New Faculty Tips
"If I only knew then what I know now"
New Faculty Orientation, October 31, 2001
First year tenure-eligible faculty met on Wednesday, October 31 to learn from tenure-eligible faculty in their later years pointers on how to manage the various demands of a new tenure-eligible position. The panel of faculty included J. R. Campbell (Textiles and Clothing), Ann Smiley-Oyen (Health and Human Performance), Jan Thompson (Forestry), and Ron Werner-Wilson (Human Development and Family Studies). Below is a summary of their insightful advice.
Review and Evaluation:
- Think about annual review as you complete projects, submit grants and papers, plan new activities.
- Keep an up-to-date Vita and list of the year's activities.
- Create a template for your annual review early and add to it regularly.
- Use third year review as a mock tenure review.
- Look at University, College, and Department Promotion and Tenure documents early. Make a folder for each section in "Documentation Guidelines for Promotion and Tenure" (University document, Faculty Handbook) and put items in these folders as you do your professional work. The Position Responsibility Statement is very important. Be sure you understand how your DEO and colleagues understand your responsibilities and design your goals in scholarship, research, teaching, and service with the PRS in mind.
- Identify what kinds of publications are most valued in your department.
- Work towards a continuity in your research agenda.
- Don't let teaching evaluations terrorize you.
- Get peer reviews.
- Emphasize innovation as you document your work.
- Save documentation of your work, including acceptance letters, conference programs, cards and letters, commendatory e-mails.
- Set a timeline for submitting materials outside of the institution. Any external reviewer is important feedback on your work.
Mentoring:
- Official mentors may not give you all you need. Be sure to seek out advice beyond your official mentor when necessary.
- Think about choosing a mentor from outside of your department.
- An Associate Professor may know your situation best.
Resources:
- Take advantage of the many on-campus development opportunities:
- Project LEA/RN
- Grant-writing Workshop
- Center for Teaching Excellence
- Teaching Portfolio Workshop
- Find what resources are available in various offices on campus.
Teaching and Students:
- Let students know what you are doing and they will communicate your work to others.
- Try to recruit grad students at conferences.
- Look for teaching grants.
- Informal grants are available with the Instructional Technology Center (donated hours).
- Don't change your course text all of the time.
- Try to contain your teaching to the proper percentage of your work time.
- Avoid summer teaching.
- Don't take on weak grad students. Be sure to ask graduate students "why" they want you on their committees and make sure it is a good expenditure of your time. Don't take on too many grad students.
- Use CTE.
- Don't chair POS committees too early.
Research:
- Do some of your writing with others as a way to hold yourself accountable.
- Get a co-PI on grants. Working with established researchers can help you obtain your first grants.
- Apply for University Research Grants (URG), since they are designed to support new faculty.
- Be accountable to someone for writing deadlines (use mentor or collaborators).
- Limit the number of your projects. It is easier to work on a series of related issues. Be strategic in your planning.
Service:
- Choose service commitments well.
- Be sure to do some department "grunt" work so that your colleagues will get to know you and feel that you are contributing.
- Talk to many of your colleagues about expectations for service and choose your commitments carefully
Dealing with Colleagues and Administrators:
- Befriend the DEO.
- Go beyond your department to seek out others doing work related to yours.
- Talk to other DEOs about who to collaborate with.
- Get to know your whole department, not just your DEO and mentor. Make efforts to understand departmental culture.
- Treat support staff well.
Overall Advice:
- Maintain a holistic vision of the world of academics, connecting teaching and research.
- Keep a notebook to jot down ideas, responses, goals, frustrations, an academic journal of sorts.
- Find out what a "Land Grant" University is and work towards making your work fit with that paradigm.
- Use the Ag Experiment Station.
- Create thinking time.
- Keep track of your whole department, not just the DEO.
- Learn to say "NO".
- Don't be too "political." If you get too involved in curriculum issues or senate issues, you may unknowingly ruffle someone's feathers.
- Don't be shy about promoting yourself. Determine why your work is necessary in a Land Grant University. Make sure people know about your ongoing research projects and accomplishments.
- Remember that you have a life outside of the University and nurture that too.
