Leslie McClure, PhD on hidden mentoring and scandalous horse stuff

 Leslie McClure, PhD, Chair of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Drexel, discusses the benefits of hidden mentoring, what it feels like to be a department chair, and the impact of early-career failure on her trajectory. She also talks hot flashes, foolishly cutting her own bangs, that horse thing with Daniel Radcliffe, and more!

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Leslie McClure:

Okay. I did stop, not stop, but I did talk to a stranger on my bike ride today.

Lisa Bodnar:

Did you?

Leslie McClure:

She was playing music on her bike ride and it was, I like big butts. I was like, "Thank you so much for your music. I love this song."

Lisa Bodnar:

Were you singing along "My anaconda don't want none”

Leslie McClure:

“unless you got buns, hun."

As a woman with a butt, I've always loved that song.

Lisa Bodnar:

Me too. Yeah, “you can do side bends or sit-ups.”

Leslie McClure:

“But please don't lose that butt.”

Lisa Bodnar:

Hello Shiny Epi friends. I'm Lisa Bodnar welcome to the show. I'm really glad you're here. Today I have the pleasure of talking to Leslie McClure. Leslie is a professor and chair of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel School of Public Health. Her PhD is actually in biostats, but she certainly is a Shiny Epi person in my mind. I had been actually following Leslie for a couple of years on Twitter, and then finally met her at our last annual epidemiology conference. I wanted to meet her because online, I found her to be not only accomplished, but also authentic. Leslie just won the Janet Norwood award for outstanding achievement by a woman in statistics--a prestigious national award in her field. And while these and many other awards and achievements illustrate on paper, that she's an important valued woman in our field. You will see through even our short conversation the real value that she brings.

Leslie McClure:

Hey, Lisa.

Lisa Bodnar:

Welcome to the show. So glad you're here.

Leslie McClure:

Thanks for having me. It's so fun to be here.

Lisa Bodnar:

Your hair looks really nice.

Leslie McClure:

It's so long. And everyone's like, "Oh, your hair's so long." I'm like, "It's way too fucking long."

Lisa Bodnar:

What if you like gave it a hack?

Leslie McClure:

I'm a little scared to because, the only time I've ever cut my own hair is when I gave myself bangs. And that did not end well.

Lisa Bodnar:

Tell me about that.

Leslie McClure:

Oh no! It was like, Oh, they're not even, it's the normal thing, right? They're not even, I need to get a little shorter until I'm standing there in the mirror, crying. "Take the scissors away from me."

Lisa Bodnar:

How old were you?

Leslie McClure:

I was married. So 23, this was not a high school kid. This was like "How hard can this be, right?". Oh my God.

Lisa Bodnar:

Did you have bangs? And then you just decided to…

Leslie McClure:

I decided I need bangs. Oh yeah. Bad idea.

Lisa Bodnar:

Oh, that's a terrible idea. Like there's a whole science. To where your bangs should start and end. And I don't even know.

Leslie McClure:

It was terrible idea.

Lisa Bodnar:

You're such, a well respected, well-known leader in public health. There are so many things I admire about you, but one of them is the fact that you are very comfortable being vulnerable.

Leslie McClure:

I mean, I think it's something I've grown into as I've gotten older, that I've just gotten more comfortable with who I am and my failures and my successes and talking about them, I think is important because nobody talked about them to me. In academics, we look around and we see all these people who have these amazing CVs. They don't ever tell you that it wasn't an easy path to get there. Once I started talking to people about my struggles, people would open up and it became really clear that we're all struggling with different things. And you know, we don't celebrate our failures. We don't say, "Oh shit, I got another paper rejected for the fourth time today." Which I did by the way. I think when I was more junior, it just seemed more important when I had failures. If a paper didn't get accepted, it was like," Oh my God, this is the end of the world." And I think as I've gotten older, I've just realized that's not true. Right? And my whole life and my whole career don't hinge on that paper.

Lisa Bodnar:

When I say those types of things, I worry that I am saying that because I'm at a place where a paper doesn't make or break my career. Would that have applied to me when I was at that stage? Or is it only because I have the long view that I'm not remembering that, no, I really needed that paper in order to get that promotion. You know what I mean?

Leslie McClure:

No, I think that's a great point. And I do a lot of times qualify things when I say them with, I have the benefit of being senior, but I also think that part of why those are such hard things to deal with is because we personalize them. And so if I get a paper rejected, when I was younger, I would be like, I'm terrible at this. Right? And that's not what it means. Being able to separate that from who I am, that's what I do. This is who I am. And I think that was something I got better at earlier in my career that maybe I wasn't so flippant. Oh, it's just one paper it's not going to make or break my career. But I was able to separate that from, I am terrible at this and I should quit.

Leslie McClure:

And I think that's really important to remember that, when you do get a paper back and you see these reviews, it's not a review of you as a person. It's a review, it's a critique of this work. And it's so hard to separate that because we spend so much time doing this work that it feels so personal. Thinking about experiences I had and how I reacted to them. I like to talk about that. I failed my qualifying exam.

Lisa Bodnar:

Did you?

Leslie McClure:

I did the first time I took it. And it was a time at Michigan where, no students that anyone could remember had failed their exam. And I was the first.

Lisa Bodnar:

Uh-uh (negative).

Leslie McClure:

Yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

How did that feel in the moment?

Leslie McClure:

Oh my gosh, it was devastating. Right? It didn't even cross my radar that I could fail. And I really had to sit and think about, did I want to try and take it again?

Leslie McClure:

So it was, but it was devastating. And it was really, it really solidified my imposter syndrome. So I should be clear. I had, there were two parts of the exam, the applied and the theory and I failed the theory part and Michigan is a... So I, my PhD is in biostat and Michigan's a very theoretical program. And everyone around me, they were getting promoted and tenured for their methods work. And I wasn't seeing examples of people that were being successful as collaborators who were helping other scientists do their work and writing papers that appeal to clinical audiences. And so, it took me a long time to not think I was a failure because I wasn't doing what the faculty around me and my PhD were doing.

Lisa Bodnar:

And once you were out of your PhD, did you then start to see examples of people who had degrees in biostats and who were doing the things that you thought that resonated more, were a better fit for you?

Leslie McClure:

Yeah. I was really, really lucky to be hired at UAB at the University of Alabama, at Birmingham, where people were being more collaborative and, I was really good at grant writing. And really I am, I shouldn't say I was. I am really good at grant writing and a really good collaborator. Being collaborative was valued. And I learned that you can be a good biostatistician and be collaborative. There's all these different things you can do with a PhD in biostatistics. So, so you can be in a teaching, primarily teaching position. So I have a colleague who got a PhD at UNC, another top program. And he's now at West Chester University, very happily in a teaching position. You can work at a cancer center where you're primarily collaborating, almost never teaching, doing fewer methods papers. You can work in a department like I was at UAB, or we have at Drexel where you're very collaborative and that's valued, or you can work at a place where you're doing methods work.

Leslie McClure:

And then of course you can go into industry. You can go into government, you can go into nonprofits and you can do, anything, you can go work at Google now and make three times what I make as department chair. And I don't know why I don't.

Lisa Bodnar:

Why don't you?

Leslie McClure:

I love working with students. I love mentoring.

Lisa Bodnar:

What do you like so much about it?

Leslie McClure:

I like seeing other people be successful. And so, with students, and then now as department chair, big part of my job is mentoring and helping other people be successful.

Lisa Bodnar:

One of the things about mentoring that I've started to realize is that you will have more of an impact in academia by mentoring than you ever will in your research. The idea that you can affect so many other people's trajectories and help push them along, it's like this multiplicative effect, right? That you send them off and then they go and they do great things. And then they train other people to do great things. And then it just keeps going.

Leslie McClure:

I know mentoring is such an important aspect of what we do, and I think the best parts of it are the hidden mentoring, the mentoring that's happening when we don't know what's even happening yet.

Lisa Bodnar:

Can you talk about that? That's cool.

Leslie McClure:

One of my best mentors was Kathryn Chaloner. She was the chair of biostatistics at the University of Iowa. Our paths crossed through mutual work through the Math Alliance. I think I was a junior faculty. I was an assistant professor when I first met her. She and I would have just offhanded conversations, in a cab on the way to the airport or waiting in line to check in at the airport or over breakfast when we were both at a meeting and she also had an academic spouse and she would talk about things like how they each took a year and worked part-time when their kids were born and they really seem to have a really equitable relationship.

Leslie McClure:

And just to have an example of that, because I didn't have a lot of examples of that beforehand. And I remember one of the things she said to me was, "I noticed there weren't a lot of female full professors in your department. When are you going to go up for full professor?" And that was just the nudge I needed to start the process for promotion. And it's not that anyone at UAB was trying to hold me back, but nobody had thought to say, "I think you're ready."

Leslie McClure:

Of course, as a woman, I was hesitant to say, "I think I'm ready." I don't think if you asked her, she would say, "Oh yeah, I was mentoring Leslie." Right? She was just having conversation with me and, there's other people I think about who again, I don't think Karen Bandeen-Roche at Hopkins would consider herself a mentor for me, but she's a very wise person and she's done amazing things in her department. And she's someone I totally look up to as a role model. And anytime she speaks, I listen intently because I know whatever she says, is going to be really insightful.

Lisa Bodnar:

There are some women at Pitt who, I'll just have a meeting with every couple of years. And I'm just like, "Hey, could we talk?" And they it's just like you were saying, these little, these gems that, and they're just talking, right? They're not like, "Here are my gems." They just talk. And they're so smart. And so savvy that I'm just sitting there with bated breath.

Leslie McClure:

I think we have this idea that mentoring is this formal relationship, or you have regular meetings, but we forget about that there's other ways that you can learn from people. And there's other ways that people can serve as a mentor that isn't this, “I'm going to meet you on Tuesdays at three o'clock for an hour. And here's our agenda.”

Lisa Bodnar:

As you've gotten further along in your career, you still rely on mentors to the same extent as you did before. Right?

Leslie McClure:

Maybe even more so, because again as I get further along, there's more things I have to do that I wasn't trained to do.

Lisa Bodnar:

Like what?

Leslie McClure:

Oh my gosh, annual reviews, for instance. And I mean, now I'm doing it for my sixth time. So now I know, but I don't know what to do, how to approach that. How to assign teaching. They're very concrete things. The flip side of that is, as I've gotten further along in my career, it gets harder and harder to find mentors because there's fewer people doing what I'm doing. The assumption is as you get further along, you need mentoring less. And so it's, definitely been more of me reaching out to people and saying, "Do you want to talk a little bit? I've got".... when I have, for instance, when I was negotiating to be chair, I had no idea.

Leslie McClure:

What do you ask for? I was fortunate to have some colleagues who were really helpful in that and say, okay, here's what you should do. Here's how to think about it. And so I try to pay that forward now. And I know other people who are looking for chair positions or negotiating, I'm always like, "I'm happy to help. I'm am happy to share." And especially as a woman, women are much less likely to negotiate for more resources than men. And so, it's hard to think about what am I worth? What's reasonable? And what I might think is reasonable is different from what you might think. So, having good mentoring for that was really helpful.

Lisa Bodnar:

Is it lonely being the chair of a department?

Leslie McClure:

It is, it's really lonely. Yeah. There are a lot of things that I just have nobody to talk to about, and it's not even their secrets, but when I get stuck on an issue or a question from a faculty member, 50% of the time, it's something that I can't talk about with another faculty member. And so it is lonely and it is hard because people see me as the boss and even the people I have a close relationship with in the department, I still have to do their annual evaluation. And so there is this power differential, whether I think I have any power or not.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. That must be tough. How have you dealt with people pleasing tendencies, while also being the chair of a department?

Leslie McClure:

So I've really worked on that actually, when I came to Drexel about a year after I started, I did this program called the ELAM program. It's executive leadership in academic medicine. And as part of that, you do a 360 evaluation. And one of the comments that I got from a couple of people, was that I try too hard to build consensus. And so that's something I've really worked on was, how to gather information without being paralyzed by trying to please everyone. And actually one of the things I think I do pretty well is, I've learned how to have difficult conversations. I've realized that it only gets worse if you don't. And actually one of my staff members likes to tell me that I do a really good job of saying, "You're doing a shitty job." But making it sound like I'm being really nice.

Lisa Bodnar:

Can you say to me, I'm doing a shitty job so I can see what that sounds like.

Leslie McClure:

Lisa, I know you've been working really hard, but it just doesn't feel like you're meeting the goals that we set out for you to meet. So let's talk about how we can, get you to where you need to be rather than where you are. Right?

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. That's super. Let's talk quickly about work-life balance, Leslie, because as a woman with children, our to-do list is endless, right? How do you manage that?

Leslie McClure:

It causes me a lot of stress that I have a long to-do list. I remember when I was a new assistant professor, my chair, I would say, "Gosh, I have so much to do." And he's like, "You'll just be happier when you realize that you're never going to cross everything off your to-do list." And he's right. But I still try, but I, have to have other things. I know myself. And I know that if I don't take breaks, if I try to work like crazy, I get burned out. I talk a lot about work-life balance. I do work a lot in the evenings or on the weekends, but usually it's, I'm sitting in front of the TV with my daughter. But never anything that takes high intense focus. But I know if I work through the weekend Monday, I'm a waste.

Leslie McClure:

Yeah. And then having children... So when, my daughter was born and having children, it forces you, she needed to eat, right? She's not going to feed herself. And I think that actually, as they're getting older, the danger of, they can do much more for themselves that now I need to make that work-life balance more intentional. So I will say that for me, one of the things that's been super helpful is I have a supportive partner who, I am not the room mom, I'm never going to be the room mom at school, but he is. And he likes that, and he'll be on the PTA and he'll do all of that shit so that I don't have to. And I'm really fortunate that his career goals are different than mine. And so, he's willing to, and, supportive of having a spouse who wants to be a department chair, work-life balance looks different for everyone. I mean, it's for sure it’s hard. And you know, when people ask me about it, I'm like, "You have to figure out what's important for you."

Lisa Bodnar:

And I don't think we do a good enough job with people who are mentoring to talk about, what are those things? They can be anything you want them to be. I'm not going to judge any of those choices, but you need to figure out what they are.

Leslie McClure:

I talk a lot, with my department, about my family, about what I did over the weekend. I always ask them, but I try to make it a point to show that I'm not working all the time and I don't expect that they will be either. And to show that, you can be successful and not work all the time. And I think that it's really important to have leaders who make it a point to humanize what we do.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. You want to talk about fun stuff?

Leslie McClure:

Sure.

Leslie McClure:

Wait, this has been fun. This has all been fun.

Lisa Bodnar:

100%. What's the best thing about getting older?

Leslie McClure:

Oh, that I don't have to give a shit anymore.

Lisa Bodnar:

Totally!

Leslie McClure:

If people have a problem with me, that's their problem.

Lisa Bodnar:

Who the fuck cares?

Leslie McClure:

Why does it take us so long to figure that out?

Lisa Bodnar:

You know what? I think a lot of people, even at our age, they still give fucks.

Leslie McClure:

Right? Yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

And I think that's really unfortunate, but I don't, give a fuck.

Leslie McClure:

I don't have time to give a fuck. Right?

Lisa Bodnar:

No.

Leslie McClure:

That's why I think as I've gotten older, my friend groups gotten smaller, to really the people who I really want to be around because I don't have time to deal with drama and bullshit, nor do I want to.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. That's great. Is there anything you decided to pursue in quarantine that you abandoned?

Leslie McClure:

Quesadillas.

Lisa Bodnar:

What does that mean?

Leslie McClure:

I ate quesadillas for lunch every single day, for three months. And by then I was like, "Oh shit! We're not going back to work." And I could not keep eating cheese and bread for lunch every single day.

Lisa Bodnar:

So you were like, I'm pursuing quesadillas and now I'm not pursuing quesadillas.

Leslie McClure:

I will tell you Lisa, you can put anything in a quesadilla. Right? Leftover hot dog, put in a quesadilla, eat it with sauerkraut. Leftover pulled pork, put in a quesadilla, eat it with barbecue sauce. I put everything in a quesadilla.

Lisa Bodnar:

I see. Okay. But now you're done, with quesadilla.

Leslie McClure:

We are over.

Lisa Bodnar:

Sorry, quesadillas.

Leslie McClure:

It was fun while it lasted.

Lisa Bodnar:

So if you could make a 20-second phone call to yourself at any point in your life, either in the present, the future or the past, when would you call and what would you say?

Leslie McClure:

I would call myself in 2019 and say, buy stock in Zoom, right?

Lisa Bodnar:

Yes.

Leslie McClure:

I'm creeping up on paying for college. And that would really go a long way towards that.

Lisa Bodnar:

Do you have any talents?

Leslie McClure:

So my family is like, "You don't have any talent." So the only thing we could come up with is that I can fake burp really well.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. You can't just say that and not do it.

Leslie McClure:

Oh, that wasn't a good one.

Lisa Bodnar:

It was a real burp.

Leslie McClure:

Oh yeah.Though I can make myself burp. Can you make yourself burp?

Lisa Bodnar:

No.

Leslie McClure:

No? My daughter tried it, but my son could not.

Lisa Bodnar:

I could make myself fart.

Leslie McClure:

Really?

Lisa Bodnar:

Yes for sure.

Leslie McClure:

I wish I could. I think my 13-year-old can.

Lisa Bodnar:

My nine-year-old daughter can.

Leslie McClure:

Oh my gosh.

Lisa Bodnar:

100%.

Leslie McClure:

You know, I know you've talked about armpit farts on here before. I taught my son to armpit fart. It was the proudest day of my life. I grew up with brothers. These were important skills.

Lisa Bodnar:

Would you rather never be stuck in traffic again or never get another cold?

Leslie McClure:

Oh, never stuck in traffic again.

Lisa Bodnar:

Really?

Leslie McClure:

Yes. I am such an impatient person. I do not like waiting. I will drive way out of my way so that I can keep moving rather than take the shorter route where there's traffic.

Lisa Bodnar:

Don't you chill out. Listen to podcasts or just be in silence. I love the silence.

Leslie McClure:

Maybe my opinion is colored by the fact that I used to commute in Birmingham with my kids in the car. So there was never any silence.

Lisa Bodnar:

And then you just sit in your office and you're like, "I don't want to go pick them up."

Leslie McClure:

That's right.

Lisa Bodnar:

I used to remember like driving to pick up the kids at daycare and just sitting in the parking lot. And I was like, "Okay, I'm going to go in there and it's going to be overwhelming. And I'm going to be a mom until eight o'clock tonight. Are you ready?"

Leslie McClure:

But now my oldest doesn't go to bed till after I do.

Lisa Bodnar:

I know my oldest goes to bed after I do too.

Leslie McClure:

My thirteen-year-old stays up till 10:00 now. I need at least an hour after he goes to bed because he's the child that requires the most energy and ...

Lisa Bodnar:

That's a very diplomatic way of saying that.

And so he's the pain in the ass. I'm just kidding. If you're listening, Preston.

Leslie McClure:

That's right.

Lisa Bodnar:

You're lovely.

Leslie McClure:

We love you.

Lisa Bodnar:

You're lovely. Lots of kids are very high energy and need a lot, but you're super hard.

Lisa Bodnar:

What's your order at Starbucks?

Leslie McClure:

Grande iced decaf, Americano with room.

Lisa Bodnar:

And do you drink that in the winter?

Leslie McClure:

Oh yeah. When you get to be a certain age and you have hot flashes all the time, I don't know if you saw my glasses fogging up a few minutes ago.

Lisa Bodnar:

I did not. You handled it like it didn't even happen.

Lisa Bodnar:

What would it be the coolest animal to scale up to the size of a horse?

Leslie McClure:

Maybe a seahorse.

Lisa Bodnar:

A seahorse? Oh, that would be interesting, because you want to ride it?

Leslie McClure:

Well, maybe, because it's got a horse in its name. So why should it be so damn small?

Lisa Bodnar:

You're right. Are they really small?

Leslie McClure:

I don't know.

Lisa Bodnar:

Are they the size of your pinky?

Leslie McClure:

I think there are some that are that small.

Lisa Bodnar:

Aren't there some that are bigger?

Leslie McClure:

There might be but probably not the size of a horse.

Lisa Bodnar:

No. It's not like the size of a horse.

Leslie McClure:

What about a spider?

Lisa Bodnar:

A spider would be so scary. That feels very Harry Potter. Isn't there a Harry Potter with this giant spider?

Leslie McClure:

Yeah is it Aragog or something like that?

Lisa Bodnar:

Very good!

Leslie McClure:

At the beginning of the pandemic USA was showing Harry Potter over and over again. And I kept watching it with commercials even though I own it.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. I think that all this J K Rowling bullshit with the, being anti-trans has really ruined Harry Potter for me.

Lisa Bodnar:

It's very upsetting now.

Leslie McClure:

It's very upsetting.

Lisa Bodnar:

Fuck her!

Leslie McClure:

Yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

Did you Hear that Daniel Radcliffe put her in her place?

Leslie McClure:

No. Good for him.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. I was like way to go, dude. Speaking of horse, do you remember what happened with him in the horse?

Leslie McClure:

What? Did he play a role where he was naked or something?

Lisa Bodnar:

Didn't he like fuck a horse? I thought so! I've just probably spread a terrible rumor.

Leslie McClure:

No, I'm going to have to Google it.

Lisa Bodnar:

I'm going to do it right now so that we know that how wrong I was. Daniel Radcliffe, horse sex.

Leslie McClure:

I've got some amazing images.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. He's like ripped in those photos. Oh, it's here. I knew it had something to do with sex. It says it's true that some of the plays themes draw on a sensual attraction towards horses.

Leslie McClure:

Oh!

Lisa Bodnar:

But at no point, and I want to make that clear. Does he have sex with a Horse. See, I am not the only person that has ever googled Daniel Radcliffe horse sex.

Leslie McClure:

I'm sure you're not. Okay. Oh man. He is ripped.

Lisa Bodnar:

Yeah. This is another site: at no point does the main character actually have sex with a horse. Well, there you have it Shiny Epi People listeners, Daniel Radcliffe did not fuck a horse. I know that when you tuned into the podcast, that's what you were hoping you're going to hear.

Leslie McClure:

Right?

Lisa Bodnar:

Leslie McClure and I that's what we bring. Harry Potter, nudity.

Leslie McClure:

Horse fucking.

Lisa Bodnar:

Leslie. I'm so glad you did this with me.

Leslie McClure:

I'm so glad you asked me.

Leslie McClure:

I'm on ENAR committee.

Lisa Bodnar:

What is ENAR?

Leslie McClure:

It's the East North American region of the biometric society. So even better. The Western North American region is WNAR. I want to go to WNAR so badly.

Lisa Bodnar:

Totally is WNAR big?

Leslie McClure:

No, it's cold where WNAR is.

Lisa Bodnar:

It's cold and small. I'm sure we aren't the first to make that joke.

Leslie McClure:

I know.

Lisa Bodnar:

But still.