Notes from Path to Tenure Workshop, February 10, 2005

On Thursday, February 10, 2005, CEW’s Women of Color in the Academy Project and Junior Women Faculty Network co-hosted our annual “Path to Tenure” workshop.  Described as a frank, “behind closed doors” discussion, the workshop allows a panel of three or four senior women faculty to tell their personal experiences and advice for achieving tenure at the University of Michigan.  This year’s event drew a roomful of tenure-track women, who listened carefully to the panelists’ stories and then asked a number of specific questions.  The following summary captures some of the comments made by this year’s four panel members, who represented different colleges across campus—

We’d all like to think that academia is a meritocracy, with tenure awarded solely on the basis of achievement.  Unfortunately, it is not.  So junior faculty need to be very much aware of the policies, practices, processes, and politics within their departments.  They need to be deliberate and purposeful in the ways they work toward tenure.

These suggestions may be helpful:

• Maintain good communication with departmental colleagues

• Because the standards and criteria for tenure are so idiosyncratic, find senior colleagues within your department whose suggestions and opinions you trust.

• Find peers and senior colleagues who will read and critique your work.

• Collaborate, but be independent too

• Be aware that you will be judged on how well your research develops and progresses independently.

• Be able to separate your own line of research from that of your collaborators.

• Be the lead author on projects whenever you can.

• Understand that tenure committees are looking for a trajectory that suggests you have a strong, growing research agenda.

• “Be your own PR person”

• Find comfortable ways to stress your accomplishments without feeling like a braggart.  BUT don’t be self-effacing: Talk about your academic successes and strengths.

• Go to conferences, network, and get to know the national leaders in your field.

• Organize and guard your time

• Learn to say “no” to service requests that don’t support your efforts toward tenure.

• Find a departmental mentor who’ll help you determine when you should say “yes” or “no.”

• Develop your own technique for managing your schedule, to insure that you have big enough blocks of time to write.

• Pay some attention to teaching—but not too much

• If you are team teaching, make sure you get your own, separate student evaluations.

• Devise your own evaluation system; document that you are working to improve your teaching.

• Seek help from UM’s Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.