For assistant professors across the country, early fall can be a stressful time. Many colleges and universities require tenure materials to be submitted early in the fall semester. After working for several years, the future of one’s academic career is up for judgement. Unfortunately, much of the tenure process is a black box where it is hard to know exactly what needs to be done to feel safe. In today’s post, I will share 5 tips for getting ready to go up for tenure.
Going up for tenure is stressful. I was pretty confident when I went up, but you never know what might happen.
One of the best ways to reduce the stress and anxiety of the process is to be as prepared as possible.
To that end, I have 5 tips that will help you prepare your materials as you get ready to go up for tenure.
1. Know your institution’s policies.
An important and often forgotten step is to know your institution’s policies regarding tenure and promotion. There are often two set of pertinent policies. The first are university-wide policies while the second are school/college level policies. University policies are typically and understandably more broad as they need to be relevant for all disciplines across campus. School/college level policies tend to provide more details and specific examples relevant for the smaller number of disciplines in the school/college.
When reviewing the policies, you want to be clear about a) the standard for promotion and tenure b) the requirements for materials to be submitted and c) the timeline of the process. You will be surprised how many people involved in the process don’t know the institution’s policies. You should be very familiar with them in order to better advocate for yourself.
2. Know your institution’s practices.
While it is vital to know your institution’s policies, you also need to know the practices that may not be in the policies. There may be a number of unwritten rules and norms in your institution’s promotion and tenure practices. Ask your department chair, senior colleagues, and recently tenured faculty about what to expect and how things will go in the process.
I remember when I went up for tenure there was an unwritten rule that you use a certain color-coded tab system in your dossier. This was never in a policy or written down anywhere, but it was expected that dossiers will use these tabs. You want to identify as many of these unwritten rules as you can in order to set yourself up for the best case possible.
3. Ask for prior examples.
One of the best ways to identify unwritten practices and prepare yourself to put your materials together is to ask for copies of dossiers and materials submitted by candidates in your department that recently went up for tenure. Pretty much everyone who recently went through the tenure process is sympathetic to those coming after them and will be happy to share their materials. Hopefully, you have someone who went up for tenure in your department within the last 2-3 years that you can use as an example. If there hasn’t been anyone in your department recently, ask someone in a closely related discipline for their materials.
After receiving a few examples, read through them as if you were the tenure review committee. What stands out to you? How did the person make their case? What types of examples/evidence did they use? Take notes and write down ideas to borrow when putting your own documentation together.
4. Spend time thinking about your personal statement.
Nearly every institution will require you to submit a statement regarding your accomplishments in teaching, research, and service. The personal statement and CV are the two most important documents you will submit with your materials. While not every tenure review committee member will read all of your materials, you can be confident everyone will at least look at these two documents. You should take some time to think about what you have accomplished and how you want to state your case across the three areas of teaching, research, and service. The personal statement sets the tone for your entire tenure case so you want to take your time in thinking through how to organize and conceptualize your accomplishments.
5. Get into the mindset to sell yourself.
We all know faculty that are experts at selling themselves. I often find these people annoying so I try not to be like them. However, going up for tenure is not the time to be humble. You have to make a forceful case about your work and accomplishments. Saying to yourself that the tenure committee knows I participated in this activity or I consulted with that government agency so I won’t include that information is a recipe for disaster. You should assume nothing. Provide the evidence and documentation.
I know some excellent colleagues who are uncomfortable at selling themselves to the point that they undersell their work. No matter what I say, they won’t sell themselves. So here’s what I say to them: give me ammunition to sell you. Hopefully, everyone has advocates that are willing to argue their case in the tenure process. Make sure you give your advocates ammunition to argue in your favor. It isn’t sleazy or self-aggrandizing to give a colleague information to support you.
Be prepared
As with most things worth doing, getting tenure is hard work. The tenure process can be stressful for a variety of reasons. I hope you find these tips for getting ready to go up for tenure useful. I strongly encourage you to take the time to be prepared. I believe it will not only reduce your stress but assist in building a strong tenure case.
