Having recently undergone my first tenure and promotion review as an assistant professor, I find myself full of thoughts and some ideas which may be beneficial to those starting a tenure track position. First, some background.
I graduated with a Ph.D. in microbiology and Immunology in 2001 and faced a choice of how to proceed career-wise. I knew that my main focus would be teaching, so I chose against a post-doc and looked for positions at smaller schools with a more teaching focus. I applied at many schools and ended up at St. Xavier University in Chicago. The ad asked for qualified assistant professor with teaching experience in microbiology and/or immunology and a desire to start a small undergraduate research program. Sounded perfect, so I accepted an offer and moved to Chicago.
During the interview, both the Biology Department chair and the VP for Academic Affairs touted the Universities desire to increase its research program and get more students involved, but also seemed realistic as to the lack of resources to do this. The school was (and still is) extremely behind in science support and had very little grant experience. I could not get a well defined statement as to tenure standards so I operated on the information I had been given verbally. This leads to my first piece of advice:
Advice #1: Be sure to get a written statement of tenure/promotion standards as well as clearly defined (in writing) criteria on how you will be evaluated.
Stay tuned for more advice with a little bit of my story coming soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment