I’ve been seeing a number of assistant professors posting online recently about their successful tenure applications. It is wonderful seeing good scholars being rewarded with tenure and promotion. In today’s post, I want to share some advice I always give to recently tenured professors about paying it forward.

Throughout the tenure process, you received help from many individuals. You may have received advice and guidance from trusted mentors, senior colleagues, or administrators.

In addition, your colleagues may have taken on obligations to help relieve your burden during your pre-tenure years. They may have taken on a committee role so you did not have to, for example, or they may have taught a different class so you would not have too many new class preparations.

While much of the tenure process requires individual work and effort, the reality is that many people supported you and assisted you in striving toward tenure.

One of the best ways to acknowledge this support and show your appreciation is to pay it forward. Demonstrate how thankful you are by now supporting the pre-tenure faculty who come after you.I

Especially as a recently tenured professor, you have valuable experience to share with pre-tenure colleagues. You understand in a real way the challenges they face, and you have recently survived the process.

Thus, you are in a position to share your experiences and lessons from going up for tenure.

From sharing your dossier materials to describing what your experience of the process, you can provide valuable information to the pre-tenure faculty coming along after you.

In addition, you can now ensure pre-tenure faculty have the support you did not during the tenure process (Bland, Taylor, Shollen, Weber-Main, & Mulcahy, 2009).

I had a heavy service burden during my pre-tenure years. After tenure, I worked to improve my department’s culture and decision-making processes so that we could expect less service from our assistant professors.

I also accepted a role on a more time-consuming committee to free my pre-tenure colleagues from such a request. In large and small ways, as a newly tenured associate professor, you are in unique positioned to support your pre-tenure colleagues.

A critical element of paying it forward is to advocate for pre-tenure faculty, specifically, and important needs in your department, generally. As you understand all too well your power and influence can be limited as an assistant professor (Trower, 2012).

Moreover, there are certain times when pre-tenure faculty do not feel comfortable speaking up. One of the most important roles for you as a tenured professor is as a voice in your department. You may have been more subdued as a pre-tenure faculty member, but now is the time to make your voice heard.

By receiving tenure, you have been given enormous protections. Failing to advocate for important issues betrays some of the trust your institution has placed in you.

Your department and your pre-tenure colleagues need you to take a stand on issues, including those that may conflict with your university’s administration.

As a tenured faculty member, you have been positioned strategically in your institution and you are part of a small percentage of people who are protected for voicing their views. Embrace this responsibility and serve as a leader for your department, school, institution, and discipline.

To conclude, do not think of tenure solely in terms of the freedom and privileges it provides you as faculty member. Rather, think of tenure in terms of the responsibility that has been granted to you.

In an era where tenure-track faculty positions are steady declining (Kezar & Gehrke, 2014), you are positioned to lead at your institution as well as within your discipline.

Students and colleagues will look to you, as a tenured faculty member, for guidance, support, and expertise regarding many issues. By successfully navigating the tenure process, you have demonstrated your readiness to take on this responsibility.

You met the expectations for your institution and discipline by surviving what can be considered one of the longest job interviews in the history of professional work. For six years, you engaged in scholarship, teaching, and service.

Your work was rigorously evaluated, and you have been considered to be among the top faculty in your field. I congratulate you on your success and look forward to seeing you work as a tenured faculty member.

Your work in the past as well as in the future demonstrates and validates one the most important distinctions granted in higher education: Tenure.

This post is an excerpt from my book, How to Get Tenure: Strategies for Successfully Navigating the Process