get tenure

Well before break, the principal came and sat for his second formal observation this year. Everything went well, and we’re having a sit down on Monday.

Only one more unannounced observation this year.

5 down.
4 to go.
Having no problems or concerns in sight is wonderful.
:)

I had my only announced observation of the year this week. The remaining two observations for this year will be surprise visits. Every comment is great.

So, I’m 4/9.
Two left this year, three more next year, and then I’m set.

I’ll keep yous posted.

It takes 3 years to get approved for tenure through my district. I’m starting year 2, which means I’m 33% through. I’m trying to wait until tenure to start a family. This is a challenge, because I’d really love to not wait and just have a baby.

Goal within a goal:
Twice each semester I will gather materials and update my dossier.
So far, so good.

Optimist as always, I expected my tenure process to be smooth. It wasn`t. It was a nightmare from a Kafka novel. I had published well and taught well and been a pleasant colleague. And yet I was denied at several levels, without ever being told the reason. But reason and justice prevailed in the end, and I am now TENURED!!! (With a lot of good people cheering for me right now! Amazng friends kept popping out of the woodwork, people from other departments I didn`t even hardly know standing up for me…)It turned out that all my problems were caused by one bitter person, and I have decided to forgive her and move on.

Here`s what I learned about surviving a difficult tenure case:

1) Never, ever, ever give up. It’s not over till it’s over. If you get bad news at any level, take a deep breath and find out precisely what is going on and why and what your options are.

2) Never doubt yourself. You know your work is brilliant. If someone doesn`t realize it, you have to help them understand. Be a passionate advocate for yourself.

3) Let people know what`s going on. If you encounter problems, tell your chair, your colleagues, your mentors, your advisor, your lawyer. But maybe not your mom. Ask experienced colleagues for advice, but bear in mind that nobody is omniscient. If you are treated unfairly, people should know! Let them spread the word! Let them take action! Let them approach the dean and the chancellor on your behalf. Tell you colleagues in the field, and have them have letters to your university asking if they have lost their sanity.

4) Think and speak optimistically. Tell yourself and everyone else calmy that this is very difficult for you, but that you are convinced that justice will prevail in the end. Believe it.

5) Don`t speak ill of your enemies. Remember,you are going to get tenure. That means you have to continue working with people who voted against you for years and years. Be professional, gracious and polite to them even if it`s the hardest thing you`ve ever done.

6) Talk to a lawyer. A little legal advice along the way can be immensely helpful. If you mention to your fiends you have a lawyer, they`ll eventually tell everyone else, and the administration will know too. They`ll start to take you very seriously.

In the peer review process, she said, “it is crucial to take your idea and show them the priority of your work.”

“It is vital to be able to take an idea and show how it is relevant and valuable to the funding source and it’s values.”

Clark applauded University programs that financially assist junior faculty in developing projects. Her own project, she said, began with seed funds from the Office of the Vice President for Research and has yielded results worthy enough to garner significant external funding.

Clark also emphasized the value of building a network through professional associations and societies.

Whitaker acknowledged the importance to faculty of being tenured, but noted that it is a major commitment for the University.

“When tenure is offered and accepted, it could be for a very long time. The University is betting on you staying intellectually alive for that time. It is a forecast that you will continue to grow intellectually, and it is vital to the Uni-versity that you do that.

“We want people to do creative and risky things,” Whitaker said, “but sometimes I think we drive it right out of them with this process.”

Faculty members sometimes pay so much attention to doing what they think is expected of them to gain tenured positions that they miss enjoying student contact or a research project that would mean more to them, he said.

“Don’t get so caught up in one goal that it is a painful thing every day,”

Whitaker advised. “Tenure is not the beginning or end of life. It may be a milepost, but it is not the most important thing in life. Enjoy your work, the students and your stay

Make a Six-Year Plan

As a juggler on the tenure track circuit, you’ve got to decide which balls to toss in the air first.

The demands on your time are enormous. You’ll be expected to:

• Teach
• Publish
• Write Grants
• Start research projects
• Mentor students
• Serve on committees
• Review papers for journals
• Present at conferences
• Get to know members of your department
• Somehow maintain a personal life!

There is pressure to be engaged in all of these activities. And there is no way you can do them all well.

Remember that you have six or seven years before you come up for tenure. It is essential to set your priorities and expect your focus to shift over the course of your tenure track years. Exactly which tasks you should emphasize will vary as you progress. Assistant professors will differ in their priorities depending on their institution and departmental expectations.

For example, small liberal arts colleges will place a strong emphasis on teaching. Grant support will be the primary criteria for success in many fields at large research institutions. Publishing numerous articles peer-review journals is a premium in many institutions. However, some university departments may emphasize quality over quantity: having a book that is considered a major contribution to the field may be the most important criteria for tenure.

Your first task is to find out the values and standards of your particular department. All institutions avow that they value undergraduate teaching, but do evaluations from students really count? Yes, you must be seen as a willing participant on committees, but people are not granted tenure on the basis of their service to the department.

Try to plan how much time you will devote to various aspects of your position. For example, most junior faculty find that they need to devote huge amounts of time to teaching during their first year in order to get their classes up and running.

If there is any way to teach the same classes each year, do so. This is not the time in your career to create innovative seminars. Stick with your basic assignment, take the time to create a reasonable course, and then wait a couple of years to tweak and improve it greatly.

Ask for advice about whether your other goal during the first year should be to get new research off the ground, and grant proposals submitted, or whether you should focus on publishing papers from your dissertation work. Of course, ideally you should be able to do both at the same time. But each week you are going to need to make day to day decisions about how many hours to devote to a particular project, it will help to have a master plan for your priorities for the year.

For many academics I’ve worked with, it is easier to get caught up in smaller projects with firm external deadlines – such as sending off abstracts for conference deadlines – than it is to work on papers that you wish to send to prestigious journals. Beware of getting wrapped up in projects that are relatively unimportant. Don’t be seduced by short-term commitments that are less anxiety provoking than your biggest chores.

Once teaching becomes more routine, once you’ve gotten some of your research projects funded, once you have papers or a book accepted for publication, you may take on the vast array of secondary tasks that you will need to master.

Some of these secondary tasks include:

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Networking - During your first few semesters, it may be wise to keep your attendance at conferences to a minimum. The travel will tire you out and distract you from writing. You can decide to make networking a top priority during the third or fourth year that your tenure clock is ticking. Before you become known nationally, you need to have papers and research projects worth being known for.
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Mentoring - At some point in your career, it is important to mentor students and to have doctoral students who wish to have you chair your dissertation. But generativity is a luxury for later on your tenure track. Helping graduate students takes significant amounts of time. And in the tenure committee's eyes, being second or third author on a student's paper will never compare to being the first author on your own work. When you first arrive at a university, you are likely to have graduate students flock to the door. Their interest in your work is flattering, and you may wish to provide them with excellent mentoring. Beware of this commitment during the first couple of years. You can easily tell eager grad students that you'd love to chair their committee, but that you fear that it would harm them if you have to leave because you don't get tenure. Offer to take a secondary role on their committee - even when the theme of their work is close to yours.
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Serving - Yes, you must serve on departmental committees. But not all committees are created equally. Stave off the impulse to join important, political and time-consuming committees. For example, it is rewarding to have an impact on which applicants are granted admission into your department, but reading applications is enormously time consuming. When you first start your job, ask (or beg) your departmental chair if you may serve on non-controversial committees that meet infrequently. Make it clear that you are more than willing to shoulder significant departmental responsibilities later on. When you do serve on more political and/or time-consuming committees later on, you'll be much more saavy about the personalities of the other players and thus in a much better position to play an influential role.
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Reviewing - Although it is flattering to be asked to review articles for journals, you may want to decline some of the requests at first. Make it clear to the journal editor that you would like to be considered again as a reviewer at a later date. It is seductive to be the judge rather than the judged, for once. But it will eat up your time if you do a thorough job. Also, when you begin to review articles, make sure that you return them in a timely fashion. Beware of being late with your reviews and getting the reputation of being unreliable or uncommitted. Journal editors are often important players in your field, and are the type of people who are asked to provide outside recommendations when you come up for tenure. Wait until you can do a good job before taking on the responsibility of being a reviewer.

Again, remember that you have many years to do it all. Plan to tackle secondary tasks at different phases of your tenure pursuit

Other advice from these folks…
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If you are ever going to hire a coach, this is the time to do it.
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Foster friendships with junior faculty in other departments at your university.
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Work diligently on finding mentors to help you towards tenure.
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Take advantage of campus-wide career support systems such as the Center for Teaching and Learning, or various faculty associations.

Advice is to keep this all in one place. The report asks faculty to quantify hours spent on things like preps, grading, classroom contact, creative work, scholarship, course development, and service to university and community

I wonder if anyone has a really streamlined process for this.

Abstract:

This article describes an analysis of the productivity of faculty during their first 7 postdoctoral years. The primary goal was to provide objective data regarding the typical rates of productivity for untenured appointments at highly ranked institutions.

Although the median rate of pretenure publishing conforms to informal impressions that junior faculty are typically awarded tenure if they publish at least one or two articles per year, tenure was awarded to 25% of the sample even though these individuals published less than one article per year.

This finding cannot be explained by appealing to (a) the number of articles published prior to accepting a tenure-track appointment, (b) the number of chapters produced, or© the impact factors of the journals in which the individuals published.

Hmmm…

At a primarily teaching institution, expectations are 50% teaching, 30% research and 20% service.

At primarily research driven universities, the breakdown is probably closer to 50% research, 30% teaching, 20% department, university, field service.