirely appropriate.  Good unsolicited comments from students are always useful when one has to fill out annual reports or other such paperwork.
You might care to also include their immediate superiors (Chair or Dean) in the list of recipients to maximize the impact of your email.

I'm appalled by the mere utilitarian tone of this answer, limiting the impact of such a thank you email to the annual paperwork. Along 20 years of teaching, I've received many thank you emails or speeches from students: I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have been written or said the way they did, if the students had to share them with my higher ups. For annual reporting and higher-ups, there are the teaching evaluations: keep personal communications personal.

@MassimoOrtolano interesting but I strongly disagree.  There can be no doubt that one relishes compliments but telling an instructor in an email he or she was great makes 0 impact to anyone but the instructor.  If a student was much influenced through mentoring of an instructor, then much better IMO to tell the higher-ups so this is recognized properly.  If you still have faith in course evaluation then I’m afraid that my local world is different from yours.

@ZeroTheHero: makes 0 impact to anyone but the instructor.  Sometimes that's specifically what the former student was aiming for - a human social interaction, nothing more.  A generally good teacher doesn't need to scraper together random emails to keep their department happy with their teaching, do they?

@PeterCordes I happen to think that the types of mentor described by the OP should be celebrated.  Inspirational and aspirational instructors are too few and far between.

I think for most 'normal' students, thinking about promoting an instructor to their chair or dean is not even remotely on their radar.  As a result I feel like this would come across as being somewhat disingenuous.  Perhaps a separate email to the chair/dean is ok, but again almost no students I know of are going to be thinking along those lines.

+1 for the second sentence. While it was always nice to get a thank-you letter, I always thought it would have done me a lot more good if  it had been sent to my employer.

@Cole A lot of normal students go straight to the "boss" whenever they're slightly DISsatisfied...getting in the habit of doing the same when you have positive feedback can only make the world a nicer place. (I try to do this in the rest of the world, too--make positive feedback at least a little public, even if it's just "Cameron was super helpful" or "Kennedy went above and beyond".)

I totally misread this, thinking of how wonderful it would be to get one of these emails an hour into completing reports that have me bored to tears, making the rest of the paperwork feel a while lot less dreary!

I think that a general thank-you email is absolutely okay. Moreover, I think the professor will most probably be really glad to hear a thank you not from fresh graduates who simply liked the course, but from a person who obviously found the course really useful and applicable for whatever they are doing. You may want to include what you have done, why you worked on it, show some results, etc.
Also, a good idea will be to link it all to the course (e.g. "I found this and that topics really useful", or "I followed books A and B that you recommended, the former seemed too formal to me, but the latter was very useful", or "You did not mention Foobar transform, but this was what made everything very easy"). After all, this is probably the information that the professor really wants to hear, as such a feedback will allow them to do any adjustments to their course.
However, I would suggest you not to include specific details such as a GitHub link or source code attached. I'm not a professor, but I teach programming and algorithms to high school students, and I always find it a bit awkward when my former students send me some of their new code. What do they expect me to do with it? Do they want me to review the code, give some suggestions, etc.? If yes, then most often I would not be able to do such a review, yet alone just read the code. If not, then why include the code?
Of course, I can skim the code and just reply something like "Thanks, this looks great", but this seems to be not correct, because I did not really study the code and can not say that it is great. Moreover, in my course I'm rather strict about code quality, and so saying that some code is "great" without thoroughly reviewing it is below my standards...
What I am really glad to know is that the students have found my course useful in real life. I'll be glad to know what specific parts of the course were especially useful. I'll be glad to know what are they working on, and even discuss any specific questions they may have. But sending a large code without a specific request puts me in an awkward position. Think of it as of posting that huge code to Stack Overflow...
So don't include the code or any other information that may require a great deal of attention from the professor. If the professor will be interested, they would ask for the details they want.
This may be cultural, of course.

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How can I know if I am working fast enough to finish my PhD?
I am a second-year math Ph.D. student without a master's degree who likes taking math classes and loves TAing and tutoring, but dislikes research. During the first semester of my second year, I spent about 3-4 hours a week on research while taking three classes and got very little done research-wise.
I usually have about 8 hours of office hours a week for TA (some of which are for review or practice sessions) and I also type LaTeX notes for students which I improve each semester.
I want to be a lecturer or community college math instructor (I am aware that their pay/ job security is not ideal, but I would rather have a job that I enjoy than being a professor, because I definitely do not want to continue research after I graduate with my Ph.D.) It seems like for those positions completing a Ph.D. is needed to be a competitive job candidate, but the quality of the research doesn't really matter. Being more likely to get a job is the only reason I am doing my Ph.D.
I have gotten 6 A's and 3 A+'s in the 9 classes I have taken for my Ph.D. so far, because I spend enough on them and also tutor other graduate students in some of the classes I am taking with makes me spend even more time. I like how for classes I learn everything by going to lectures instead of having to read references, have a large number of small homework problems instead of a small number of difficult research problems, and taking tests instead of working on long-term projects.
During my second year the main reason I don't do much research-wise is that I spend too much time TAing and tutoring, but starting in my third year it will be more so motivation than time, because I won't be taking classes. I was supposed to read a lot over winter break and also complete a proof and didn't have any other responsibilities. I read what I was supposed to and typed about 40 pages of LaTeX notes, but I skipped all of the proofs in the book and I found that after I finished reading I did not remember most of the notes I had typed, because I typed them quickly and didn't read the text deeply. I also didn't do the proof. I had a lot of time during break, but I chose not to do a good job because I wasn't motivated.
How can I determine whether I am doing enough each week to complete my Ph.D. and not be kicked out for not doing enough research? I usually don't finish the weekly assignments I get, but my advisor hasn't mentioned that I am not doing enough. I know that one way to find out is to ask my advisor, but I don't want them to know that I just want to complete the Ph.D. And I don't want to spend time on research, because then they might decide that they don't want to work with me anymore and I wouldn't be able to finish my Ph.D.
I think that I probably wouldn't spend more than 12 hours weekly during my last three years on research, but I would spend at least 8 hours weekly even if less than that was enough. I know that this would leave me with a significant amount of free time which I would probably spend tutoring undergraduate and graduate students, because I am motivated to do that and it would help improve my teaching skills.
In summary

Is 12 hours spent weekly on research for the final 3 years enough to complete a minimal Ph.D. for a slightly above average Ph.D. student?
Is there a way that I can continually check whether I am on track to complete my Ph.D. and not be kicked out for making unsatisfactory progress?

Is this in the US?

We can't convert X hours a week to "you'll get your PhD." If your advisor thinks you're not doing enough, then they are probably correct.

Yes this is in the US. My advisor hasn't mentioned that I am doing enough yet

But he also understands that I am also taking classes so I won't be doing much research during my second year.

Most new hires as community college instructors in math these days do not have a PhD.

@user152100 Oh, I'm sorry, I misread, but my maint point stands.

Talk to your advisor. Start there.

Not to be a damper on this, but if you asking how many hours a week it takes, then you may not be suitable to do it.

You're worrying about the wrong things.  Focus on your research, not the clock.

1 - 'but dislikes research' ?!

2 - i believe it was dave crenshaw who said it's not about the number of hours you put in but the the number of things you accomplish during those hours or something

It sounds like you don't even like reading math, which is a bit odd for somebody who likes taking math classes. To be clear, skipping over all the proofs in a book you were supposed to read means you read approximately 0% of the mathematical content of the book.

Terence Tao has some blog post where he explains that it's not about maximising the hours you are awake and putting in the work, but rather feeling inspired and ready to do work in the hours which you do have available.

You get to know whether you're working fast/hard enough by asking your professor/tutor/mentor/fellow students… don't you?

In my opinion, the bare minimum required to have a good chance to complete a PhD in math is to actually want one. By that I mean, not just to want a diploma, or a practical means towards having some specific type of career, but to actually have a decent level of passion and enthusiasm about the idea of doing research in math, which is what doing a PhD is all about.
A person who lacks this level of passion and enthusiasm will most likely fail. Even many who do have it will not succeed. A math PhD is already a hard enough thing to do for those who find the idea of math research appealing, so that I really wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who doesn’t find it appealing.
Basically, it’s a bad idea to think in terms of the number of hours per week. If you are thinking in those terms it strongly signals that you lack intrinsic motivation for doing what it takes to get a PhD. And without intrinsic motivation, your chances simply don’t look very good. Keep in mind that I don’t know you and what you’re capable of, but that’s at least the generic answer I would give for someone in your situation.
See also this answer with some related thoughts. And best of luck with your studies going forward.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

I applaud your love of learning mathematics and your interest in teaching. That said, you will have to be both thoughtful and lucky to reach your career goal: teaching relatively advanced mathematics in a relatively stable job. Many of the other answers here point to the difficult job market now and in years to come.
You do need that PhD. If your advisor is sympathetic to your goals and you are good enough to do some research they may be able to help you choose a problem in your Goldilocks zone: one you're genuinely interested in answering, hard enough to be worth solving but not so hard that it's beyond your abilities.
I don't think you can succeed as long as you are counting and regretting the research hours. You really do have to care about the problem. Look for one  in an area that does not call for lots of technical machinery before you can even state and understand open questions. If there's something touching the things you like to teach, go for that.
In your eventual job search consider secondary schools. You will find some advanced topics and some good students to mentor.

Your advisor is the best person to answer this, but it doesn't sound like you are headed for success. A PhD is normally all about research, though in the US (assumed), in the second year, there is a lot of coursework normally. Only after passing comprehensive exams does the research get serious and dominates your time (and maybe your life).
At the point you are, if the program is 6-7 years in total, you are probably ok, but eventually research will be closer to 20-30 hours per week for someone who is also also a TA.
Talk to your advisor about your progress and maybe look around at what your peers are doing as well.
However, research, by its nature, can't be predicted. Some projects take much more time (per week and overall) than others.  It is because the unknown is unknown and you are trying to make it known. There are no guarantees.
And, if you hate research, you should reexamine your path. Even the coursework you are proud of now won't be terribly valuable as community college faculty. It is meant to prepare you for serious research (and for passing qualifiers).

I agree that I don't think they care about my course grades when hiring me but if I am looking to be a lecturer or community college instructor (not a community college professor) do they care about the quality of the thesis?

Also the program is 5 years in total so I have 3 years of research after this year.

@user152100: do they care about the quality of the thesis --- If they care at all, I suspect the general topic of the thesis would be much more relevant than the quality (e.g. other things equal, this would probably help more than this), especially since probably no one will likely to be able to judge the latter, and even if they were able to judge and the thesis was very high quality, red flags might be raised over why you are applying there.

My two cents as someone who switched from pure math to applied math and actually found it interesting and motivating enough to complete my PhD:
It's not ideal that you don't have that passion obviously. But a change of scenery can help. I was always a pure math person and was trying to do PDE in my early years of PhD (things like Vlassov-Poisson-Boltzmann, proving existence etc) but found it very hard to stay motivated. I came clean to my advisor and we parted ways and I had decided that I would leave the program with a Master's. But a new hire at my university was said to be hiring her first PhD students and wants to do research in computational neuroscience, so I figured it would not hurt to meet her.
Now after two papers and two years, I am about to defend this May and have found it very interesting to do Machine Learning/Data Science stuff so I will get hired for that kind of role for a company. This is because the math/simulation part of the research involves a fair bit of Reinforcement Learning algorithms.
Our department is huge and I heard similar stories of students completing their math PhD's in applied/computational/inter-disciplinary area and do a lot of simulation/coding as opposed to the old-fashioned 8hrs a day pure math stuff. I also enjoy teaching and my research workload has never exceeded more than 20 hrs a week (on average about 15 - the math is really not that hard in this field). If I did more, then I probably would have published at premium journals and get a strong chance at a nice postdoc, but I am okay with that.
But all of this depends on your advisor and in my case she is the nicest and most supportive teacher I have ever had.

me too, I found myself less-motivated in pde.

The "publish or perish" injunction reflects a professional reality in most of academia
Since different PhD candidates differ enormously in their skills and the quality of their work, there is no magic formula to convert hours of work to success or lack thereof.  Your advisor and your broader supervisory panel should be able to give you feedback on whether you are on-track in your program.  Normally, by this stage of your candidature you would have set some research milestones that progress towards completion of your dissertation.  If your panel are doing their job well then you should not be substantially behind schedule without knowing about it, but it never hurts to ask if you're unsure.  As to being kicked out for lack of progress, PhD programs have milestones and (at least) annual reviews where you are rated on your progress.  Students who have not made sufficient progress to pass their review are generally given at least a semester to catch up, but there are mechanisms to remove them from the program if they are persistently behind and not making research progress.  You should read the program rules at your institution to see the review system that is in place in your PhD program.
As to your broader career goal and strategy, there are a few aspects of this that are a bit naive and are perhaps cause for concern.  Firstly, even for teaching-heavy positions, universities/colleges have generally adopted the view that research scholarship is an important marker of knowledge in a field, and they will prefer their students to be taught by scholars with a substantial research record.  For this reason, many academics who focus on teaching undertake research relating to pedagogical aspects of their discipline, as a means to demonstrate high levels of knowledge in the field.  (You will find that many acadmics who are heavily focused on teaching will publish papers in teaching journals.)  Secondly, there are a number of scholars who believe that universities are entering a period of slow decline (see e.g., Reynolds 2012), which may portend a highly competitive market for academic positions in the future. As shown in the figure below, the rate of produced PhD graduates is substantially above the number of new academic positions, and the gap is getting larger over time.  (This figure is only for science and engineering but other fields have been similar.)
As a result of these various norms and trends, academics who do not publish research generally have a hard time in academia, even in teaching-heavy positions.  Moreover, this is only likely to intensify as more qualified PhD graduates compete for relatively fewer (or perhaps even absolutely fewer) academic positions.  You say that you are okay with the low pay and job insecurity of teaching positions at a community college, but on present labour market trends this might become quite extreme.
New faculty position vs new PhDs in science and engineering (Figure 1, Shillebeeckx, Maricque and Lewis 2013)

Consider your backup plan
In addition to the other answers, assuming you succeed in getting the Ph.D. with minimal effort put in on the research (I have trouble seeing how this is possible), consider what might happen if you tried for a lecturer position but didn't get one, or you tried community college teaching and it didn't work out. Many people in this scenario would then look toward a job in industry, and here I'm afraid having a Ph.D. may hurt you significantly given your specific situation. It's my understanding that having a Ph.D. usually communicates to hiring managers that you're skilled at self-directed research (and of course implies then that you actually like it or at least don't hate it). So if you manage to get a Ph.D. without either of these being true, it may hurt your chances of getting a job in industry that matches your interests should your current plan of being a non-research lecturer or community college instructor not work out. Something to consider.
Are you sure you hate research?
Alternatively, are you sure you that really hate research? Is it possible that you simply haven't found the right research area or problem? Maybe a different area in math, or maybe something altogether different? One test that may be helpful in answering this question is this: are you happiest doing the same thing day in and day out and doing it well (year after year after year), or do you need variety, to learn and do something new every few months or years? Are you a naturally creative person or do you find it difficult? For example, if you like to cook, do you enjoy inventing your own recipes or do you enjoy cooking from established recipes without deviating from them? Basically I'm trying to get at whether you have a personality that is creative, likes to invent and discover, and that craves novelty, or one that seeks to excel at doing one thing and doing it well in a highly stable environment. If the former, I suggest that maybe you've either not truly given research a chance (or may not even have a full picture of what research is), or may not have found a topic you're passionate enough about yet that you want to help push the envelope in that area. If the latter (you crave stability over novelty), then research probably truly isn't for you and that's fine. It's important to learn what type of job best fits you. In this case my gut feeling is a Ph.D. is probably not going to work out, and even if it does it may cause you problems down the road.

Other answers gave some good advices on the matter. First, if you really don't like research then the psychological load will get intensified every day, to the point that it might become unbearable. So please be careful about what you really like and dislike before it gets too late.
The other point is, I think not liking research and being in academia are two paradoxical features. Maybe you haven't found your passion yet, and the courses you have dealt with so far weren't your taste. So at this point, the 2nd year of PhD, you should keep trying to find what you really like. There's still plenty of time for that IMO.
At the end, if you still think that research is not your thing, then maybe you could try some part-time teaching to, for example, high school students. That is a good starting point to check whether your passion and future is in teaching. I think having a PhD is not a necessity for teachers in most places of the world. And I doubt that teaching at high school is less fun than being a college tutor.

+100 for suggestion to try part time teaching. OP is taking a pretty big gamble right now. It's definitely worth seeing if what they're working for is even something they'll want.

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How important are GRE analytical writing scores for graduate admission in STEM fields?
What is the importance of scores in Analytical Writing section of GRE for graduated admission in STEM fields?
Does a score below 3 means that the applicant will be rejected by all good schools?

Poor GRE scores are a warning sign, not a stop sign, in most graduate admissions. Essentially, the GRE is only a weak predictor of ability to do graduate-level research, and therefore doesn't get all that much weight, at least in the STEM fields.
Now, that said, you don't want to have a 1 out of 6, either. But there are often mitigating factors with respect to the writing section. Given that you have questions like this one:

Some people believe that government funding of the arts is necessary to ensure that the arts can flourish and be available to all people. Others believe that government funding of the arts threatens the integrity of the arts.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.

I would argue that the writing section is a test that reveals more about the capabilities of students in the humanities than it does students in STEM fields. So do the best that you can, and don't worry too much about this writing sample.
It's much more important to worry about the research statement you send to graduate schools!

And letters of recommendation!

True, but I was referring to what the applicant writes. . . .

@aeismail By research statement do you mean the 'Statement of purpose' ?

Yes, that's what I had in mind.

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Is there a correlation between being a good teacher and being a good researcher?
I have been told that there is a correlation between being a good teacher and being a good researcher (like this paper, in page 15, point 3.6), but i have not found any references or studies about it.
Does any know if there is really such correlation, or have studies to confirm or deny it?

I would love to see a correlation analysis done between scores on www.ratemyprofessor.com and the professor's h-index. If anyone can figure out whether there's a public API for ratemyprofessor, please post it here!

Ugh.  Ratemyprofessor?  Really??

There have been some empirical studies of this. I don't have a reference,  sadly, but from memory they all found almost zero correllation. In other words, neither one in any way predicts the other.

Note that this question asks for evidence of a correlation, not a guess or an explanation as to why it should be one way or another (which is subjective).

My answer to this has been upvoted four times AND downvoted four times.  This is nuts & I've never seen it on any other question.  Has someone got a vested interest in this question?  No one should downvote anything without an explanation in the comments.

I don't think there can be any studies to confirm or deny something like that, simply because neither "good teacher" nor "good researcher" can be quantified objectively without bias, and in the absence of that, how can you compare?
But qualitatively, I think the conclusion naturally follows in most cases - both require one to be enthusiastic about their subject in the first place, and require a certain depth of comprehension before they can either publish their results or interact with inquisitive students successfully!

Just because it is difficult to measure teaching and research performance does not make it impossible. Furthermore, a good but imperfect measure of performance would still enable a meaningful empirical correlation to be obtained.

I'm not sure I understand you - how can an imperfect measure be good at the same time, and how does it ensure it filters out false positives?

Assume that there is a true unmeasured latent variable called performance and say that you have an observed measure that correlates r=.80 with that true latent variable; you would have a very useful measure of performance for assessing relationships with other variables. It might not be perfect, but it would be useful in assessing correlations with other variables. I think the same general issue of useful but imperfect measurement applies to a lot of behavioural and social science measurement.

It seems likely that there's some nonzero correlation.  Certainly, there are factors that should lead to positive correlation; for example, some personality traits (like conscientiousness) should lead to both better research and better teaching.  There are also factors that should lead to negative correlation; for example, teaching and research are activities that are competing for a limited amount of time.  It would be strange if all these factors nearly cancelled each other out, so we should expect some net correlation.  Here's an argument for positive:
Let's distinguish between two aspects of teaching, namely exposition and psychology.  Exposition means finding simple explanations, coming up with illuminating examples and analogies, mapping out the most important topics and the relationships between them, etc.  Psychology means understanding where students are coming from and what they do or don't understand, empathizing and bonding with them, arousing their interest and inspiring them to achieve great things, etc.  Both of these are important factors in good teaching, although neither is absolutely essential.  A master of exposition without a good understanding of psychology may be clear but dull, and someone who understands psychology but isn't good at exposition may have to follow a textbook closely, but either one will be much better than some teachers.
Expository ability is almost certainly correlated with research ability, since they both rely on a deep, creative understanding of the subject matter.  In mathematics, the standard example is Jean-Pierre Serre, who is both a brilliant mathematician and the author of several amazing graduate textbooks, and one can see similar characteristics in his research papers and textbooks.
However, the psychology side of teaching is probably not closely connected with research ability.  There may be some correlation, just because smart people tend to be better than average at all kinds of thinking, but I'd bet the correlation is small.  Certainly, there are wonderful researchers who have a terrible understanding of psychology, and vice versa, in a far more dramatic way than for exposition.
I see this split as perhaps explaining why there's so much debate about whether good research and good teaching are correlated, with some people saying obviously yes and others obviously no.  The answer depends on which aspects of teaching you view as most important.

+1 for distinguishing the expository and psychological roles (or the 'teaching' and 'mentoring' roles)

Only reference I know of:
Feldon et al (2011) Graduate student's teaching experiences improve their research skills. Science, 333, 1037-1040.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6045/1037.full
The authors found a that students who taught improved their abilities to generate testable hypotheses.
So yes, I assume that this means that there is a correlation between being a good researcher and being a good teacher beyond the simple point of being able to communicate your findings more effectively.

Causation ≠ correlation :)

@F'x maybe I'm missing some point of the answer, but... which part exactly is the comment about? And BTW, while causation and correlation are not equivalent, they are correlated :D

It's hard to evaluate, but from my experience I don't think such correlation exist, or if it exists, it is not extremely evident. Age can certainly be a discriminant, but assumed equivalence in age, a good teacher spends a lot of time in teaching activities, such as preparation, testing, and student nurturing. This leaves very little time for research. Also, most brilliant minds are too involved in their own projects (at the limit of being asocial) and don't make good communicators. The great advantage of a teacher is that he must be "not that smart", that is, he must understand where a difficulty may lie, and come up with a brilliant example to make it clear. Not everyone is Feynman..

I would to add a review point to the discussion that could imply a negative correlation. Teaching students takes empathy, understanding that they do not yet understand and what makes them not understand. A top researcher has probably not experienced this when he/she was in school. Lesser researchers might be better at understanding why a student doesn't get it. Also, a good mind does not imply excellent communicative skills. I would say the correlation is non-existing or slightly positive.

Any reason for the downvote?

A top researcher has probably not experienced this when he/she was in school. — Perhaps.  On the other hand, researchers have to explain their work to non-experts (like promotions committees and grant panels) too.  So if they don't learn that empathy as students, they'd better learn it later.

I'd say "understanding that they do not yet understand and what makes them not understand" is a major driving force for good research.

I think it's worth noting that there are lots of 'types' of students.  A great researcher/professor teaching an advanced courses at MIT probably relates very well to his/her students.  That same person might be far less effective teaching a remedial class to students who scored too low on their placement exam at poorly rated state school somewhere.

This is significantly after the fact, but this paper just came out.  It purports to show that students learn the most/best from instructors who are NOT tenure-track professors, potentially due to the added burden performing research has on an instructor.

Correlation is not causation. Beware of studies that confuse the two.
For those with non-statistical background, it is like "eating ice cream and "driving a car". There may be a positive or negative (or no) relationship between eating ice cream and causing an accident but ice-cream in itself does not cause the accident.
Similarly, it is not necessary to be a good researcher because one is a good teacher and vice-versa - a notion that is sort of reflected in the many answers.

Unfortunately, many studies use correlation to imply causation.

There are any number of reasons that teaching and research might be correlated, or be anti correlated. These reasons will all combine and interact, so you will see a range of extents of correlations. Here are a few:

They can be positively correlated because communication is a part of research, so giving good lectures and scientific talks, writing good papers and lessons will be correlated.
They must be negatively correlated as a consequence of both taking time from the same individual academic.  No one has infinite time.
They can be positive correlated because excellent departments and universities value their academics' time and provide resources like secretaries and teaching assistants to help academics have time for both.

OK, why are people DOWN voting this?  No one should down vote anything without comment, and I've never had any answer be downvoted four times before.  Is this someone corrupting stack exchange?

I just listed a few reasons why they might and might not be linked.  The fact that some times they are linked or sometimes are not linked doesn't prove that these factors have no impact.  I'll try clarifying this, thanks Vahid!

Ha, this is still getting down voted with no explanation.  Dudes, this is just logic!  What is the axe you are grinding?

I don't have any formal evidence, but I can tell you that at my university there are people who are only doing teaching (and are good at it). If being a good teacher implied being a good researcher, these people would be at least involved in research as well.
Similarly, there are many people who are good teachers at high school level and not involved in research in any way.

There's a negative correlation. It's been well found in my experience. If you're a good researcher, you'd not be your students favorite. It's like thinking a professional in say big data would teach a subject of big data properly. It sounds like it might, but it won't. A professional would always be in a hurry to go to office, keep thinking about his job, he's doing teaching just as a means to make money in a greedy sense. Same goes for researchers, they're there teaching just so that they can get funds to research, they don't want to teach kids about concepts that can be learnt by reading 10 pages of a textbook. They're there for bigger and better things.
So my answer isn't necessarily if a good teacher and good researcher has any correlation. My answer is that anyone who is doing  multiple professions just to make more cash (or benefits) isn't going to do it very well. And professors in university have very good power. We had professors who failed 90% of his students, used to come half a hour late to class and left half a hour earlier, we learnt that we were just too dumb. The professor still teaches.
Nobody doing multiple professions can be best at both job. Teaching and writing are two jobs that people don't take seriously. Only students know how serious of a job is teaching and only readers know how difficult of a job is writing. Everyone else thinks, otherwise.

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"If you're a good researcher, you'd not be your students favorite" My personal experience is the opposite.

@Nobody There're many reasons why you'd be your student favorite. If students also want to be a researcher or do MS/PhD, then you know why would not they be? (To get benefits from you). I'm talking about being loved in terms of "teaching and making students understand". Teaching properly has been thought of spoonfeeding in universities and professors always get angry with it. Meanwhile, the cost to take that paper called degree doesn't speaks like them.

plus this is ofc not univeral, but it's majority. It's not just for teaching. Anyone who is putting their hands on two jobs that require considerable attention, is going to perform poorly in either of them based on his priorities. It's psychology and not related to academia tbh.


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Should someone who wants tenure (or a research position) have hobbies totally unrelated to their work?
Or in Sean Carroll's words, is it true that "you are better off if your hobbies are nothing like your work"?

Carroll, Sean. "How To Get Tenure at a Major Research University:
  Cosmic Variance." Cosmic Variance. N.p., 30 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.

This question applies for both cases of tenure and cases of applying for academic positions.

+1 for the reference to the post. I think it should be put on the FAQ of this website, as it covers a lot of grounds succinctly.

I suspect Sean Carroll is emphasizing this more than most people would, thanks to his tenure denial.  It's not always important - plenty of serious bloggers have received tenure, and I know of one mathematician who published a novel before successfully getting tenure at a serious research university.  However, Carroll's right about the risks: it will hurt your chances if people spend too much time comparing what you did accomplish to what they imagine you might have accomplished if you had focused more.  If your hobbies could be viewed as taking time away from research, then it gives anyone who doesn't want you to get tenure an excellent opportunity to try to derail your case.
So basically, if your tenure case could be viewed as marginal or you might have enemies in the department (or among your letter writers), then you should worry about this.  Otherwise, I wouldn't let it dictate your life, but I guess it depends on your tolerance for risk.  One common-sense approach is not to go around emphasizing to colleagues how much time you are spending on hobbies.

always gives sound advice, and there's nothing really left to say :). There's a lot of subtle chest-thumping in departments about who's more busy, or sleeps less, and so on. As long as you're able to demonstrate that you're doing well on the usual metrics for tenure (research, teaching, service etc), then no one will really care about what other things you do.

I don't care the cost, I'm not going to let someone else (except my wife and kids) dictate how I use my free time. I am going to use my time how I choose. Isn't that why someone pursues tenure, anyway?
Having said that, as AM states, I must acknowledge risks associated with spending free time on things that will not help me get tenure. And I am not going to advertise to others how I spend my free time (within reason).

What about children and TV watching?

Work-life balance is important. The years until you get tenure are very stress-filled.  You need something to balance out work -- whether that's your family or whether it's doing some underwater basket weaving.
That being said, you also do not want to give the impression that you are slouching off or not anything than fully dedicated to your work.
So at least until you get tenure, I would recommend having a hobby in order to maintain your sanity but not talking about it at work and keeping a low social-network profile.
At my previous job, I was an avid woodworker with an entire woodshop in my basement.  It helped keep my head on and provided a social sphere entirely separate from school.

It definitely depends on the one who reads your CV. Those who don't care about hobbies will simply scroll this lines about hobbies. Those who care will decide based on their own opinion.
Also it is nice when it will be possible to do your hobbies at the University you apply to. E.g. "sailing" in the middle of continent would look stupid, but same "sailing" in some seaside city can make sense and add another reason why you would like to work there.

I can't really follow your answer.

What is unclear for you?

I think you misinterpreted the question as pertaining to job seekers as opposed to tenure track faculty. The tenure review in America is possibly an even more peculiar process than the application, which is already vastly different from most job interviews. This advice doesn't seem to apply to the tenure review.

Tim, sorry for my misunderstanding, i did not realize that it is USA only. Tenure track positions exist not only in USA and I meant European way. You are right about peculiarities of both application and review processes. But in the end all the decisions are made by humans, with their own thoughts. It was already mentioned about the work-life balance, I just added some words about what the life can be about.


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Unusual funding issue -- what are my good next steps?
So I got some strange news last week, and I'm hoping someone knows what a good next move in my situation is. I'm an MSci CS student in the U.K., about to graduate.
A while back I got an offer to continue my masters studies in a PhD programme I applied to, at my current university. More recently, I heard that some friends who had also applied had heard back about funding many weeks ago. I did some asking around and found that my funding application never got considered -- due to an administrative error, my funding application was never processed, though I did submit it within the deadline. All funding has now been distributed, but I never had a shot at funding from the school's DTC as a result of this error.
...I have a potential fallback. A company is interested in sponsoring my research -- they'll put 50% toward the fees and living expenses, and the college pays the other 50%. I'm yet to hear back about this from the college's end, but the company has already committed. Note that this funding's coming from the college of science and engineering, of which the CS school is a part -- so the funding can come from two places.
Obviously, I want to maximise my chances of getting out of this scenario with funding. Less obvious is how to go about getting that best shot! With the issue I'm facing regarding DTC funding being kind of unique, I'm not sure that anyone knows what the protocol is. That means I don't know what it'll be possible to make happen. Some suggestions I've had:

There's always the college funding and the industrial application I've got right now.
Using this situation as leverage to try to get the school, rather than the college, to fund the other 50% of the industrial application. This is my prospective supervisor's bet.
As a new tax year brings a new budget, there's potentially a new pool of funding for the DTC for the coming year. I wonder whether I can be considered now for funding from this new pool. Not sure whether that would then affect my start date.
Defer my entry until October 2018 and apply again to the DTC in the coming year. This was the suggested course of action from the admin assistant who made the error -- its also my lowest preference.

Does anyone have an idea as to whether the school is obligated to consider me at all, if I've applied for funding with my admission application? And what might I be able to do to improve my chances? Does anyone have advice on which if the above might be avenues worth exploring?
Thanks!

I'd try escalating it further up in the admin chain (potentially a formal complaint to the dean). Whether or not the school is obligated to reconsider you, this reflects very badly on them. Also, can't you try to pursue all of the above options simultaneously?

I think (2) is your best shot. If that fails, then take the 50% to another university.

@OlgaK escalation hadn't even occurred to me! That's a good idea, thank you. I certainly could pursue all of the options -- and I will! -- but it's also exam & dissertation & flat moving time, so I don't have a ton of time to dedicate, and knowing where my best chances might lie just helps to direct me.

@user2768 Thank you! 2 sounds like a plan to me, too, so that's encouraging... news today is that they might actually have some funding to make that happen, so I might be in luck. Thanks for your advice!

Do try to lay a guilt trip on them (lay the problem at their doorstep).  You can ask them to give you a clear answer to the question, "If my application had been processed, how would I have fared?"


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Travel grants to lecture in a poor country: where to apply?
I have always wanted to lecture at a university in a poor country, something like volunteering. I am currently in Australia and I have been in touch with a colleague in Sierra Leone (West Africa) who mentioned that they need lectures for a specific topic but they cannot afford to get hire one. So I thought of helping for one semester. The problem is traveling is expensive and most likely I will be taking an unpaid leave for that period.
My question is: are there agencies that can provide travel grants or cover some expenses for lecturers willing to volunteer in poor countries? Any pointers will be highly appreciated!

I am US-based, but I assume things work more or less the same.
Do you have a PhD? If so, then I imagine that as long as your colleague is able to put together a decent proposal and formally invite you, you should be able to use whatever travel grants that you hold to travel there (much like traveling to a conference while paying your own way to give a talk, except the duration would be longer). In the US, you would be able to apply to various grants such as the National Science Foundation's research grants, American Mathematical Society - Simons Foundation travel grant, and also American Women in Mathematics travel grant (since it seems that you may be a woman). Any of these grants should be enough to cover a round trip plane ticket to Sierra Leone, and I assume some equivalent agencies exist in Australia.
If you do not have a PhD, then the situation is trickier. Since you do not have the "expertise," the aforementioned agencies are less willing to cover your travel, which is presumably why so many people ask for donations from their family and friends or through Kickstarter campaigns. I have heard that you can also write to various companies and if they think your cause is worthwhile, they may agree to donate some money.

The US has a granting agency that specializes in grants for this purpose - the Fulbright!


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Microaggression in our group towards me
I am a Bulgarian PhD student in Germany. I am Muslim, but not religious. Our group is international and most of the other students are from developed countries.
Since the day I started my PhD, there is one student (she is not German) in our group who has always made me feel bad. My country, my religion, the material I investigated was constantly being made fun of. Every time I felt inadequate and bad. I informed our advisor of her behaviour.
Our advisor told me that she would not talk to her, then said that she was very surprised, then wanted time to think. I should point out that this student behaves very well to profs in our group. If I were a prof, I might had been surprised as well.
Afterwards, our advisor may have talked to her, because she told me 'sorry', but she did it for herself.
I did not know the terms mobbing, racism, discrimination, etc. before. I learned that these are referred to as microaggression.
Despite all this, I don't feel well at all, because I was hurt, humiliated, but she was just warned.
I didn't behave bad to anyone, but it was me who was injured. I even think that I am seen as a sensitive person who causes problems by my advisor. I don't want to be seen as problem child or cry baby. This is also bad for my career.
Should I mention this at the group meeting? Or should I talk about this with my advisor?

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Do not bring it up in the group meeting. This will only reflect negatively on you, and puts the other people involved in a position where an open discourse about the issues is not possible.
You have taken a few steps towards mitigating the issue, and talking to your PI is certainly an option. Your PI seems to have had a chat with the person in question, and a warning is all that is possible without a diary of what happened and when.
There is one more person in your institution that I would strongly encourage you to talk to. The confidential adviser. Every university in Europe will most certainly have one. It is their job to be there for you if you encounter any type of harassment, be it from a superior, fellow PhD student, whoever else. They can provide counsel, but also advise you on how to take further steps without burning bridges.

To add to this, you should probably also have a personal/non-academic supervisor who sits outside of the research group and is there precisely to help with this sort of pastoral issue

What's the official position title for a "confidential adviser", in German universities?

@einpoklum: naming may differ a bit, and there are potentially different types of confidential advisors: Vertrauens(hochschul)lehrer, Vertrauensprofessor would be one possibility. I'd also expect that several people may know whom OP could contact and how exactly that position is named in OP's university:  Ombudspersons (typically specialized on scientific misbehaviour), Personalrat, Prüfungsamt.

I recommend keeping a diary or list of every "micro-aggression." Include dates, times, and witnesses, and keep a copy of any abusive comments that are in written form. If you remember the details of any specific incidents after the apology, you can include those as well. Write down the quotes verbatim (as best as you can remember them); no need to add any comments.
Depending on what this list looks like, you can decide what to do. If there are only a few borderline comments after a few months, maybe the issue is resolved. If there are many egregious comments within a short time period, then it's worth sharing the list with your advisor.
If you do end up discussing this further with your advisor, you can simply present this list. Do not attempt to summarize or comment on the list; there is no need to use words like "micro-aggression," "mobbing," or "racism". Instead, focus on the concrete details of each specific incident. For example: "The list shows that in the past month, she has used the N-word four times, and on nine different occasions, she commented on my religion, using the words: 'A', 'B', or 'C'."
American universities are obsessed with inclusiveness. It's usually pretty hard to fire someone from a university due to interpersonal issues, but an infraction of this sort could absolutely lead to getting fired. I do not know if this aspect of academic culture is the same in Germany, but I suspect that this sort of thing would be taken quite seriously there as well. Good luck.

The last paragraph quite clearly describes a witch-hunt: on the one hand, it is hard to fire someone, and on the other, it is easy for an "infraction of this sort". All of this concerns American academia. Then a hope is expressed that a similar strategy could work in Germany.

I fail to see how I "promote a witch hunt" -- what a thing to say! On the contrary, I suggested collecting evidence before making a complaint. The third paragraph states that being a jerk is generally not enough to get you fired from a university, whereas creating a hostile work environment might be. I did not offer an opinion on this, nor any "hopes" about other countries being similar. On the contrary, I was being very transparent about any potential cultural bias (though, in fact, I am very familiar with several European languages and cultures generally, including Germany's).

@YuvalFilmus Oh come on. On one hand, a completely valid statement for most European Universities is "It is hard to fire any person in a permanent academic role", and on the other, it is easy "for an infraction including sexual misconduct, drug or alcohol use at the workplace". So, (leaving the charged topic of sexual misconduct out of it), according to your explanation, would you say that firing a professor e.g. who drunkenly staggered into the classroom spurring nonsense is "a witch-hunt" as well? Or would this be a sort of infraction that justifies easy firing of such a person?

This would not be a useful thing to do unless OP wanted to expend a lot of effort in a prolonged confrontation with that colleague. And it would have the detrimental effect of keeping OP preoccupied with this matter.

OP describes "constantly" being made fun of, and being made to feel "hurt and humiliated." If the aggression is truly this severe, then it seems that being preoccupied with this matter is unavoidable. But if these are just occasional snide comments, then I might better understand the answers suggesting that OP should brush this off. Writing down the quotes verbatim in a diary is a good way for OP to judge (and let others judge) how severe this truly is.

That's a bad advise, actually. Just focus on your PhD work instead, unless you're PhD in psychology or sociology, of course. )

Evidently, your advisor has talked to her and she has apologised to you.  It is not clear to me why you characterise her apology as inadequate, but if you think it's inadequate or insincere, you are certainly free to view it that way.  There are two issues in tension in this kind of situation.  On the one hand we want people to interact nicely with each other, particularly when working in small groups, and to that end we often want people to avoid upsetting each other in relation to sensitive topics.  On the other hand, we also want people to have the freedom to voice their opinions on practices pertaining to countries, religions, etc., and to have the general academic freedom to criticise (or even mock) ideas and practices they don't agree with.  University is a good place to expose students to the fact that others may be critical of their religion, their country, their research work, etc., and they should consider that criticism analytically and use it to build up a better knowledge of their own beliefs and ideas.
It is a natural reaction to feel bad when you hear criticism of something personal to you, so I don't think anyone is going to consider you a "cry-baby" for bringing it up.  It's also not clear from your question how far things went, and maybe she crossed the line.  Nevertheless, rather than seeing these events as an injury, I would recommend that you take the route of the open-minded-scholar and look at this criticism as a thing that you can analyse, and that can help you to understand the world better.  Either you will conclude that her criticisms (e.g., of Islam) have no valid basis and reject them, or you will conclude that there is some validity in those criticisms and incorporate that knowledge into your ideas and beliefs.  This is one of the benefits of a university education and the academic environment more generally --- you are exposed to ideas/arguments that run counter to your own beliefs (often on very personal subjects) and if you receive these criticisms analytically, this strengthens your understanding of your own beliefs and the world.
I have noticed that in the younger generation of students there is a tendancy to retreat from criticism of personal things and treat this as a form of abuse, rather than treating it as an opportunity to learn and strengthen your own character.  When I was a student it was more common for us to have late-night "bull sessions" where students would argue passionately over all sorts of sensitive issues --- theism-vs-atheism, Christianity-versus-Buddhism, communism-vs-capitalism, criticisms and defences of this country, that country, our own country, this religion, that religion, this group, that group, etc.  Sometimes you'd even play Devil's Advocate for a view you didn't agree with just to keep the conversation interesting and tease out the argument.  This was usually quite interesting and it tended to hone your ability to understand and defend your own views on a topic, while also exposing you to some critiques that you could use as food-for-thought in developing your own ideals later.  If we'd been beholden to the idea of "microaggressions" back then, I think a lot of that learning would have been lost.
If you decide you'd like to talk more about this, I'd encourage you to consider talking directly to this other student rather than to your group, advisor, etc.  I'd also recommend that you approach it from the perspective of learning and strengthening your own knowledge.  See if you can understand why this student finds your country/religion/work worthy of mockery, and subject her reasoning for this to your own logical scrutiny.  You might then find that you can come up with a reasonable counter-argument (and maybe even some zingers to return fire) that gives you a strengthened knowledge of your own religion, work, etc.  University years are a great time in life to do this.

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You are right to be offended by this behavior. You seem to have done the right thing so far. This is a problem for your advisor/PI to fix and they may have taken the first steps.
I would avoid bringing it up in a group for the present to see how it develops. If it continues you may need to. But you can also develop friendships with others in the group (and generally) so that if the behavior continues you will have allies who can vouch for your concerns.
But making it a public issue will most likely harden those improper views, not lead to a correction. Keep your advisor informed. The attitudes may not change, but the behavior might. Some people will actually get satisfaction from pushback.
As you move from one culture to another you will find people who are extremely xenophobic and feel that they are "obviously" superior. It is best to ignore them if you can do so without it resulting in actual harm to yourself or others. You would probably find the same thing in other countries as well (the US, for example). But universities are a bit better at this than other environments.

And, for the record, it would also be offensive behavior if you were religious.

Maybe other step is to document in some time-stamped format when things happen. Basically a note to self that could be verified for date/time by someone external if needed

In some places it is legal to record conversations without the permission of both parties. Other places it is illegal.

Document is written not audio

The answers here are good especially as regards American academia where terms like micro aggression have taken root and are very much in. I'm not exactly sure about Germany, but Europe in general is much less understanding regarding these (real or perceived) slights. What you describe is certainly not mobbing (which would be bullying of an individual by a group) but might be racism (assuming you're a different race from the other student) or just general discrimination/xenophobia. It might also just be personal antipathy or misunderstanding of some kind.
Based on your description this is one student of a group who is being verbally insensitive to you. In Europe professors are usually not particularly used to dealing with interpersonal problems between students especially ones at the PHD level. They treat them as adults and expect them to be able to handle their interpersonal problems on their own unless the conduct very clearly violates social norms or threatens to be legally problematic. You don't actually specifically say what happened and so it's hard to judge, but given the way you describe your interaction with the professor so far, it is quite possible you have already been labeled a crybaby and/or problem student. I'm basing that more on how the professor reacted than what you did.
Now what to do about it. This depends a lot on the exact details. I strongly second the advice to find peers in the group and become friends with them. This allows you to have someone that can support you in any further confrontations and also to possibly get an opinion of someone else on what is going on and  be able to shape that opinion to exert peer pressure on the student you are having problems with. Unless the violations are quite egregious I would strongly advise against bringing them up in the group or going over your advisors head. While this might work in the US I think in Europe it's still more likely to make problems for you than the other student especially since she's female and seems to be in good standing with the establishment.
As a side note I wrote this assuming you are yourself female, if you are actually male it's much more complex and much more likely to be problematic for you. In Europe males are still mostly expected to be able to deal with their own problems and shut up about it.
I realize this answer is probably not going to be very popular, but I think it's a much realistic take on the European situation.

Not detracting from any other answer, it seems to me that you should try to find additional sources of emotional support/affirmation outside your research group. That is, suppose you were back in your country, surrounded by friends and perhaps family, and some person would make derogatory comments about you. It's likely you would tell your friends this, or your spouse, or your family, and they would reply "Who does that woman think she is? Where does she get off making these comments? You know, something similar happened to me, blah blah blah" and you would have a conversation about it. But as a foreign PhD candidate, you might be mostly alone out of the workplace, or perhaps mostly interact with people with whom you're not close enough to share these things with. That increases the severity of being offended, because your research group are almost all of your "emotional surroundings".
I would also recommend some physical activity for general emotional welfare, but that's regardless of your specific circumstances.

@Trunk: No, I'm not worried about that. As far as we can tell, the supervisor acted and the harassing colleague has stopped and apologized.

@Trunk: Based on the first sentence of the answer, I think it is also fair to say that this answer is of the form "Here are some things you can do, possibly in addition to other things..." rather than "Here are some things you can do to the exclusion of all other things...".

It's very hard for an adviser to deal with these things. Where I work there are people who simply don't get along. One of my group members, for example, shares an office with someone who hates him. I have no idea why, because they hated him from the first day he walked into the office. In any case, I have tried to find a solution to the conflict, I talked to both people and to my superiors and I couldn't do anything. And these aren't graduate students, they are senior researchers.
The one doing the microaggressions (or full scale aggressions whenever they are in a bad mood) is the first colleague. When I talked to them, they told me my group member was opening the office window when they wanted it shut, that they speak too loud, or they close the door too fast. I have witnessed and stopped some screaming matches and I personally believe my first colleague is at fault here. I have not gotten to the bottom of why is everything happening, though I have a few suspicions.
It's been two years since this whole thing started and both of them have reached some kind of truce. That's the best we could do within the boundaries of our workplace. The truce happened because my group member started to push back on the bullying. I have the feeling that my influence and attempts at making peace between them had very little effect on the evolution of their relationship.
I have witnessed even worse situations. One of my colleagues got bullied until she quit and sued my institute. She won. The bully was a former boss of hers. It started with microaggressions and it went on over many years, until she got fed up and reported him. The bosses did nothing because they were friends with that guy.
The microaggressions either come from insensitive people, or from people who just want to hurt you. The latter know that it's hard to prove them, and they can always say you're making stuff up. In families, in my country, this is the preferred form of war between mother in law and daughter in law. Whoever starts, eventually they both hurt each other in this way.
I personally deal with microaggressions by simply sucking it up or ignoring them. "Yeah, whatever" is my preferred answer to those. In my case, it works always. Some of my friends simply call the microaggressor out. If it really gets to us, we complain to our friends. A good venting session always helps.
In conclusion, my recommendation is to find an outlet for all that stress you accumulate when dealing with this person. Friends are the best at taking your side. Then, when your head is clear, you should think seriously about escalating the issue further.

Just a small comment, there is a huge difference between a boss being the person who is being problematic vs. a colleague. Neither is great but a power differential very much changes the situation.

@Trunk As people age and keep failing at things that should work, they start feeling powerless.


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How to effectively use blogging as a tool to gain visibility in academia
While a lot has been said in this site about the importance of visibility in academia, I specifically want to know about the effectiveness of blogs: are blogs an effective means to communicate your presence in the field? I envisage the blog to contain posts which informally talk about selective publications.
What points should one consider when writing blogs about published papers? It is a significant challenge not to exceed the usual blog lengths when writing on a technical paper. Are there effective tips an academic blogger should keep in mind?

A helpful blog post on this question: http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/2013/03/why-i-blog-and-why-you-should-too/

What points should one consider when writing blogs about published papers? — Rule 1: Don't just write about other people's papers.

Many bloggers use Twitter to connect with others and 'advertise' whenever they have a new post. If you are well connected on Twitter, more and more people might start following you (through recommendations) and read your blog.

I think it is well accepted that an online presence for early career researchers is a good thing, even though a minority actually have one. As an example, blogs on my website have been reposted a few times on various news sites, and they also appear high up the search engine list for keywords relating to my field of research. I also managed to get invited to speak on the back of my website, so in my experience a website really does improve your visibility.
The first challenge with blogs is deciding who they are aimed at. Remembering back to my early PhD, understanding papers was hard, and so I decided that I would focus on researchers in my field (magnetism) but try and avoid all unnecessary jargon, which should also make it accessible to undergraduates in the discipline. If you are blogging about your publications, then it means you can simplify the result for a broader audience, without compromising on the detail (those who are interested can look up the paper on your site - don't make them hunt for it or have it stuck behind a pay wall).
My main tips for an academic blog are:

Talk about all your publications - what is the main result in laymans terms and specify why it is important.
Don't worry too much about length limits. Academics are used to reading long documents and a blog a couple of pages long doesn't take long to skim. However, research is generally technical and so it is difficult to write a superficial post such as 'I had omelette for tea' or some such.
A blog is as much about you as the subject, so write in the first person and include your wider activities. For example, I always write up conference visits and talks I have attended/done.
Pictures and figures are a lot more effective than words, so use these extensively if you can.


text:
PhD opportunities when lacking publications
This question in some sense, complements  this question. Suppose a good student completes his master's degree in a less-than-top-ranked university. He has excellent academic grades both in his bachelor's and master's, but unfortunately has not experienced the best research 'atmosphere' in his post-grad and so does not have any publications thus far in his career.
It is a hugely relevant practical issue: low-ranked universities woo good students by providing them full funding plus scholarships for their master's, so there are many cases where students prefer them to top colleges where funding is not assured. After completion of graduation, these students desire to go for a PhD in top universities. So the question is this:

How does a bright student with excellent grades but lacking in publications secure an admit in a top school?

One obvious answer is to formulate an excellent research problem and to convince professors of his research ideas pertaining to the problem. Any other useful suggestions?

The answer to your question is that such a student rarely does.

@Bravo: Charles makes a good point. Are you trying to get into an American PhD program? From my experience many people do graduate Master's programs with publications in the US.

You have to make the case that your research potential outweighs your lack of research output.
The only places to make that case are your research statement and your letters.  Both your statement and your letters should make it clear that you are an active researcher, even though you are not yet published.  Your statement should describe the specific research problem(s) that you are pursuing, promising and specific partial results, and a specific and well-informed plan of attack.
Similarly, letters from faculty at your MS department should describe your independence, stubbornness, intellectual maturity, and so on, in specific and credible detail.  When you ask for letters, ask your references specifically if they can write a strong letter about your research potential.  Ideally, your references should admit that their department doesn't provide you with the environment that you need to thrive as a researcher.  And it really hurts to write “[Bravo] can do better than us,” so it better be true.
Admissions committees (at least the ones I've been on) do take applicants' previous institutions into account when judging research records.  We know that  applicants from most 4-year liberal arts colleges don't have as many opportunities for computer science research as applicants from (say) MIT, so our expectations for MIT applicants are higher.  So your lack of publications may not hurt you as much if your MS department is known to have a weak research atmosphere.
However: Do not suggest in your application that your lack of publications is your MS department's fault.  You may believe it's their fault, and you might even be right.  But if you actually write that it's their fault, you'll come across as someone eager to blame others for your weaknesses.  No matter how good you are at research, nobody will admit you if they think you're a jerk.

This is another one of those questions that defies easy categorization. If you are applying, for instance, to a "hard" engineering discipline, it's not normally expected that a MSc would have any "external" publication record of any kind, and, as such, not having one would not weight against the candidate in admissions considerations. (All things being equal, of course, the candidate with a publication record might be prioritized over one without.) Similarly, any student coming from a European bachelor's/master's system, where the expected output is a master's thesis, but not necessarily journal publications, I would weight accordingly. (I might ask for a copy of the master's thesis.)
Similarly, if the degree is coursework-only, then this should be clearly stated as part of the application. The challenge will then be to get some support from the letters of reference of your capability to do research.
For fields where some publication record is expected, I'd follow JeffE's advice.


text:
How should an academic negotiate his/her salary?
This is a follow-up question to this question of mine, where I wanted to know if academic salaries can be negotiated.
How does an academic negotiate a pay package that has been offered? What special points in one's profile must be emphasised in order to get a favourable bargain? Are there any standard cards (tricks) that must be played?
PS: The negotiator is assumed to be fresh out of his doctorate.

This probably requires more details to be answered, doesn't it? As said in the answers to your linked question, this depends heavily on your place (and employer). Some employers have fixed grid, no negotiation possible: in such a system, you can, however, require a promotion (assistant prof to associate prof, associate prof to full professor, full prof to senior prof, …) that would entail a pay raise. In other places, there are bonuses depending on an evaluation of your performance: then, instead of negotiation a pay raise, you would make sure to increase your chances of a positive evaluation.

Thanks Fx. I had a person fresh out of PhD in my mind. And a place where neg. is possible...

For a general discussion on salary negotiation tactics, which is fairly relevant here as well, I would strongly recommend reading this fairly long and very detailed article in it's entirety.

@eykanal Thanks for the article link. It has some great advice!

It's important to remember that you're negotiating a package, not a salary. In other words, there is a set of things you're negotiating for, and you can play games in that space to get most of what you need. Limiting yourself to salary negotiation is tricky because salaries are often the most constrained part of the package (especially in public universities in the US), and the one the chair/dean has the least power to change.
So remember that your success at the job depends on your ability to recruit students, procure resources and bootstrap your research program. Which means you need startup money to pay students, lab space and equipment money as needed, teaching relief if that helps you focus on research, and so on. Throw these all into the mix when you negotiate, so that if you give up something along one dimension, you can try to parlay that into a gain along a different dimension.
Also understand who you're really negotiating with, and what powers they really have to offer you things. This can be found out by talking with your supporters at the department (you must have some, otherwise you wouldn't have an offer) and also folks at other institutions.

Thanks @Suresh, I have one question on this. Salaries in public univs are known and give some idea on how to bargain. But how does one get some idea on the startup packages? Should one list the possible resources and make an idea of the expenses by himself?

Startup packages don't vary greatly from university to university in the US, when evaluated in transferrable currency (number of students, number of summer months of support, etc). So one could ask people in comparable universities for suggestions. For things like equipment, it helps to provide a breakdown and pricing (by going to some website and pricing things out).

+1 for the package perspective. You have to get to know the package, which takes time as it's complex. Things I didn't realize I could negotiate at the time I was hired were not explained, and I was not looking at all the dimensions. The "supporters" @Suresh speaks of should be able to give you insight. Even a guaranteed lab space for students is something I could have negotiated.

To a first approximation, you have two ways of negotiating for a higher salary, namely fairness and leverage from other offers.
If your offer is not in line with what other people have received under similar circumstances at the same institution, then you can ask them to address this.  If you make a convincing case, they may improve the offer, either out of a desire to do the right thing or out of fear of embarrassment if the details became known (for example, if it suggests discrimination).  However, it's rare for there to be enough information to make an objective case for unfairness.  Unless the offer is really outrageous, you aren't likely to have much success with this sort of argument: probably, the administration will just explain why they think it's fair.
By far the most successful way to negotiate is based on other offers.  This gives you concrete proof that another university values you more than this one seems to, and you can make a credible threat of going there instead.  You can't necessarily expect to get other offers matched exactly, since the comparison always involves a complicated mix of benefits, cost of living analysis, departmental quality, etc.  However, it at least gives you a powerful way to start the conversation, and you'll have a lot of leverage if you might plausibly accept the other offer instead.
Incidentally, the worst mistake naive job candidates make is to accept a job offer and then try to negotiate.  During the period when you have offers but haven't accepted yet, you are in a better negotiating position than you ever will be later.  As soon as you accept, almost all your power disappears.

In some cases (for example in Germany), most academic positions are paid according to collectively negotiated labour agreements. The universities have little room to deviate from this (at the professor level things are different, though). The wages are paid according to scales corresponding to different "function levels", and each scale consists of a certain number of steps. The number of steps you get for free is based on your previous experience. It might be possible to negiotate an extra step, but this is usually difficult. In principle you can be placed in a higher scale, but this depends on the specific tasks you will be responsible for. For example, a postdoc leading his/her own group can be in a higher scale than a postdoc without such responsibilities.
In short, negotiating salary may be difficult in such a system, since the universities are bound to the collective labour agreements. In the Netherlands the situation is similar.

+1 for the collective agreement perspective (I'm at a Quebec university where this is the case). However, as pointed out in another answer, there are many dimensions where administration can have freedom. In my case, I was able to get a reduced course load for the first 2 years, a hiring bonus for the first year, assurance that the school would apply for a provincial 5-year income-tax waiver (a government program), etc.

I think the first thing you need to ask is do you want a raise. While it may seem obvious that more money is better, I would argue that this is not the case since the raise comes with other "costs". In the simplest case, would you rather a raise of x, or an increased startup package of 10x? While not directly linked, your total "cost" (including space) is a factor.
There are two problems with seeking a raise. First, they are hard to justify. Universities want you to do good research. The effect of a raise on research output is hard to see, while the effect of an extra RA for a year is easy to see. Further, a small increase in salary now projects to large future costs for the university. The university will keep that number in their head during negotiation. A raise means you might top out on the pay scale earlier, so your pay may stagnate (meaning the university over estimated the cost of the initial raise). This means that overall the raise is not good value for money.
You might argue that a raise is the only way increase the money in your pocket. In the short run this is true, but in the long run, better research might lead to more money.