Career Mobility – Preparing for the Tenure Process Professor Michael D. Kimbrough University of Maryland

Guiding Principle The best way to get tenure at your current institution is to be an attractive candidate for tenure outside your institution.

What goes in a tenure packet? Curriculum Vitae – Summarizes research record and other scholarly contributions Personal Statement – Summarizes scholarly activities and their contribution/impact Outside Letters – Assessments of your scholarly contributions by acknowledged experts in your field Teaching Evaluations Summary of Service

Curriculum Vitae Key section is the publication record Research record is assessed based on productivity (# of hits) and impact (citations, subjective assessment). Productivity is usually emphasized in the promotion from assistant to associate. # of hits is the first people thing look at and likely colors their overall perception. Schools vary in the specificity of their targets. Manage pipeline. – Understand that it can take years to publish a paper. – Frontload your efforts.

Curriculum Vitae It is good to have one or two papers that are more ambitious or display some individuality to demonstrate your potential to be a thought leader.

Personal Statement Your chance to make your case. – Put research in context – Highlight the contributions/impacts Opportunity to show the mind behind the papers. Get feedback from senior faculty inside and outside your institution. – They can help you make the most effective case/avoid likely criticism based on their experience in the “big room”. – Gets people invested in supporting your case.

Outside Letters Institutions have outside experts in your area review your case and comment on the strengths and weaknesses of your contributions to the field. You generally are allowed to nominate some people as letter writers and the school will nominate a pool of their own. Letter writers will be sent your CV, your personal statement, and a selection of papers to form an assessment.

Outside Letters You want to maximize the chances that the letter writers chosen will be familiar with and have a favorable impression of you and your work. This requires using every interaction as an opportunity to create a favorable impression in people’s minds.

Outside Letters Opportunities – Invited Presentations at other schools – Presentations/Discussions at conferences – Interactions with guest speakers to your own school Invite top scholars in your research area Join them for meals Actively participate in their workshops Provide written comments on their papers – Reviewing for journals – Informal settings

Teaching Most schools have a binary threshold for acceptable teaching. Beyond that, being a superstar teacher is unlikely to get you tenure or to compensate for deficiencies in the research record. Poor teaching can scuttle a tenure case.

Service/Institution-Specific Activities Recall guiding principle. Ideally, you will be protected from activities that detract from research productivity. However, you may be asked to do things to enhance your institution's mission but that may not enhance your external market value. While being a good citizen, maintain focus on activities that will be rewarded externally.