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When I first embarked on the endeavor of being a faculty member I discovered that, although I had spend a good many years of my life in the academy, the number of things I did not know about my academic appointment far outnumbered the things I did know. So I took this on as another research project, a puzzle to solve, a mystery to investigate. The other crucial bit of information I realized along the way was that, although answers to many questions were forthcoming, much of my research would be long-term. It takes time to acquire the needed information, determine the rules (written and unwritten), and find those key people who have the answers.

CHAPTER 2

Joining Your Department and Discipline

The first steps to achieving tenure can occur well before you take up residence at your new institution. Much of this part of the process will put you in fact finding mode - starting when you begin looking at ads for positions, and continuing through the untenured years.

To be successful in your new position, you will need the right tools. If you are very lucky, someone will tell you what these tools are and they will help you to obtain them. Unfortunately, most young faculty I have talked with did not have this experience. Often, it is not for lack of good intentions on the part of senior colleagues and mentors. The rules change over the years and the emphasis within the tenure committee may change as the committee members change. So the onus is on the junior folks. You must ask questions, search for information, and negotiate for what you need. Some of us feel more comfortable with some of these tasks than with others, but you must persist with them all!

Now that you have made the decision to join the academy in your particular discipline and profession, you will want to consider the following questions.

2.1 NEGOTIATING THE TERMS OF YOUR APPOINTMENT

2.1.1 OVERARCHING QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Have you sought out advice or guidance that would help you enter into a successful negotiation?

• What aspects of your position and duties are negotiable?

• Can you do background research that will support your request?

2.1.2 MENTORING CONVERSATION: ON NEGOTIATING AN OFFER

Several years ago, one of the post docs in my group was offered an academic position. I encouraged her to negotiate the terms of the offer. This was not something she had intended to do. As a rule, I encourage everyone to negotiate, even if just a little, so that they can start to learn the art of negotiation and, hopefully, obtain the most optimal situation possible in the position they have been offered. I also believe the opportunity for negotiation can also help to set the tone in your new position, showing that you are a professional who knows what you need to be successful. The other point to remember is that you will very seldom have something given to you that you did not ask for. So, you must ask!

However, I should caution that you must ask for things that are reasonable, and you must ask in a professional and collegial way. There are a number of items that are negotiable, but two common topics are salary and teaching load. For both, a little research on the topic can go a long way. You can use your network to find out an amazing amount of information. This gives you information about the bounds and a strong foundation for negotiation. The post doc I mentioned earlier found out information about similar positions and had very good grounds for negotiation on several points. Although she was not able to directly negotiate her salary, the process was valuable because she found out that she was able to negotiate the amount of prior teaching experience counted towards her seniority, which ultimately set her pay rate. The process also helped her to decide if this was the right place for her.

Sometimes negotiation can get you more than what was initially offered, helping you to obtain things that will make you happier and more effective in your position. There are some choices you have concerning who to approach about negotiation. I usually suggest that one begin with the chair of the search committee or the chair of the department. Choose someone who can act as an advocate for you with the people who actually control the decisions (and the purse strings). The committee and/or department decided that you were the best person for the job, they want you to come to their institution, and they want you to succeed in the position.

2.1.3 DETAILED QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1. What approach to negotiation will achieve the best outcome? How will your approach depend on the situation? Consider the strategies of approaching negotiation as:

• one event in a long term relationship that you want to foster.

• an opportunity for relationship building.

• a collaborative undertaking.

• an opportunity to promote and open. discussion that maximizes information flow in both directions.

• a way to assess the needs of both parties.

2. Much negotiation of the terms of your appointment takes place before you accept an offer. The things that are negotiable depend on the type of institution and the department, but the primary concern should be to get what you need to enable you to be successful in the position. Items to consider at that time, or in the first year, include the following:

• Start-up package (including money for your summer salary, graduate assistant’s salary, postdoc funding, computers, equipment, conferences, and flexible funds for other costs)

• Time limits on start-up package spending

• Salary

• Seniority granted for prior experience

• Moving expenses

• Teaching load (temporary reduction in teaching, semester off from teaching, choice of courses, control over when courses are taught)

• Office space and office furniture

• Laboratory, research or performance space renovated to your needs

• Computing facilities

• Job placement assistance for your spouse/partner

3. Your salary at the early stages of your career can have a dramatic impact on your lifetime earnings. Even a seemingly small dollar amount can grow to a large sum over the time frame of one’s career. When approaching salary negotiation in an offer or at raise time:

• develop a strategy in advance for the best approach to take with salary decision maker(s).

• know what others in a similar field and at a similar level make.

• set both a minimum and an upper goal.

• don’t undersell yourself in your opening negotiation.

• don’t concede to much too soon.

• reiterate your points while remaining flexible.

• conduct a mock negotiation with a friend to boost your confidence.

4. Have a frank discussions with your department chair about the following issues:

• The track record of your department in supporting junior faculty

• The availability of, and your eligibility for, financial support within the institution

• Conditions you must meet for your appointment to continue

• Teaching load and number of new preps each year

• Courses you would prefer to teach

• Release time for the development of new courses

• Teaching assistantship support for the classes you teach

• Teaching assistantships available for your graduate students

• Expectations to buy out of a portion of your academic year salary

• Vacation time and the amount of summer salary you are allowed to pay yourself

• Preparation of your tenure packet

• Provisions for maternity leave, parental leave, medical leave, and elder care leave¹

• Options for stopping the tenure clock for birth, adoption, elder care, or illness

5. If you already have or plan to have a family, it is important to find out about how your department and institution supports family responsibilities. In addition to reading up on the Family Medical Leave Act, you should also consider:

• obtaining a copy of your institution’s maternity, paternity, and adoption policy.

• finding out about prior practice in your department and other departments in your college.

• talking to other faculty with a similar family situation to your own.

• discussing options for stopping the tenure clock with your chair.

• looking into how a change in family status will affect your benefits.

6. There is a long list of other items that you should ask about early on in the process. Some key issues in your field may include the following:

• Cost of a research assistant’s salary and fringe benefits

• Percentage of overhead taken on your grants

• Funds available as matching money for grant proposals

• Number of graduate student applications coming into the program each year

• Quality of the graduate students in the program

• Office computer

• Computer networking infrastructure

• Support for technology enhanced learning

• Library services

• Shared facilities available for research

• Buyout policy

• Undergraduate advising load

7. There are a number of seemingly small issues revolving around departmental resource allocation that can affect how you are perceived in your department. Consider:

• What is viewed as a fair share of the office support for typing, photocopying, purchasing, etc.?

• Is there an established system for requesting library purchases?

• How will remodeling for your laboratory space be accomplished?

2.2 WHAT’S COMING?

2.2.1 OVERARCHING QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Do you know what it takes to get tenure at this institution?

• What is your timeline to tenure?

• Are there options for coming up for tenure earlier or later?

2.2.2 MENTORING CONVERSATION: ON IT BEING MORE THAN JUST GETTING TENURE

There is a tendency for junior faculty to focus on and even obsess about tenure. Even though your purpose in taking a faculty position was not to guarantee yourself a job for life, it is easy to loose sight of your personal goals with the “ax” looming over your neck. Being denied tenure is not the end of the world (see Section 6.3) and, surprisingly, being granted tenure can feel anticlimactic.

Being aware of the requirements for tenure and working towards them are important, but don’t loose sight of yourself in the process. The best strategy is to find an alignment between your own interests and the tenure requirements and pursue it with gusto. If your heart and mind are fully engaged, then you will perform at your best and achieve up to your potential. At many institutions, there is some flexibility to how scholarship is defined so that your tenure case does not have to look exactly like your colleague’s.

A few years ago, two of my colleagues and I were asked to speak to a group of junior faculty at our institution about our tenure cases. It was a good panel because even though we are all three at the same institution and in similar fields, our cases looked quite different from even though we were all considered to be “success stories.” We had each established ourselves in our respective research areas – a requirement for our institution – but we had struck very different balances between research, teaching, and service. Both the contrasts and similarities were helpful to see, and it became clear in our remarks that we had each been guided by our passions. Because we had focused on things we felt strongly about, we had more energy and enthusiasm for our work, and we were able to achieve more. Most institutions appreciate that they need a range of different kinds of faculty members to make the place work well and meet all of the institution’s needs.

2.2.3 DETAILED QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1. Have you taken time to get to know the institution you have joined? Look for information on the following topics:

• The mission and vision of the university and college

• Recent annual reports

• Faculty policies and procedures

• Tenure procedures and criteria

• Collective bargaining agreement (if faculty are unionized)

• Accreditation standards for the major and/or institution

2. What milestones have you set for yourself, and when do you plan to achieve them? What are the expectations of your department and institution? When does the first official performance evaluation occur?

3. Do you know what it takes to get tenure at your institution? What are the tenure metrics? How do you get the information you need about the requirements? Consider:

• Asking for written tenure guidelines

• Talking with your department chair, mentors, senior faculty inside and outside your department

• Talking with peers at your own and other institutions

• Taking advantage of orientations, workshops, and seminars designed for new faculty

• Attending professional conferences and meetings

• Observing the progress of others

• Observing the mistakes of others

• Reading general literature about academia and the tenure process

Remember that the rules change - what was true several years ago may no longer be the case!

4. When are the decision points for renewal of contract and/or tenure? Have you considered the tenure clock and how it fits into the rest of your life plans? In assessing the timeline, consider:

• departmental and institutional requirements/expectations.

• personal responsibilities (debt, child care, elder care responsibilities).

• possibility and desirability of stopping the tenure clock.

5. There are a number of larger factors that affect your job and how your energy is focused. Talk to people about the:

• vision of your department/college/institution.

• timeline of your faculty appointment.

• characteristics of the undergraduate and graduate student populations.

• methods used to recruit and retain students.

• facilities for teaching laboratory courses and equipment for using technology in the classroom.

• level of expectation for obtaining external funding.

• amount of secretarial and accounting support provided by the department.

• the methods of decision making used in the department.

• the characteristics of a successful faculty member in your department.

2.3 PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

2.3.1 OVERARCHING QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Are you becoming an active member of your professional organization(s)?

• Have you identified senior colleagues that you can connect with through professional organization(s) in your field?

2.3.2 MENTORING CONVERSATION: ON THE FINDING THE RIGHT PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION

Becoming a recognized member in your field can be done in a number of ways, but one of the best and most efficient mechanisms comes through joining a professional organization. In some fields, there is one choice – the organization that “everyone” belongs to – and in other fields, there may be multiple choices. Particularly if your interests are interdisciplinary, you may find that you need to make connections to more than one organization. There are also sometimes local or regional chapters of research and/or teaching-oriented societies that you might consider.

In my particular areas of research and teaching, there are far too many options. I could easily go to a dozen conferences a year, but I don’t have the time, money, or inclination to do so. In the first few years of my faculty position, I went to the conferences of several different societies, some of them accompanying my senior colleagues. Each society and conference was different from the next, some in subtle and others in very distinct ways. I no longer regularly attend some of these conferences. In some cases, I found that my research was not a good fit, and in other cases, I found that the personality of the society was not a good fit.

At this point in my career, I have three societies that I am active in, regularly attending the conferences, giving talks, and participating in the society organization. One of these is a teaching-oriented professional society, and the other two span the interdisciplinary areas where my research lies. I have found the long term involvement to be fulfilling: allowing me to build relationships, identify collaborators, develop my professional reputation, and contribute to the future direction of my field.

One of these societies I have been a member of since my undergraduate days. My first conference participation was with this society in a student poster session. Over the years, this has grown into a connection that is almost like a second family. Not only are the other researchers friends who I enjoy seeing regularly, the society staff members are also wonderful people I enjoy interacting with year after year. At a recent conference I attended, I had lunches and dinners with several groups of friends, heard some great talks, connected with another researcher about a technique he developed that I am try on the material I work with, presented my own work, and got an invitation to write a journal paper for a special issue. So, sometimes these meetings can be fruitful in a wide variety of ways!

2.3.3 DETAILED QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1. What are the important professional organizations in your field? Have you identified groups/organizations both inside and outside the university?

2. Can you afford the time and money to join all the “right” professional groups? Can you afford not to join them and attend meetings/conferences? What are your options if you do not have the financial resources to participate in these organizations? Will your department or college help support travel costs or membership fees?

3. Do you have a plan for which professional association conferences you should attend? If not, do you know where you can get this information?

4. Which scholars are highly regarded in your field? Are you familiar with their work? Can you create opportunities to interact with them at conferences?

2.4 JOURNAL ARTICLES, BOOKS AND OTHER SCHOLARLY PRODUCTS

2.4.1 OVERARCHING QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

• What scholarly products are most highly regarded by your colleagues and your institution?

• Have you sought advice on the best places to publish or disseminate your work?

2.4.2 MENTORING CONVERSATION: ON WRITING

Every faculty position involves the production of intellectual products of some sort. Various contests and venues may be involved depending on your discipline, but written expression in some form is almost always required. There are a number of challenges we face when we approach writing. It seems especially difficult because some of our colleagues make it look so easy. I have found that writing has become easier with time, but I expect that even the most seasoned of us will at least occasionally face barriers.

The first common barrier is simply that of getting started. My personal strategy is to start on whatever part is easiest for me. As an experimentalist, it is quite easy to write the experimental techniques section of a journal article. If I am writing a research proposal, however, I usually start writing about the big picture first: what my grand goals are and how I think there will influence my field of research. For you, and depending on what it is that you plan to write, it may be different. You may also need to experiment to see what works best for you.

Writing can also be influenced by environmental factors. There are some things that I can write directly on a computer, while others demand pen and paper for the first draft. Changing the setting can also help me to overcome writing blocks. Leaving my office and walking over to a coffee shop with my computer can often get me started again. For other people, regiment is the most helpful thing. You may need to devote a specific time of day every day in the same location to get into a rhythm for your writing.

Advice on writing, particularly if you are approaching a format that is new to you, is also something you should consider seeking out. Senior colleagues as well as your peers can be valuable resources. They can provide guidance, samples of successful writing in the same format, and reading of your drafts. You could also consider joining or starting a writing group. This strategy can provide you with motivation for and feedback on your writing.