Heeding New Voices:Implications for Early Career Faculty

Mary Deane SorcinelliUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst

Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing (AIM) Stanford University

June 17, 2004

Session Assumptions:

• Best practices for early career faculty are context

and campus sensitive

• Time constraints will limit the breath and depth of

our conversations

• Written resources for post-session reading,

reflection and sharing will be provided

Guiding Questions:

How is the academic workplace changing?

How do doctoral students and early career faculty experience the job search process and the tenure track?

What practices can support you as a teacher, scholar, and citizen of campus?

What practices might senior colleagues, chairs, and other academic leaders consider to support early career faculty?

Introductions

Turn to one person seated nearby. Introduce yourself and share one or two aspects of your academic career that are truly satisfying and one or two aspects that are the most challenging/least satisfying.

Let’s Hear It For The “Good Old Days”

Earn a Ph.D. from a good place

Hone research skills with guidance from mentor

Seek and find a tenure track job

Engage in “on the job learning” and “one size fits all teaching”

If students don’t learn, presume its their fault

Live happily (with tenure) ever after

Taylor, 2003

Academic Careers in the 21st Century

Most jobs in non-research universities

Dramatic growth in non-tenure track positions

Increased stresses related to tenure track

Heightened pressures for research and teaching productivity—what about quality?

For many doctoral students, training may not prepare them for workplace they will enter

Finkelstein, 2003

Workplace Graduates Will Enter

Changing approaches to teaching/learning

Increasing diversity of students

New technologies

Focus on assessment/performance measures

Changing faculty roles Institutional competitiveness, financing

Austin, 2003

Doctoral Candidates:

What Factors Go Into Making Choices About Faculty Positions

and Where To Work?

What Job Factors Are Most Important?

Trower, 2000-01

Top Factors Exercise

Directions: Working individually for the next fiveminutes, please:

Check up to 10 factors that are most important to you in your academic position.

Doctoral Students: Top 10 Job Factors in Choice of Academic Post

6. Institutional support for my research13. Time for family or other obligation/interests 16. Quality of department 2. Number of courses and preps 12. Flexibility of my work schedule 10. Opportunity to work collaboratively 1. The content of courses I would teach 9. Opportunity to work independently18. Geographic location of institution 17. The quality of the institution

Importance of Job Factors to Minority Students

In making job choices, Minority students placed significantly more importance than Caucasian students on:

1. Having institutional support for my research

2. Match between my research interests and those of others in my department

3. Opportunity to work with a leader in my field

Importance of Job Factors to Female Students

In making job choices, female students placed significantly more importance than male students on:

1. Flexibility of my work schedule

2. Time for family or other personal obligations

3. Employment opportunities for my spouse or partner

Students in the Professions

Students in professions placed more importance than students in other fields on:

1. Institutional support for research

2. Flexibility of the work schedule

3. Attractiveness of the compensation package

Highlights:Ambivalence about Tenure

On the one hand, tenure is security, status, prestige, “the green card,” “legitimacy—the measure of worth among peers,” “a voice in one’s department,” “essential” to academic freedom.

On the other hand, tenure is “no guarantee—like the social security system,” “You won’t have a life for 6-7 years and then what?”, “Three full time jobs rolled into one and all for $40,000.”

Highlights:Other Factors Loom Large

Strive for tenure, believe in tenure—but it appears that other factors are starting to play a role in the decision about where to work.

In fact, attractive combinations of other factors can actually challenge tenure-track.

Work…Location…Quality of Life

What They Say About…

Work: “More important to me than tenure or non-tenure is what I’ll actually be doing. I want an even mix, a balance of teaching and research so I’ll go where I can do that, regardless of the contract.”

Location: ”So much more important than any other factor is where the institution is. I have a spouse and we went where we could both find work and a place that was safe, affordable, a decent commute, and comfortable.”

What They Say About…

Quality of Life: “When choosing between tenure track and non-tenure track, I’m looking at it as a lifestyle choice—which path will offer “greater flexibility to work on my own terms,” “more mobility,” less stress,” the chance to "fare better" and the ability to have “some semblance of a life outside of the academy.”

21st - Century Academic Careers:What Matters?

Tension between the existing academic culture and what young scholars want.

In choosing where to work, young scholars are carefully weighing their options.

They are looking for a balance of work that is meaningful, in a place that is a good fit, with a reasonable quality of life.

Implications?

Directions: Working with one or two individuals nearby, please spend the next ten minutes responding to the following:

What matters most to you in terms of work factors/workplace? Any changes from when you were on the job market? Any implications for recruiting new faculty to your department or university?

Vision Versus Reality

A key finding of the Heeding New

Voices: Academic Careers For a New

Generation is the troubling gap between

the vision and the reality of an academic

career.

Rice, Sorcinelli, and Austin, 2000; 2002.

Vision of an Academic Career

Sense of autonomy, academic freedom

Opportunity for continued learning, discovery

Wise use of skills, abilities

Sense of accomplishment

Opportunity to impact others

Reality of an Academic Career

Three core, consistent, interwoven concerns on the minds of early career faculty include the lack of a:

Comprehensible tenure/performance review

Sense of community

Balanced, integrated life

Concerns About Tenure

Expectations for Performance

- Clear? Consistent? Reasonable? Fair?

Feedback on Progress

- Informal and formal feedback?

Review Structure and Process

- Who? How? Timeframe? Standards?

Timeline

- Stop clock? Short-term focus v. intellectual passion

Concerns About Community

Department Chair

- Critical to mentoring, quality of feedback

Senior Faculty

- Key to “culture of collegiality,” vested in success

Students

- Satisfaction with “being valued as a teacher by students” yet “good teaching” is ill defined, poorly evaluated, undervalued and exhausting

Concerns About Integrated Life

Balancing Professional Roles

- How to develop, prioritize and juggle teaching and research (even less prepared for advising, grant writing, institutional service, administrative duties)

Balancing Professional and Personal Life

- How to carve out personal, family and leisure time (spouse/partner’s career, young children,

commuting relationships) and find support (childcare, affordable housing, family leave, community)

In Summary…

Seeking a connection between

Expectations, Hopes,Vision, Passion

&

Reality...

The Challenge Ahead…

We need to: Improve academic life as we now know it.

Envision the academic world we might yet construct.

What Can We Do Now?

Principles of Good Practice: Supporting Early-Career Faculty

Communicating expectations Giving feedback on progress Improving review processes Encouraging mentoring and advising Department chair as “career sponsor” Supporting scholarship and teaching

What Can We Do Now?

Directions:

Choose a topic of most interest to you. In your small group, come up with one or two creative strategies that you’ve found helpful in each of the following areas:

What Can We Do Now?

• Teaching

• Research

• Service

• Tenure process

• Relations with colleagues

• Personal life

Improving Performance Review

Mid-term Assessment Process- Feedback from students while course in progress

Annual Review

- Record of scholarly activities in teaching, research, service and meet with chair (and PC) each year

Mini-Tenure Review (4.2)-Take letters from chair, PC, and college PC seriously

Annual Promotion & Tenure Seminar-Chair, dean, provost, newly tenured faculty member discuss what

counts, the case, the process at each level

Enhancing Community

New Faculty Orientation/Listserv Lilly Teaching Fellowship

– Year-long Seminar on College Teaching– Mentors/Distinguished Teachers/Teaching

Consultant – Teaching Project/Portfolio

Faculty as Writers Support Group

Fostering Balance

Time Management – Fewer preps/courses in year one– Lilly Teaching Fellowship (two course release)– Seminars/print resources (e.g., Rick Reis)

Flexible Benefits- Parental leave, flexible time to tenure, child care

Academic Career Network-Database of academic jobs for dual-career couples

Envisioning the Future

What will be meaningful academic work/career?

How will we recruit/socialize new faculty to it?

How will we develop and assess it?

What will we need from each other to help

anticipate and shape the future academic

workplace?