Tips for Early Career Success in Our Academic World Scott Grasman (Engineering Management and Systems Engineering) and Elvan Akin (Mathematics and Statistics) Presentation to Missouri S&T New Faculty Forum 20 January 2010

Service Contributions: S&T Criteria Department and campus service –Committees – less is more. Volunteer to join committees that seldom or never meet, and a few of importance –Student advising—now a recognized service at S&T –Recruitment -- but do not over extend. Professional service –Reviewing proposals for funding agencies –Referring journal submissions –Volunteer work for professional associations External service –Community outreach (but only if department values it!) Who evaluates your service contribution? –Your Department Chair (level and quality of participation) Service positives –Interact with faculty you might not otherwise meet –Be part of important decision-making –Advance your department’s goals Global advice: Don’t say yes to everything

Five Ideas to Help Students Learn #1 – Be Nice, I repeat Be Nice - If students believe you want them to succeed, they will work with you to find solutions to problems. This doesn’t mean be easy - most of our students want to be challenged. Be firm, have high expectations, but be nice. #2 – Get the Students to Buy-In - Spend time ensuring that the students understand the significance/importance of the topic to their careers. Show them that you are passionate about the topic and your excitement will get them excited. Once they have a passion for the material, the rest is easy. #3 – Do Not Lecture for 50 Minutes - Do not lecture for 30 minutes, do not lecture for 20 minutes. 12 minutes without a break is about all the time you have. Break the material into minute pieces and make them stop and think in between. Ask questions/make students ask questions, use clickers, do a 1-minute paper, make a mistake… anything to regain their attention.

Five Ideas to Help Students Learn #4 – Discuss Teaching with Colleagues - You may find that the styles and techniques used by instructors who win teaching awards are very suitable to you. If so use them. If not the process of discussing what works and doesn’t work for them will help you to develop an approach that works for you. Remember that they have already made many of the mistakes and probably can help you stay on an appropriate path. This is how we improve. #5 – Be Organized and Prepared for Every Contact - Above all this shows that you care about the students and that you want them to learn. We are all very busy but we must remember that we are here to educate. Follow what is established in your syllabus, have a clearly established purpose for each contact, assess fairly and quickly, etc. A single bad class contact may well be ignored, multiple bad contacts will not quickly be forgotten.

Scholarship: Why, what, and how? Why do engage in scholarship? - because you love it, hopefully - arguably the most important tenure criterion - pays your summer salary - also great for keeping teaching relevant What to research? - develop long-term goals (5 years+) - be independent researcher, go beyond graduate/postdoc work (do NOT work mainly with your PhD/postdoc advisor!) - build on experience, do not start in a completely new area (6 years is not such a long time) - play your unique strengths in the field/community - if you do not have ideas what to research, READ!

Research: Why, what, and how? How to do research? - reserve part of your working day for research - write and publish continuously (PUBLISH or PERISH) - publish in the best journals, one highly visible publication is worth more than a big pile of papers in obscure journals - aggressively pursue external funding - be patient, getting a grant can take several attempts - collaborate with peers at S&T, nationwide and internationally (best indicator for academic success: number of collaborators) - have diversity in your collaborators, and have single-author work; also engage students - attend conferences and specialized workshops - give seminars and colloquia (start by inviting a colleague) - work with students including undergraduates