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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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)!

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

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

14. 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)

15. 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?

16. GOOD LUCK and Enjoy the Journey

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

18. 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