Congratulations, You Got Tenure! Now What? Rick Reidy, Materials Science and Engineering

Now That You Have Tenure Enjoy your accomplishment this is something that you earned, enjoy it Evaluate lessons learned about yourself and your life What do you do well?  how can those skills be useful in the future? What are ways to you do not do as well?  how can you accommodate those issues or how can you avoid them?  Play to your strengths

Your Road to Promotion to Full Professor Your Road to Tenure Met teaching, scholarship and service criteria (followed a checklist) Fulfilled personal aspirations that also satisfied the criteria Some combination of the two Your Road to Promotion to Full Professor Criteria are vague (intentionally) checklist won’t work Tenure is very prescriptive, there are many paths to promotion to full

You Now Have Choices Keep going as you were with tenure do you like that pace? Do you have other interests? Come up with a new plan be more global in your view (work, family, self)

Balancing Your Life Balancing Work is tough enough. I found that balancing my life was much harder I found it impossible to be at my best in all aspects of my life at the same time I have learned that sometimes I am only able to be “good” or even “passable” in one or more facets of my life scholarship service teaching Your self Your family Your Career scholarship service teaching

How I Got Here June 2010- Became interim ETEC Chair Aug 2007- Became interim MTSE Chair 2010-went up for full prof: boys were 17 and 14 2017- boys are 24 and 21 (Sr at UT). Feb 2007- Started Tex Gov School 1997- Came to UNT: boys are 1 and 3 2003-went up for tenure: boys were 7 and 10 THE GOLDEN YEARS- Boys start school, sports, cub scouts. I coached soccer (7 seasons), built multiple pinewood derby cars, went on campouts Teenage years Pit of despair: Football games, tennis matches, Driving to dances, helping with homework, dealing with teenage angst 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2012 2016

Possible Paths (that are not Mutually Exclusive) You have 5 to more years  decide how you want to use this time Spend more time with your family Faculty development leave Work on expanding your collaborations Move into one or two new research areas Develop a new program in the department Expand your service Most importantly, be open to new opportunities

New Scholarship/Research Paths Start one or more completely new areas of scholarship take time to learn about the area summer faculty workshops or fellowships (NEA, NEH, industry, national labs) create infrastructure that will help your work and others in your area Faculty Development Leave

Be Open to New Opportunities Journal editorships Developing summer programs Administrative assignments TAKE CHANCES, especially on things you enjoy (or think you might want to try)!

Some Things to Watch Out For Taking on too much service—US assoc profs complain about taking on too much service and not being rewarded for it. SO invest the bulk of your service time in activities that you enjoy or you feel are important Letting someone talk you out of going for promotion—this is your decision, and you can try several times Permitting an “ivory ceiling”—the qualifications of full prof are vague intentionally, but do not let that dissuade you Losing scholarship focus—make sure you have a plan (even a loose one) for every year Keeping up a frenetic tenure pace because it is familiar—make sure that you have a healthy life beyond your job

When Should I Apply for Promotion? Colleges have historically been different UNT average is ~7.9 years Data in the next few slides include all faculty who were hired and promoted at UNT, not including administrators used faculty profiles and on-line vitas for data

How Does UNT Compare with the US UNT is average Women fare better at UNT compared to 2006 MLA Men fare worse BUT the average at UNT is the same for both sexes 7.81 8.02 7.93

Recent Promotions varies from year to year all 2010-2017 2012-2017 2015-2017 mean 7.86 13 12.71 8.19 median 7 12

Breakdown of Time as Assoc Prof before Promotion Only faculty who began at UNT as new assist profs were included in this data set (current to 2017)

How to Know if You are Ready? This is sometimes not clear, so after you have decided on a plan, get feedback from your chair, your P&T(?) and, if possible, your dean. You want/need their support. Previous promotion cases may not be a good measure as standards will continue to rise-- look at promotion cases at compatible or better programs A reasonable litmus test: do you feel like you can get strong external letters from schools as good as or better than UNT in your area?

GOOD LUCK and Enjoy the Journey

Is There an Associate Professor Gap? It depends on the college

Profiles of Associate and Full Profs ~2/3’s of assoc profs have been so for 10 years or less 78% of current UNT full profs were promoted in 9years or less 89% in 11 years or less