Posted by Deirdre Lashgari on October 16, 200 at 17:18:05:
One of the questions that perpetually nagged me when I was reaching toward tenure:
"Is it really necessary to say yes to everything?" There is tremendous unspoken pressure to do that, to the detriment of physical and emotional health. In addition, running to conferences, putting on workshops, writing articles, mentoring students, serving on a multitude of time-consuming committees -- rewarding as they can be in moderation -- can when overdone get in the way of developing a balanced, confident, effective mode of teaching.
For those of you working toward tenure -- what specific sorts of support would be most useful? How can those of us past the tenure hurdle better assist you in achieving a balance that's appropriate and sane -- and will still qualify you for tenure?
At the same time, how can we collectively resist the catch-22: as
assistant profs do more and more to get tenure (in part because the expectations are not clearly laid out), the undefined level of
expectations on the part of admin & others goes up -- threatening in many ways our ability to maintain a genuine learning community on this campus.