Practical advice for every step of an academic career, from preparing lectures and networking to tenure, promotion and post-tenure review.
The projector won't connect, the course site looks different from what you practiced, and you're suddenly wishing you'd tested everything yesterday. Technical problems are ordinary. They just feel much bigger when a class is…
Read articleYou have a meeting with your new chair, and 'ask about expectations' is sitting at the top of your notes. But expectations can mean a hundred things. A useful first conversation needs questions that lead to decisions you can act…
Read articleYour offer letter is signed, your start date is here, and suddenly the big career move is a collection of small questions. Where do you park? Who approves a purchase? And where is the syllabus for the course you're about to…
Read articleYou may have years of work behind you and still feel unsure what belongs in a tenure portfolio. A published article is easy to recognize. The teaching decisions, mentoring, and committee work that filled the rest of your week can…
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The post-tenure evaluation deadline looks comfortably far away until you count how many years of records it covers. Then you start wondering whether those final evaluations are saved, which assignment version is correct, and what…
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You open the folder for your post-tenure portfolio and find years of material: evaluations, publications, course files, committee reports. The evidence is there. Turning it into a record someone else can follow is the real task…
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You're asked to suggest external reviewers, and a few familiar names come to mind. Then the harder questions appear. Do they know this area well enough? Are they independent? Can they explain the contribution to people outside…
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A student asks for a recommendation, and you want to help. But when you sit down to write, 'hardworking and motivated' is all that comes out. You know those words aren't enough to show what the student can do. A useful letter…
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An award nomination asks for one kind of record. A job application asks for another. Then your annual review comes along, and you're gathering many of the same documents again. It's easy to spend more time finding the evidence…
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A post-tenure review notice can bring up a mix of reactions: irritation at another deadline, uncertainty about the rules, and the practical question of where all those records are. You can take the process seriously without…
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