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Post by nattyboh on Feb 28, 2015 14:20:40 GMT -5
Very thankful to have landed a TT job this year as an ABD. Would love to get some thoughts on making making the transition to a new department - dos, don'ts, horror stories... any thoughts would be welcome... I obviously have a vested interest in making this a successful transition!
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Post by mentor on Feb 28, 2015 18:59:28 GMT -5
Very thankful to have landed a TT job this year as an ABD. Would love to get some thoughts on making making the transition to a new department - dos, don'ts, horror stories... any thoughts would be welcome... I obviously have a vested interest in making this a successful transition! Regardless of the institutional type you landed in, one of the most difficult things for new faculty to figure out is what exactly they can say "no" to. Some departments are great at protecting junior faculty from too much service. Others not so much. In the latter case, you have to figure out what things you can say "no" to without repercussions and what things will make people upset if you decline. The best way to figure out which is which is to find a senior member you can trust who can tell you these things. |
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Post by runner on Mar 2, 2015 11:34:03 GMT -5
seek out a highly respected & liked senior faculty member in *another department*, take them out to lunch, and ask them questions like this too.
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Post by Thehardway on Mar 4, 2015 17:35:35 GMT -5
Pay attention to who shows an interest in you. Their intentions may not be what they appear. Sometimes people aren't as nice as they seem. If you are at a school with cliques, someone is likely to try to recruit you. Even if they don't get you, they may try to alienate you from others who could be good people to know. Learned this the hard way. Try to be an ethnographer for the first few months and map the institutional networks.
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Post by exactly on Mar 6, 2015 5:51:30 GMT -5
I agree with the above. Lay low at first, figure out who are the people you can really trust. People who seem friendly at first might turn out to be not so friendly later down the line. Figure out what are the faultlines within the department. You may not be able to avoid them (in fact assume that ultimately you cannot avoid them).
It's absolutely fundamental not to reveal your anxieties to people you don't know well. That can bite you in the a$$ later down the line. Let me repeat that again, because I've seen this mistake over and over again: DO NOT EXPRESS ANXIETIES TO COLLEAGUES. Keep that for your friends, and eventually the colleagues you can trust as friends.
This all sounds a bit scarey, and it doesn't have to be scarey. But the point is just to be smart, careful, and controlled. Think about the long run rather than the short term.
Also, a senior mentor once advised me that it's a good idea to come up with your own cause that you keep on raising and act on, but one that is not very controversial. Like, "we must rationalize how we review admissions"; or "we must prioritize getting a computer lab for our PhD students." Something that will help you seem engaged and active, but won't step on too many toes.
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Post by thehardway on Mar 6, 2015 7:43:12 GMT -5
I hope this doesn't sound completely paranoid, but I'd keep a journal of both the helpful things people do for you and the nasty things they do to you. Be sure to keep any mean emails you receive from colleagues. You might be surprised that your colleagues are doing the same thing.
When I was up for review, a horrible colleague clearly had been keeping a list of some sort and put forth a laundry list of things she thought made me a bad colleague (eg, like I didn't respond to an email she sent and other silly little things). This person tried to paint me as someone who wasn't collegial (that's the 4th criteria that no one ever talks about in the review process), but it didn't work. Given that I had excellent teaching evals, sat on 6 committees, and more scholarship than the rest of my whole department, I got tenure and promotion pretty easily.
If I'd needed to appeal, I would've had plenty of evidence that it was my colleague actually who was the "mean girl".
The "good stuff" list will be handy when you are asked to write letters for colleagues who are up for eval.
And, yes, the person above is the first person to show an interest in me when I arrived on campus.
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