[survey | read | learn | other | about ]

« Methinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much | Main | Thoughtcrime: The Other Shoe Drops »

On the Tenure Track

I learned all these lessons quite a while ago, but I only ever passed them on over email or conversations—Cheryl Ball and Kristin Arola have an excellent piece, A Conversation: From 'They Call Me Doctor?' to Tenure at C&C Online. Their experiences are in composition jobs, but most of these would be useful to any new tenure-track faculty member in any discipline. Includes sage advice from many other people as well (including Clancy Ratcliff, who I cribbed this entry from).

10. Learn to say no! I know, how many times have you heard this one?! But it’s so true. Since becoming a faculty member, I’ve had to say no to committee work, lab and writing program administration, some work with Kairos, irregular teaching assignments, and even several research/publication opportunities. As my tenure committee told me, “You just can’t do it all.” Remember that your ‘job’ in a tenure-track position is TO GET TENURE. Don’t do anything that doesn’t move you forward within that system. Of course, that’s just my advice. Others will say that you should do whatever you want, and that you just have to make it fit within your tenure narrative. Or, they’ll say, do it because you want to. That’s fine advice, too, and it’ll be your choice once the time comes to say no.

At some point in the first few years after I finished my PhD, I realized I'd finally really finished being a student when I declined a project my grad-school mentor (also one of Cheryl's grad-school mentors) encouraged me to take on. You'll have to dig around on the site a little, but it's worth it.

[via CultureCat: Rhetoric and Feminism - Clancy Ratliff's weblog]