Thank you

Thanks so much for this clear and helpful article.

I’ll definitely pass it along to coaching clients.

One point I hadn’t considered before was checking the grapevine to make sure that outside reviewers actually tend to give good recommendations. Good advice.

Mary McKinney, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist & Academic Coach at http://www.SuccessfulAcademic.com, at 8:00 am EDT on May 25, 2007

Tenure article

Interesting article. I just wonder why it was written under the pseudonymn of Lesboprof, and why the author felt it necessary to even mention her sexual orientation. What in the world does that have to do with tenure?

feudi pandola, at 8:50 am EDT on May 25, 2007

why does her orientation matter?

I agree with Feudi Pandola. Interesting and informative article. However I don’t care about the sexual orientation of the author (Lesboprof). Not to be discourteous, but is sexual orientation supposed to influence the way I understand her points about the tenure process? If her piece was about discrimination against lesbian/gay profs going up for tenure, then I think it would matter. But that is not the point of her article. In general, I don’t think we should care about a person’s orientation any more than we should care about a person’s religious beliefs, ethnicity, race, or political leanings. I am a heterosexual, practicing agnostic, white male, with extremely left of center political views. Should that influence you in the way you interpret my comments to Lesboprof? I certainly hope not.

Jim, at 10:10 am EDT on May 25, 2007

Just Having My Weekly Nervous Breakdown

While not denying that this essay may be useful for a large number of tenure-track faculty members, I thought it was verrrrry depressing. Indeed, it is the fact that it “makes sense” at all that depresses me most. And, while I’m in the process of being depressed, please allow me to admit that every time I am reminded that there is a need in academe for someone who calls hirself an Academic Coach ... well, it just ruins my day.

I will resist the temptation to go point-by-point through Professor Lesboprof’s recommendations; that would prove nothing more than how unrealistic my perspective is. But I’ll tell you a bit about myself. Remember how exhilarating it was when after n years of whatever, they invited you back into the conference room and said, “Congratulations Dr. Manley. You passed” ... and with lots of emphasis on “DOCTOR.”

Well I don’t either. The main emotions I felt at that moment were (1) thankfulness that it was over and I could get back to doing things I considered to be important and meaningful, (2) annoyance for willingly putting my very active and enjoyable intellectual development on hold for five years while I burrowed ever more deeply into a tunnel of ideas, theorems, and proofs that were not likely to excite more than a handful of individuals on the entire globe, and (3) slight anger at the very accomplished members of my committee, at least half of whom were close personal friends. I wanted to say, “Of course I passed, you dorks! I have rung all of the Pavlovian bells and jumped through all of the hoops ... and a few of you are lucky enough to have your names on papers that were part and parcel of my dissertation.” I could hardly wait to get home to my family, pack a small box of – you guessed it – mostly professional books (recovery doesn’t occur overnight), and take off for Myrtle Beach.

So, in that light, you can see that the sage advice proffered by Professor Lesboprof and applauded by Coach McKinney and Professor Vanderslice is precisely a map for how to ring all the bells and jump through all the hoops that will take you from tenure-track to tenure. And don’t forget to smile, shake hands with everyone, and pretend to be oh so grateful (it’s called sucking up) when they welcome you into the club. And when you’re at home that evening sipping a cool Johnny Walker Black on the rocks, just be thankful that from now on, you’re the suck-ee not the suck-er.

My complaint, I suppose, is that there was a time – it seems like eons ago – when there was only one hurdle to cross on the way to membership in the community of scholars, not the twelve important requirements delineated by Professor Lesboprof ... to wit, be a scholar and the rest will take care of itself.

I have been wondering why so many academics recoil these days at the phrase “community of scholars.” Maybe it’s just too embarrassing for members of the community of tenured to utter those words.

I’ll conclude with a quote from the author ...

“The gf has often told me that part of my success in getting tenure was really in understanding the game. I think that is true. I hope that, as a tenured faculty member, I can help others to do the same, in their own way.”

Omigod, am I ever depressed.

[Disclaimer: The author of this post may have accessed Wikipedia within the past 24 hours]

Frizbane Manley, at 10:10 am EDT on May 25, 2007

Response to comments

West Coast Prof: What about the Old White Men with chips on their shoulders about not running the world anymore? Do you find students react similarly to them? Just curious. Also, speaking of the Old White Guys, I did compare tenure cases at my institution before I got tenure and guess what I found? Old White Guys who don’t publish shit got tenure AND full professor, while Non-Old White Guys produced much more and were made to feel that they were lucky to have made it.

Frizbane: I think all of us can share your frustration with the game of academia, but you seem to suggest that it is Lesboprof’s fault that the rules of academia require all of us to jump through some hoops. That’s ridiculous. Also, are you seriously waxing nostalgic for some imaginary past when “being a scholar” was enough to get tenure? Please define what that means/meant for the rest of us.

Jim and Feudi: Get over it. Not all of us get to walk around thinking our race, gender, and sexuality are neutral, invisible, natural, or the default for every situation. Stop making such a big deal over the name Lesboprof and it won’t be such a big deal.

Edward: Lesboprof is not in a cocoon, and her experiences speak to a growing population of young women and minorities who are achieving tenure despite the medieval processes established by our fore(white)fathers. I suspect that you are the one in the cocoon this time around, despite your delusions of saving the world with your globally important teaching of future world leaders. Are you assuming that just because Lesboprof writes to us about the tenure process at an R1 institution that she is not an excellent teacher?

Violet, Associate Prof at Private Midwestern U, at 11:05 am EDT on May 25, 2007

Unwritten Tenure Rules

Speaking of unwritten rules for tenure, at my institution (which was a research-intensive technology institute in the midwest), there was nothing in writing that listed any sort of requirements that had to be met in order to achieve tenure, at least none that I ever saw. You had to rely on rumors or gossip to try and figure out what was necessary to get tenure. You felt trapped in some sort of Alice in Wonderland scenario, reminiscent of the infamous Queen of Hearts croquet match, in which the hoops you had to pass through kept moving around and where the rules kept changing as the game is played.

This was a while back, and things may be different now, because of the possibility of lawsuits being filed by unsuccessful tenure applicants who were judged by criteria that they were unable to see.

Even though there was nothing in writing, the most important requirement for tenure at my school was the ability to attract external grant support. After a while, you began to feel like a politician who has to spend such a large fraction of their time in fundraising. You could be a super teacher and have dozens of scholarly papers under your belt, but if you were unable to gain external funding, you were probably dead meat.

Also, if you were able to obtain grant support by collaborating with other faculty members, this did not do you any good—you had to be the principal investigator on the grant or it did not count.

Another unwritten rule was that an assistant professor had to be perceived by the tenure committee as an autonomous and independent scholar, someone who was not in a subordinate relationship with any senior faculty members, whether inside or outside the university. You had to make sure that you published an adequate number of papers on your own, without the names of senior faculty members on them, and you had to secure your own grant support and not ride along on someone else’s grant or use their laboratory facilities. To be perceived as a subordinate junior scholar was the kiss of death.

The types of journals in which you published were also considered—a paper in a high-impact journal was worth a lot more than one that appeared in an obscure, little-read journal. A paper with just your name on it was worth a lot more than one in which your name was buried within a long list of coauthors. It was rumored that the tenure committees looked very carefully at the citation indices, where the number of authors who quoted your papers was counted.

At my research university, an aspiring assistant professor quickly received the message that teaching ability was definitely less important than a long list of publications and the ability to attract grant support. However, you didn’t want to be so bad in the classroom that you generated a large number of student complaints to the dean.

Service didn’t count for beans at my school. In fact, assistant professors were not allowed to participate at any level in shared governance. It seems that the administration thought that it was too dangerous for assistant professors without tenure to get involved in controversial matters such as curriculum development, admission standards, or the creation of new courses.

At my school, the departmental vote on tenure was effectively meaningless and was only for show, the real decision power being in the hands of the dean and the provost.

I ultimately failed to get tenure (for some of the reasons listed above) and decided to get out of academe.

Joe Baugher, at 11:55 am EDT on May 25, 2007

Lesboprof was actually quite clear that her department demands outstanding teaching; but she was also pointing out that some don’t.

Wasn’t Lesboprof mentioning her sexuality in part because collegiality is relevant to the tenure process, and because many people tend to be less comfortable with anything non-normative, less willing/able to socialize, collaborate, etc. Her sexuality was also relevant to me because in part she was capturing that it’s risky to be non-normative at all, for example with respect to research project, and that one must accordingly be careful.

Philosophy Prof, at 12:45 pm EDT on May 25, 2007

A Message For Jim And Feudi Pandola ...

I’m a Lesbo and Prof, don’t you know?

And proud to just go with the flow ...

So don’t be so obtuse,

It’s time you deduce

We’ve rejected your tired status quo.

[Disclaimer: The author of this post may have accessed Wikipedia within the past 24 hours]

Frizbane Manley, at 1:20 pm EDT on May 25, 2007

Good Discussion!

Violet asks about “Old White Guys". No, I don’t think OWG faculty resent “not running the world anymore” because professors have never run anything other than their mouths. Most of our work is irrelevant to the rest of the world: few read what we write, and students forget most of what we try to teach. Students do notice bias however, especially when a teacher lives by identity politics. Students want to be inspired by example, not hear their teacher whining about being helpless and oppressed due to race, gender, sexual orientation, social class. Teach them goals, not limits.

The main pleasure of tenure is being able to plan one’s life with greater certainty. You can assume that you have a job in a particular location unless you choose to move. Buy a house, settle down, enjoy your region. You also can shift your research into a new direction, being creative and innovative as intended by the protections of tenure.

A disadvantage of tenure is that if you decide to seek a position elsewhere, you’ll have to meet much higher standards to be appointed with tenure. And departments hestitate to offer a lifetime appointment to a near-stranger. It’s easier to win a junior faculty position if you are an untenured, advanced assistant professor whose stronger professional record wins the job over your competition barely emerging from graduate school.

Violet is right about younger faculty having to meet higher standards than older faculty. Despite her “White Guy” issue, though, this fact applies across race and gender. It’s a cohort effect: doctoral students today have more publications and other professional activity than was common decades ago. The tough job market sends these young hotshots to colleges where the senior faculty have more modest accomplishments.

Old White Guy, at 1:20 pm EDT on May 25, 2007

Sex in the Academy

“Lesboprof” chooses to make her sexual orientation the most salient dimension of her name in a professional forum about higher education. That’s different than identifying yourself by your discipline — unless of course what you really teach students is about your sex and love life.

Colleges today face two contradictory trends. one is to shield students, faculty, and staff from one’s personal desires and life style: we are warned against intimate relationships with students, conflict-of-interest liaisons with colleagues, and making staff suffer any uncomfortable atmosphere from what we say, do, e-mail, or post on our bulletin boards.

At the same time some faculty choose to make their intimate and sexual habits visible to all. They bring their personal behavior and background into the classroom and collegial discussions. Making others feel uncomfortable or embarrassed does not inhibit their disclosures.

The contradiction between these two trends in Academe is intriguing.

SocSciProf, at 11:35 am EDT on May 26, 2007

Old White Guy, I liked your comment best.

The ostensible purpose of tenure is to protect academic freedom, to allow professors to pursue research freely and espouse politically unpopular ideas without risking their jobs. And yet, many of the steps Lesboprof advises tenure seekers to take are a matter of collegial politicking and brown-nosing in addition to, though certainly not instead of, sound scholarship and teaching. Tenure eliminates the need to conform to the attitudes of those who vote in the state legislature by replacing it with the need to conform to the attitudes of those who vote on the tenure committee. This powerful means of enforcing intellectual conformity produces not academic freedom but academic groupthink.

Jack Olson, at 9:10 pm EDT on May 26, 2007

Oops, Here I Am Again ...

I suppose I have been spending too much time worrying about Violet’s critique, but I was just reminded of something that happened to me two years ago. I enjoy spending time on research, reading, and writing almost as much as I enjoy teaching. For better or worse, I consider myself to be a scholar, and, fortunately, I’m in a position to pretend I am one. In a sense, I consider the sentence, “oh, he’s an academic” to be something of a slur.

In any event, what I love about research is the intellectual give and take that is very often associated with it, so, at this stage of the game, I much prefer collaborative efforts with one or two colleagues to solitary endeavors. Two years ago I had two new, really interesting ideas I was trying to get off the ground. In truth, I thought both had some potential for being important, whatever that means.

There is, in my department a remarkably bright, energetic, well-informed young woman who was, at that time, three years beyond receipt of her Ph.D. She has a great personality and a terrific sense of humor, and we had an excellent collegial relationship. Although I had not thought too much about it, I imagined that when the time came, she was a shoo-in for promotion and tenure.

To make a long story longer, I took her to lunch one day for the purpose of describing my projects and asking her if she would be interested in working with me on one or both of them. We talked about time-lines, and she reluctantly declined. She said, “I am in the process of picking low-hanging fruit. Right now I can’t consider working on something that will take very long to complete no matter how interesting or important it may be. I’m writing papers I can get out the door in short order and will have a high probability of being published.”

Because I could not promise short-term “payoffs” for my projects, I’m certain – in the Lesboprof sense – her decision was the right one for her. Walking back to my office after lunch, however, I couldn’t help thinking her response was, “Sorry, I don’t have time for scholarship now ... I’ve got to crank out this shit.” And, as I recall, I was as “depressed” then as I was when I read Professor Lesboprof’s recommendations.

[Disclaimer: The author of this post may have accessed Wikipedia within the past 24 hours]

Frizbane Manley, at 10:20 am EDT on May 27, 2007

Response To Carsten Merkel

First, in my previous post I was not making a generalization about the research and writing choices of young assistant professors. I was relating a personal experience I had with a colleague I knew and trusted who told me it made much more sense for her to opt for “low hanging fruit” than work with me on a project, however important, about which I could not promise a short-term publication payoff.

Merkel is right, (1) one should never make generalizations about a single data point and (2) my friend could well have been “letting me down” in a gentle way.

I leave it to you to assess the situation, compare it to your own experience, draw your own conclusions, and make whatever generalizations you think appropriate.

Frizbane Manley, at 9:55 pm EDT on May 27, 2007

I didn’t think Carsten Merkel’s comment was rude.

No matter who originates the idea, I think younger faculty do avoid long-term projects with delayed results, unless papers can be published in phases. Developmentalists who do longitudinal studies are in this kind of a bind. In my field publishing in our top journal requires programmatic research reporting a series of studies with strong impact on theory. How can a young faculty member accomplish that and still rack up a large quantity of publications? It is also a reality that having certain names on your papers will guarantee publication, while having your own name will not.

I passed up the chance to work on grant-funded research with several famous individuals in order to pursue my own interests. I did this largely because I disagreed with their theoretical perspective and did not want to be third or fourth author on projects I felt little sympathy for, while neglecting my own research. When someone gets a big grant, they need dependable hands to carry out the actual research. It is riskier to try to pursue your own ideas, especially because you can alienate the people you turn down.

I had to remind myself that I got into academic work in order to do my own research, not get a stable job somewhere, no matter what I had to do to get job security. It should be possible to attain tenure without becoming a sycophant or sacrificing your own interests to someone else’s demands (not that those making the demands see it that way). If you are a decent researcher, you will get plenty of offers from others to join their projects. You can ride coattails or you can do your own thing. That choice should not have strings attached to it, one way or the other, because the field needs both types of effort.

I think women are a bit more expected to be helpful to others than to follow their own path. It is telling to me that the person in the example was female and the person offering the opportunity was male. In the past, women have been less likely to collaborate because they were not offered such opportunities as frequently as men, so I guess this is an improvement, but I hope they realize they have a choice and are not penalized for refusing, especially when offers come from members of their own departments (who will later evaluate both the quality of their work and their “collegiality"). It is an inherently coercive situation, in my opinion.

Perry, at 12:05 pm EDT on May 28, 2007

This is just one piece of evidence, but I have turned down maybe five or six requests from undergraduates to engage in side research / independent studies, and I have accepted only in the case of (2) honors theses. (I am at an R1, so I do have off-load/additional projects with the graduate students, though even here one has to be careful about leaving plenty of time for writing/publishing.) I have been frank with the students — I say that I am tenure-track and that I just can’t do it right now, and I refer them to someone who can. I was just awarded tenure this past semester, and my attitude toward the off-load projects has already changed a lot, and I am doing a year-long study with an undergraduate starting in the Fall. But I assume that the structural similarities of the situations of assistant profs would mean that the same trajectory applies to many others.

Philosophy Prof, at 5:40 am EDT on May 29, 2007

the style is a bit misleading

The author makes it sound almost like common sense about what you need to do to get to tenure. But look at the basic math. No matter what most people do, they will not get tenure. And some of what sounds so simple is simply impossible to do—like participation on a federally funded mainstream research project. Or did I simply miss the irony by scrolling too fast?

Hey, I want to participate on the space program too.

But academics who succeed do tend to be able to write persuasively. Which is why what they write isn’t near so objective as they like to think. Success at persuading, they internally equate with objectivity and authority.

Charles Jannuzi, at 10:00 pm EDT on May 30, 2007

Is ‘TENURE TRACK’ an official status?

1. What I meant is that if you take into your account all those who aspire to having an academic career—completing the degrees, attempting to publish, teaching and working at a university or college, etc.—most who get very far in their educations still won’t get a tenured position. Especially if you start to count all those who leave academia over the years to work in other fields, but would have stayed had there been more and more stable positions.

2. Is ‘tenure track’ an official status?

If so,perhaps it should be looked on as a preliminary ‘probationary’ status for most people who will get the final tenure.

Finally, I still can’t see how a concept that is so limited in its scope is somehow supposed to embody such important rights and principles.

Charles Jannuzi, at 4:55 am EDT on June 1, 2007