Tenure Reviews

For those outside academia, you may not know the process a new professor goes through to become an old professor. It is a bureaucracy-laden process, and if it isn't done correctly (along with all the things you have to be doing well in order to do the process), you will go from being a new professor to the ascetic who lives in the van down by the river.

From Hyperbole and a Half

This process happens several times over the first few years of a new professor's career. How many times depends on the university and how burdened that university has made itself with bureaucracy (from the university's perspective, this gives them a chance to "catch a bad egg" sooner and get them out of there, or make sure that a professor in on track).

Most universities ask you to do this twice: in your third year and your sixth year. If you pass both times, you get to move into the process of becoming an old professor and may never have to go through the process again. Some universities may ask you to check in every five or ten years, but many don't. That's how you get some really amazing, challenging, avant-garde professors, and some boring, offensive, uninspired professors. The idea is: academics are meant to be challenging to the status quo and ask questions that might make the society at large uncomfortable. The system was designed so that such a professor couldn't be fired by a chancellor who was under pressure from angry lobbyists. Unfortunately, it also means bad professors are hard to get rid of. And also unfortunately, it means new professors try to NOT be challenging to the status quo, as some of that quo might be reviewing them for tenure. I believe these non-boat-rockers are more likely to go on to be bad, lazy old professors.

From Wiki, Public Domain, cause it's OLD

It's a weird snake eating its tail.

My university is riddled with bureaucracy checks and balances, so I get to do the review every year. Luckily, they don't give me any kind of proper procedure manual or guidelines, so I get to discover how to do the process myself. Also luckily, they hire so few new faculty every year, there are not many mentors around to cloud my judgement on how to proceed. They do tell me that odd years are "abbreviated reviews" and even years are "extended reviews". I understand that extended reviews involve more people looking at my materials than abbreviated reviews, but I believe the materials I submit are the same. We'll see if they tell me I did it wrong in a few weeks.

Going through a review means assembling a single or series of binders filled with neat things like syllabi and student evaluations and articles into sections under the headings: teaching, scholarship, and service. Again, which things go under which tabs seems to be entirely up to me! Yay! I've started printing out lots of images of all my students' works to give the reviewers something pretty to look at.

My review last year went well, despite a rough first semester filled with too heavy a teaching load, students with low expectations getting whip-lash from my high expectations, neglected facilities, angry co-workers, new bureaucracy to deal with, new town, etc., etc. This year, I have many new things to add to my binders (it has over-flowed one binder this year... again, we'll see if they like that later!), such as exhibition announcements, new classes, new works, workshops I'm giving, etc.

There are other things my reviewers last year requested I add that are more abstract, such as a "research agenda and timeline." I can understand this for a science experiment ("Ask a question, form a study, evaluate the results, present the results, get them published or present them at a conference"), but for art... well... it seems silly ("make some art, show the art, make art that's better than the last art"). But it does force me to sit down and reflect on these aspects of my career.

How DO I feel about my teaching process? Last semester, I had an observer in class (another thing I do know I am supposed to do... not much else I know, but I know this!), and he commented that he didn't understand what I was saying about "forming and documenting your own, underground culture" in relation to images I was showing them, but they did. It was late in the semester in my beginning photography class, and they did... they loved it... they got it. I know they wouldn't have gotten it at the beginning of the semester, but at the end they did. How do I get from Point A--not knowing-- to Point B--knowing? Writing it down is time-consuming, but it does become a task list to make sure I can do it again.

I made this to advertise my performance. Scan it with
your smart-phone barcode reader to see what it says!

And what about my art? Do I need to show it more? Are my ideas important (a question I prefer to ignore...)? How am I balancing "making" with "showing"? Honestly, last year, I had no balance. I was just teaching. No making. No showing. I felt a little dead inside for it, too. This year, I am starting out with goals which I have written down and put in my binder. Now I have accountability.

And my service? How is that doing? How do my actions as an advisor affect my students, and what role does that play in both our careers? Am I simply signing them up for classes and making sure the club doesn't spend all their money on popcorn?

Anyway, these are the questions filling my weekend as I fill my binders with clear-plastic sleeves and print-outs of images and millions of tabs and pages of mental ramblings on my professor-process.