actions we must take to address that topic, and there is a clearly defined marker of success (completing grad school with the terminal degree of your choice). However, once one leaves grad school, the goal posts move. As a postdoc, you know you are supposed to publish– because that will make you competitive for a second postdoc, or perhaps for a faculty job. If you’re in your second postdoc, you’re also supposed to publish, for the same reasons. If you pass go and move on to being junior faculty, you are once again supposed to publish, but now you’re also supposed to get grants, teach classes, and mentor students. In some ways it’s no wonder that publication record becomes a proxy for productivity– it’s a number, something quantifiable that one can quickly determine. The impact of other activities, by comparison, may seem “squishier” and more complicated.

It is also true that some activities in astronomy are more valued in hiring than others– a very common complaint I hear is that many junior astronomers are interested in outreach and public communication of their science, but that these activities are either not valued, or worse, public-facing activities are actively discouraged because they 