Preparing for tenure Presented by Paulette Clancy School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Updated 2012

Preparing for tenure: Timeline 1.Immediately after the 3-year review, discuss the details of the letter with your Chair/Director and with your mentors to understand any areas that need improvement and to discuss how to redress these problems. 2.4th or 5th year, negotiate with your Chair/Director to reduce your teaching or service load to allow you to make a concerted push in the lab to get results that will become papers before the tenure deadline. Several Engr. departments routinely set aside a teaching-free semester before tenure (in addition to the one when you arrived). 3.4th, and especially, 5th year, organize your own “publicity tour” in which (a) you visit departments (b) and/or invite to Cornell faculty who are likely to be targeted for a letter. This is immensely valuable to gain exposure. But don’t go or invite external faculty until you have a compelling research “story” to tell. 4. Semester before tenure package submission, ask a couple of faculty ‘friends’ either at home or at other universities to critique your resume and research/teaching statements. [They don’t have to be in your area to be useful]

Preparing for tenure: Prep. steps close to the deadline (1 of 2) Mechanics of tenure Familiarize yourself with the University’s documents discussing the criteria for tenure Discuss with your Chair/Director the date at which your package will be submitted. There are discrete dates for submission to the College. This dictates deadlines in the department by which you submit your package. Typically, you will begin this process up to 6 months in advance of the submission date to the College. After that, it takes 6 months to go through the ad hoc, College, Provost, BoT committees. Typically, you will submit to the College by December for a May tenure decision Early tenure is invariably not in your best interests, no matter how much funding and publications you have. You only get one shot at this.

Preparing for tenure: Prep steps close to the deadline (2 of 2) Mechanics of tenure Understand what you will need to provide in the dossier and prepare accordingly. Ask your Chair for departmental expectations on all of the components of the dossier. Ask the Assoc. Dean for Diversity (currently Rick Allmendinger) if you need clarification on the College/University requirements and expectations. Basic dossier components are An updated CV. A document that defines your vision of your research program (3-5 pages) A shorter document that describes your teaching philosophy and experiences, including future plans (1-2 pages) A list of possible external letter-writers on your behalf Copies of sample exams, lecture notes, several important publications of which you are most proud (can be pre-submission papers if they are going to be high-impact).

Preparing for tenure: Your CV Get help: Ask a recently tenured faculty member in your department for a copy of her/his resume. There is something prescriptive about the level of detail that is expected; familiarize yourself with this. Understand your audience: This is mainly the department’s faculty, the external reviewers and the ad hoc committee. Each have different interests; cater to all of them. Order your publications (etc.) to highlight the achievements that occurred at Cornell. Don’t let them get lost amid a slew of post-doc works. Provide a list of students and post-docs in your group and their status (e.g., dates of A exam passed, expected graduation date) so that reviewers can see if your manage/promote your students effectively. This list also help reviewers (esp. ad hoc committee) check that your students are routinely first authors on your papers. Funding: For team proposal awards, the College mandates having your $$ share given explicitly (e.g., $2M (Bhave share: $400K)). You can add a few words on your contribution (e.g., ‘experimental studies of transport phenomena’) Awards: If you have a lot, pare it down to the most impressive. Three top awards are better than listing all 15 awards you’ve ever received. Credit: Be scrupulous that you don’t take credit for something that someone else did. For instance, don’t claim you completely redesigned a course to include X and Y when you did this as part of a team.

Preparing for tenure: More on the CV Be sure your CV includes the following All publications; divide into pre- and post- Cornell appointment and note authorship of Cornell graduate students and post-docs (say, by putting their names in italics). Include patents. Students advised, including post-docs, PhD students, MS students, M. Eng. students, UG researchers and visitors. In the case of MS/PhD students, indicate progress towards degree (e.g., Mary Brown, A exam 7/03; John Wilkins Booth, A exam expected summer 05). Include a list of students for whom you are a thesis committee member. All proposals submitted. Divide into awarded, pending, declined. If joint with other faculty, indicate your contribution and share of the award. All seminars and conference talks (indicate any invited talks) Courses taught (with course title, years taught, enrollment) Awards (but don’t go back to UG or grad related ones) Service responsibilities (in the department, at Cornell, outside Cornell including panels, editorial help, etc.) Field Memberships and professional societies

Preparing for the 3-year review: Teaching Statement Indicate your teaching contributions to the department What’s your teaching philosophy (briefly)? What successes have you had? [Say course restructuring, innovations in format or content] What challenges have you encountered? What can the department do to help you improve? Length: No more than a page

Preparing for tenure: Research Vision Research Vision Document Provide the “big picture” view. If you were writing a fictitious citation of your contribution to the field at the end of 5 years, what would it read? What progress have you made towards this goal? Highlight your achievements and their importance in redefining the field. Don’t be afraid to use phrases like “we are the first group to…” or “we resolved a long-standing misunderstanding in the literature…” Faculty outside your area cannot see the ‘light and shade’ without your guidance. Give it to them. Include your future plans (in less detail than accomplishments) Length: Department-specific and often influenced by the length of the ones immediately before yours. Find out what’s expected. Don’t make it too long or you will annoy the reviewers.

Preparing for tenure: Teaching document Prep step: Make sure that the Chair/Director/Associate Director organizes faculty to critique your classroom teaching as this needs planning (at least a year in advance to catch both Fall and Spring classes even once). If they haven’t visited, ask that they do. Some departments visit twice: once with advance warning and once unexpectedly. Indicate your teaching contributions to the department What’s your teaching philosophy (briefly)? What successes have you had or innovations made? [Say course creation or restructuring, innovations in format or content] Future Plans Length: Again, ask your Chair/Director, but typically 1-2 pages

Preparing for tenure: Choice of external faculty letter-writers (1 of 2) Typically, the department will want to receive letters from external reviewers of your dossier at peer schools. Ten letters is a bare minimum for an adequate review. Some of the letters requested by the department will not be received (faculty traveling, overcommitted, on sabbatical, decline due to unfamiliarity with your work), so the list of potential letter-writers will typically be about 16. Invariably, you will be asked to provide a list and the department will also draw up its own list (often independently of your list). Don’t give a list of every conceivable expert in the country. Leave some obvious candidates for the department to choose. You can include 1 or 2 names of people in industry if they know you well and are well respected. Mention if this person is an NAE/NAS member.

Preparing for tenure: Choice of external faculty letter-writers (2 of 2) It seems to be common practise now not to list internal Cornell faculty who know your work well (perhaps to ensure that they can be asked to serve on the ad hoc committee). Active collaborators will not be on your ad hoc committee (COI), so a letter from one of them might be worth considering under some circumstances. Discuss with your Chair and the Assoc. Dean if you want to include a Cornell letter. Discuss with your Chair/Director if there is someone who you would prefer is not asked for a letter.

Preparing for tenure: Choice of student letter-writers Typically, the department will ask some or all of your current and former post-docs and PhD students for a letter on your behalf The department will ask for letters from undergraduate and M.Eng. students who have taken your classes The process by which undergraduate and M. Eng. letter writers are chosen is somewhat department-specific. Some send a blanket to all students who took your courses. They are bound to include all responses and not select just the ones that they choose Some select the students randomly (e.g., every 5th student on the register) Some select the students to include a diversity of GPA, gender/ethnicity, and perhaps focus on more thoughtful students Find out which process your department uses

Preparing for tenure: Delaying the tenure clock There is an option to delay the tenure clock. This is automatically granted for reasons such as pregnancy, birth and child adoption (not just for women!) It can be granted for other reasons, such as delays due to lab renovation, etc., by petition through your Chair/Director to the Dean Note: Faculty are taking advantage of this option- you will not be the first!

Preparing for tenure: Getting help Sources of help and being pro-active Research and teaching mentors in the department Seriously consider getting feedback from someone outside your department but in your area Women faculty: You have an open invitation to ask senior women faculty to look at your “package.” I would be happy to review anyone’s material. If you perceive that your dept. mentor is not very helpful, discuss this with your Director and ask for their help or a new mentor. At any stage in your pre-tenure career, remember that the advancement of young faculty is arguably your Chair/Director’s premier concern. Talk to him or her. Get advice annually; don’t wait till the last minute. Don’t be passive in this process: Understand the requirements and ensure that the department is working through in a timely and considered manner