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Post by Lego duplo on Aug 18, 2016 0:15:28 GMT -5
I was promoted to Associate a few years ago. I'm in a small department, and although still quite young, have been asked several times if I'd consider taking on being chair in about a year's time.
Of course it's a huge headache and all of that. But I realized I have no idea if there are any long term career benefits to being a chair. It doesn't come with a pay raise in my institution. The question is if there are other less immediate payoffs? Or is it all a giant headache and poor use of one's time?
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Post by anon prof on Aug 18, 2016 10:33:32 GMT -5
Do you want to move? Do you want to move up to administration (deans and such?). If you are a chair it is 10x easier to move to another university after you get tenure- if you keep an eye on the job market, something like 1/4th (wild guesstimate) of jobs posted are for a department chair hired from the outside, since nobody on the inside wants to do it. That means being chair somewhere else, but that can also be your ticket somewhere else, and I know several people who switched jobs in this way. Also, if you ever want to be a dean, chair is the route to it, and deans pay a lot more. You also do get a lot more power as chair to run your department the way you think it should be run, and prioritize the things you want prioritized. So there is that. But you are dealing with a lot of complaints, and you will spend a lot of time on paperwork.
If they don't pay you any extra (nothing at all? not even summer salary?) do they at least give you a bunch of course releases?
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Post by Lego duplo on Aug 19, 2016 6:20:20 GMT -5
Incredibly, not a cent more of salary at my university for taking on the role of chair. Yet one does get course releases.
I do ultimately want to move, that is a factor for me. I have a decent CV, good publications etc., but as I peruse Associate job ads, nearly nothing comes up which is suitable for me. There are so few Associate openings, and then virtually nothing in my field. So if you say that being a chair opens up horizons for moving to other universities, that does make it more appealing.
I guess this also falls into a wider set of questions about what to do post-tenure. I have figured out how to get grants, how to write journal articles, how to make it through the revise and resubmit process, how to teach, how to supervise, how to manage the collegial and not-so-collegial relations of departmental life, how to multi-task doing all of this while also raising kids. So then what is next?
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Post by anon prof on Aug 19, 2016 7:44:26 GMT -5
Sounds like a post tenure existential crisis. The answer is, there is nothing next, apart from being eventually promoted to Full. If you stay where you are, you will be doing the same thing until you retire. Yes you will have new research projects (and I like to try to expand into new areas with new research projects to challenge myself and keep my job interesting), new students, maybe some new service obligations at the professional level. New things to pursue in your personal life (vacations with kids, new hobbies you can take up- I've recently learned to play a new musical instrument and took up an old one again after not playing anything since I was an undergrad). But ultimately, if that's not enough, and you want something 'next,' then being chair may actually be a good step for you. It's kinda hard to get off the mindset of reaching for something next though, I mean think about it, since we were undergrads (and if you were more ambitious than me as a teenager, even beforehand) we have been planning for the 'next' step...getting into grad school, finishing our MA thesis, finishing our comps, our proposal, our dissertation, getting a job, prepping our classes, getting enough publications, getting tenure. At each of these stages if we didn't succeed, our career would have taken a major hit. So we are always looking ahead and planning ahead for the next thing- that's how we ended with tenure in the first place! It's hard to relax after that. If you have an ASA membership definitely take a look at the job market for chair jobs and the types of things they ask for. It's definitely a route to moving. Also I think they have some sort of chairship training at ASA sometimes (or they used to?), look into that, sounds like a great way to network yourself into a new job as well.
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Post by anon prof on Aug 19, 2016 7:48:53 GMT -5
btw I have never been chair so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I've been thinking about these issues a lot myself...I just got tenure and am currently undergrad chair, also hoping to ultimately move but with few prospects, and recently an associate prof mentioned something about how I'm probably going to be approached about being chair after the person who just took over steps down...at first I was surprised and was like "no way do I want to do that!" but after thinking about it for a while, I'm starting to think it may not be so bad, and may be a way to leave.
One potential downside if you have kids is that you spend a lot more time on campus vs. at home, if you work from home a lot (which I do), even over the summer. But if you already work on campus all the time that may not be an issue for you.
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Post by selection on Jan 23, 2023 14:50:53 GMT -5
Keep in mind that if being chair is your ticket to leaving, the places you'll be able to leave to will likely be somewhat dysfunctional (or they wouldn't need an outside chair). If you're lucky, they'll just be very small.
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