The Top Ten Secrets of Tenure Success
brought to you by
Candyce Reynolds, Ph.D.
Director of Teaching and Learning Services
Center for Academic Excellence (CAE)
351B Cramer Hall
(503) 725-5642
From: Marcia Whicker, Jennie Kornenfeld, and Ruth Strickland, (1993) Getting Tenure, New York: Sage Publications, pp. 138-142.
* Plus one more!
The Secrets of Tenure Success
1. Publish, publish, publish! (Make time for research and writing.)
Create a personal research agenda and pursue it vigorously. At least 1/3 and likely more of your time in the pre-tenure period should be devoted to publishing. Always have one or more articles out for review. Rejections are inevitable; revise the paper and send it to another journal. Collaborate to get more done faster and better, but pick your collaborators carefully.
2. View tenure as a political process. (It's more like a legislative process than a bureaucratic one.)
Like legislative criteria for passing bills, the standards for meeting tenure criteria evolve, shift, and are sometimes vague. Most tenure cases occur within a wide range of acceptable records. Help your colleagues understand your case. Lastly, build coalitions for your case just like a legislator builds coalitions to pass bills.
3. Find out the tenure norms. (Understand the difference between written standards and operational standards and pay attention to what does and doesn't count.)
All universities and colleges use the three different criteria of research, teaching, and service to evaluate candidates for tenure. What standards are applied to those three criteria, however, varies widely. The number of publications considered adequate as well as which journals are acceptable and in which ones tenure candidates are expected to publish, also vary across departments and colleges. Departments also differ in their expectations for tenure candidate performance on the teaching and service criteria.
Although tenure criteria are written in formal documents, the operational standards aren’t. Seek out this information informally through discussions with the department chair, senior department members, your dean, and other faculty members who have recently gone through the tenure-review process. Look at formal tenure packets of recent successful candidates to provide examples of both the substantive content of and format for successful cases.
4. Document everything. (You are responsible for submitting evidence.)
You are responsible for collecting and organizing information that pertains to your own tenure case. Don’t throw ANYTHING away that is connected to your job performance. Save emails from students about teaching, course syllabi, documents showing participation in service activities, publications and conference papers. Maintain an updated vita. Take the time to add new information before you forget. Good record keeping is important in preparing a thorough and well-documented tenure packet.
5. Rely on your record, not on promises of protection. (Remember that administrators come and go).
Sometimes prospective tenure candidates are lulled into believing that a department chair or administrator will protect them from deficiencies in his or her record, if the candidate will only perform some time-consuming service or task that the chair or administrator needs done. Do not be lured into this trap. The best defense against a weak record is to not have one!
6. Reinforce research with teaching and service. (Leverage each with the other for maximum effectiveness.)
More tenure candidates have nightmares about meeting the research criterion than the teaching and service criteria. One strategy for using time wisely to meet the research criterion is to try to organize teaching and service to reinforce research activities. Ask to teach courses in your research areas. Seek out students and incorporate them into your research project as part of their learning. Similarly, seek out service activities related to your research agenda. Integrated research, teaching, and service activities become complimentary and even synergistic.
7. Do not run your department or university until after tenure. (Your first priority is your research and teaching.)
Sometimes junior faculty get involved in administrative tasks and activities such as serving on faculty senate. The university won’t fall apart without your input into decisions and debates. Few tenure candidates have the energy to run departments at the same time as they run their own careers. For those who have ambitions for a career in administration, there is plenty of time to pursue those interests after tenure.
8. Be a good department citizen. (Determine where, when and how to chip in and pull your weight.)
Project both an image AND be a good dept. citizen. Certain tasks must be performed to make a dept. run smoothly, e.g., advising students. Chip in and do your share. Become the person that people will want to work with for years. Forward good articles, offer to guest lecture. Small actions cost little and can reap social capital.
9. Manage your own professional image. (Image management is important, but not a substitute for productivity.)
The trick is to do good work and be perceived as doing so. Don’t show off, but don’t be shy to share your successes.
10. Develop a marketable record. (Seek to develop a record that is tenurable anywhere.)
Contact the Center for Academic Excellence for assistance during the tenure process.
Candyce Reynolds, Ph.D.
drrc@pdx.edu, 5-5642
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