[RSS] ProfHackerProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education / Open Thread Wednesday: The Tenure Submission Gap Year

Open Thread Wednesday: The Tenure Submission Gap Year Anastasia Salter The year between submitting the tenure binder and a decision can feel interminably long. It's marked with few milestones: decisions by one's school, the college, and so on, committees meeting with months in-between of nothing. There is, of course, the ever-present threat of tenure denial: as I observed in September, after my own dossier went in, there's a number of blog posts and essays to find catharsis in when that thought arises. I spent the fall exchanging text messages, check-ins, and the occasional thread of Facebook commiseration with other academics whose tenure binders went in at the beginning of the year. But as my cohort's cases went well at the earliest, most potentially contentious stages, we stopped talking about it, settling into the process of waiting. Explaining it to someone used to the promotion process of non-academic spaces can itself be tiring: "But when do you find out?" "…next year." It's no wonder that, as Jason Jones wrote back in 2013, "lots of people report securing tenure as somewhat anticlimactic." The changes are gradual and unremarkable. Certain routine deadlines–like the submission of a progress toward tenure dossier–no longer apply, and there's the hope of never facing them again. If this is your year to declare your intention to seek tenure I recommend taking a look at the ProfHacker archives, as many of us have been there over the years: Nels Highberg has recommendations for finding external reviewers, a process that relies on the strength of the networks you've built over the years. Bille Hara wrote a great post addressing the oft-heard advice not to "speak" before tenure. And for those looking to handle the stress of waiting, transitioning, applying in a hostile environment, or just balancing existing workload with the obligations of records and deadlines the tenure process adds, Nels Highberg has another classic post advocating the potential value of therapy and other support. Personally, I've found the best way to make my own "under review" tenure status feel more worthwhile is to reach out and support faculty in my own department looking ahead to their own dossier submissions. As the first of my group of immediate hires to go through the process, it felt a bit abstracted until I entered it myself. Are you going through the tenure process this year? Share your advice in the comments! ["Void" by brownpau is licensed under CC BY] RSS to Email Formatted