UK PFCF workshop at SSCA 2202

UK PFCF organized an interactive a workshop at the SSCA Convention 2002 in Winston-Salen (NC) on April 5th 2002. The title of the presentation was "PREPARE TO THRIVE IN ACADEME: AN NCA WORKSHOP ON WHAT COMMUNICATION DOCTORAL STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW"

The workshop was presented for doctoral students to acquaint them with the array of roles, responsibilities, and opportunities that await them as the professoriate of the 21st century. Prof. Derek Lane, prof. Enid Waldhart, with the assistance of Davide Girardelli discussed what graduate students need to know about teaching, research, service/engagement and how they, as aspiring faculty members, can prepare for careers in a variety of institutional settings. The workshop has generated a lot of interest and discussion. Prof. Jim Gaudino, NCA past President, was amongst the participants of the workshop. 

The content of the excellent and insightful presentation will be soon on line!!!  

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"Life on the tenure track:" A thought-provoking piece from the "TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(SM) LISTSERV"

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TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(SM) LISTSERV
"desk-top faculty development, one hundred times a year"
STANFORD UNIVERSITY LEARNING LABORATORY (SLL)
http://sll.stanford.edu/

Note: Previous Listserv postings can be found at:

http://sll.stanford.edu/projects/tomprof/newtomprof/postings.html
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LIFE ON THE TENURE TRACK: A SEVEN-YEAR CRUCIBLE

Junior faculty speak out on the challenges; 

officials lay out new programs that help young scholars

BY JOHN SANFORD

A faculty position at Stanford offers prestige, a dynamic intellectual atmosphere and plenty of resources. For newly  minted doctors of philosophy, it also promises a distinguished inauguration to the professoriate.

But life at Stanford can be costly, literally and figuratively. Discussing Bay Area housing prices tends to send junior  faculty into fretting jags about their finances, and the general stress of meeting extremely high scholarly expectations, while teaching courses and juggling other obligations, can exact a toll. In addition, some junior faculty worry about the university's commitment to tenure-track positions; they wonder whether Stanford will take the path of some of its peer institutions, most notably Harvard and Yale, in awarding tenure quite infrequently.

These are just a few of the sentiments that emerged during conversations here with eight assistant professors and three recently tenured associate professors who were asked to discuss their views on being junior faculty members at the Farm. Acutely aware of their
probationary status, some assistant professors would speak only on the condition of anonymity. Here is some of what they had to say.

TENURE

The practice of granting some university faculty lifetime employment, with only the vague possibility of termination for incompetence or moral turpitude, grew out of the notion that good scholarship demands academic freedom. Champions of the tenure system, which was codified in the United States about 60 years ago by the American Association of University Professors, argue that the best research thrives where scholars don't face the threat of being fired for the work they do or the ideas they express.

But with such liberating guarantees comes what amounts to a six- or seven-year crucible for assistant professors, who may find themselves plagued with anxiety about their performance. Have they discomfited important and influential higher-ups with their methods and ideas?
Are they publishing in the right journals? Is their research out of fashion or, worse, has it been trumped recently by a peer at another institution?

And while not purely a gamble, a bid for tenure at a renowned research university like Stanford comes with inherent risks. "While it's very clear what it takes to get tenure, in a sense it's not quantifiable," said an assistant professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. "You just sort of have to achieve excellence. And it's not like you can set yourself a plan to do this. You can't just say, 'My next book will be a smash hit.' "

Jennifer Summit, an associate professor of English who was awarded early tenure last spring, agreed. "I think most of us accept that a certain amount of stress comes with the job," she said. "I don't know any assistant professor who doesn't want to be an excellent teacher or to produce the best work he or she can -- surely that's why we all entered the profession."

But welcoming the challenges does not translate automatically into a promotion. Pat Jones, a professor of biological sciences and vice provost for faculty development, acknowledged that
the standards for hiring and awarding tenure have become more stringent over the past couple of decades.

Yet in discussions about the ascent of the tenure bar, some factors sometimes go unmentioned. One is obvious: As a  research university gains in prestige, it will have greater expectations for its professors; a higher tenure bar results simply from natural growth and development.

Statistics provided by the Office of the Provost show that while tenure rates jump around from year to year, there has been  no consistent trend -- either upward or downward -- over the past two decades. Take, for example, tenure rates in the largest school, the School of Humanities and Sciences: 32.3 percent of assistant professors hired from 1974 to 1978 eventually earned tenure; 50.5 percent hired from 1979 to 1983 earned tenure; and 41.2 percent hired from 1989 to 1993 earned tenure.

Several assistant professors said the climate for Stanford's junior faculty has improved over the past few years. In previous years, "while demanding high levels of achievement for tenure, the university offered very little support to junior faculty in order to help them establish productive and successful careers," Summit said. An increase in research funds and the creation of the School of Humanities and Sciences' Junior Faculty Leave Policy "have made a tremendous difference," she added. The leave policy began in 1998 and permits assistant professors to take a sabbatical during their fifth or sixth year to prepare for tenure review. This often means completing a book, article or research project.

But whether Stanford will remain devoted to tenure-track positions, or increasingly start to recruit senior faculty from other institutions, is a question that troubles some junior faculty. Assistant Professor Fernando Gomez of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese asserted that granting junior faculty tenure results in a stronger university. "You've got to build from below with people from inside who have been in the trenches since day one," he said.

On one hand, a university of Stanford's caliber must devote resources to attracting and retaining faculty stars, but Jones and Provost John Etchemendy emphasized Stanford's commitment to making junior appointments with the intention that they will be seriously considered for tenure. By way of illustration, Etchemendy recalled that the last presidential search committee, composed of six faculty members and seven trustees, considered what they wanted the university's core values to be. Supporting need-blind admission and offering junior faculty "a very real chance of getting tenure" were the top two items on the list, Etchemendy said. "That's a pretty ringing endorsement," he added.

Denying tenure is agonizing for the university as well as for the assistant professor in question, he continued.  "It's a failure of the department and the university to nurture that
person," he said. "So all along the way, people are pulling for that assistant professor to earn tenure. But that doesn't mean it's easy."

Opinions vary on whether the overall tenure expectations are quitable. "They are clear in that I know that I have to be a real leader in my field to have any chance of making it," said an
assistant professor of business. "They are not clear in terms of having objective standards that I know I have to attain, but that would be an inappropriate way for the university to assess people. I suppose it is possible to worry about the fairness or the highly subjective nature of the  ultimate decision."

That decision is based significantly on review letters written by peers from other institutions. The candidate and evaluation committee suggest these external referees. In the School of Humanities and Sciences, 10 to 15 letters are required; but to obtain that number, a department may solicit as many as 18 letters, and possibly more.

Brad Gregory, an associate professor of history, said he believes that the number of letters required is too high but that, as a whole, the system makes sense. "I never felt like I was being told one thing, whereas in reality expectations were very different," he said.

An assistant professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences echoed Gregory's sentiments about the letters.

"The humanities are so fractured these days that finding so many qualified referees at peer institutions can be very difficult," he said. "It may be different in the natural and social sciences. I would like to think that six to eight qualified letters would suffice."

Jones maintains that the importance of the tenure-review process merits the large quantity of letters. She said it can work in favor of the junior faculty member's tenure case; one poor review among, say, six would reflect far worse than one bad review among 12, she
said.

RESEARCH, TEACHING AND SCHOLARLY LIFE

For professors, opportunities to participate in conferences and forums and on faculty committees present themselves  nonstop, like the doughnuts out of the frenzied doughnut machine in Homer Price. For junior faculty, these opportunities can suck time away from
scholarly obligations that require immediate attention.

As the tenure clock ticks away, junior faculty must scramble to finish their first or second book, or have a groundbreaking -- or at least noteworthy -- scientific article published.

As the new kids on the block, they also need to make their names and work familiar to their peers -- especially the stars in their discipline -- so that when the time comes these people can be counted on to write tenure-review letters. Making such inroads requires attending as many conferences as possible, particularly the high-profile ones.

On top of this, assistant professors, especially those in the sciences, must write grants to get research money, for which they often have to compete with well-established senior professors. The recourse to competing for the large grants is applying to a multitude of small grants -- a process that is more time-consuming. (Assistant professors in the natural and applied sciences, including engineering, are offered funding packages for research when they are hired at Stanford, and this money may carry them through their first couple of years.)

With limited time, assistant professors need to be careful when picking what to get involved in at Stanford, said Armando Fox, an assistant professor of computer science. If, for example, they feel compelled to join a university committee, they  should attempt to join one with people who can write  tenure-review letters for them, he said. Serving on committees, while appreciated, is not a serious bonus when it comes to making tenure. While committee participation may  win points for good citizenship, "it cannot make up for the teaching or research record," Jones explained.

For Daniel McFarland, an assistant professor of education, the biggest challenge is simply finding time and a quiet place to  write without interruptions. "The irony is, you're young and full of ideas and have the energy to confront them, and the hardest part is you find you don't have time to do that," he said. "It's not due to any one cruelty, it's just a fact of starting out." An almost universal sentiment among junior faculty is that the teaching load at Stanford is fair -- even generous -- compared to other American colleges and universities. (Teaching loads generally range from two to four classes a year, although this range can vary.) Most also said they found teaching a rewarding aspect of the job. And while both research and teaching demand time, several professors said they did not consider the two in competition. "My teaching has always fueled my research, and vice versa," Summit said.

An assistant professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences agreed. "Stanford allows pretty wide latitude in what one teaches, so the classroom setting is a fine place to try out ideas, pursue new lines of research, get students excited about one's own interests,
etc.," he said.

While university officials maintain that both strong teaching and scholarship are required to earn tenure, scholarship carries the greater weight during tenure review. Assistant professors said they generally feel free to pursue the kind of research they're interested in, although the university's  intellectual structure occasionally imposes some constraints. Amir Eshel, an assistant professor of German studies, also has  a strong interest and expertise in Hebrew
literature. Eshel said his tenure case, however, will depend on the research he's done in German studies. He said this was a "fair demand."

MENTORING

Approximately 22 percent of the overall faculty are tenure-line assistant professors, according to September 2000 statistics from the Provost's Office (the most recent published data). These junior faculty members naturally look to their seniors for guidance -- both in navigating the tenure track and getting tips on more immediate matters about, say, developing a course.

"You're essentially thrown into something you've never done before, and there's a very steep learning curve in many areas," said Vijay Pande, an assistant professor of chemistry and, by courtesy, of structural biology.

At Stanford, mentoring programs for junior faculty are  designed by individual schools or departments, but there are a few broader policies as well, Jones said. For example, department chairs across the university are expected to offer to meet with assistant professors on an annual basis. The administration has been pushing for a comprehensive, university-wide mentoring policy, Jones said.

Assistant professors give mentoring programs mixed reviews. In the School of Humanities and Sciences, the availability and formality of such programs are inconsistent from one department to the next. But Pande said he found the advice of senior faculty quite valuable in setting and modifying a course toward tenure review.

"Everybody in both departments has been wonderful. Mentors  have really been looking out for me," Pande said.

HOUSING AND CHILDCARE

For junior faculty, the academic challenges posed by Stanford can be met with skill, brains and hard work, but these qualities may not be as handy when it comes to facing down the financial challenges of Bay Area living.

Indeed, the most common complaint among assistant professors stems from the cost of buying a home in this region, which continues to exasperate some despite last year's enhancements to faculty and staff housing programs.

According to statistics from the Faculty/Staff Housing Office in late 2000, an assistant professor earning $62,928 should be able to afford a three-bedroom, two-and-half bathroom condominium unit priced at $574,250 -- and even a property priced as high as $724,000 --
assuming he or she can make a 10 percent down payment. (Faculty/Staff Housing officials said these calculations were based on assumptions about different salaries and different size "target houses" for assistant, associate and full professors, and about other income in
the household.)

But, as one professor noted, 10 percent of a $400,000 home is  still $40,000 -- a significant amount if a new professor is saddled with graduate school debt and is helping to support a family.

And the median salary for assistant professors in the School of Humanities and Sciences (not including economics and the natural sciences) was less than $60,000 during the 2000-01 academic year, according to statistics prepared by the Office of the Provost. The median salary for junior faculty in the social sciences (excluding economics) during this period was $58,415; for junior faculty in the humanities, this figure was $55,620. For those in the natural
sciences and economics, the median salary was $62,000.

Meanwhile, the median price for a Redwood City home was roughly twice as much as one in Cambridge, Mass., and more than three times as expensive as the national median, according to MSN HomeAdvisor, which based its statistics on home-sales data from April 1999 to March
2000. (The median Palo Alto home costs more than three times as much as that in Cambridge, and close to six times the national median, according to MSN HomeAdvisor.)

However, for prospective homebuyers, the future is looking brighter, Stanford housing officials say.

"The prices in this area have come down, and supply has increased," said Carolyn Sargent, director of the Faculty/Staff Housing Office.

"People worry about housing but usually feel reassured once they get here," Sargent added, but acknowledged that expensive housing is just a fact of life in the Bay Area. "All we can do is try to present an affordable alternative."

An assistant professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences said he appreciates a taxable fringe benefit offered by the university called the Housing Allowance Program (HAP),  which compensates new faculty and senior staff who buy homes. The allowance comes simply as
additional income, and it shows up on the employee's paycheck. But it does not go far enough, he said. Each year the housing allowance, derived using a formula based on salary, is reduced by one-ninth. (Thus, the maximum term of the allowance is nine years.)

"Our salaries creep up relatively slowly and HAP goes down relatively quickly," he said.

For Pande, loan assistance from the university was the  difference between being able to buy a home and not being  able to buy one. "[My house] is very small and near the train tracks, but I'm happy with it," he said.

But those who cannot afford to buy a house may find they also face exorbitant rental rates. Another assistant professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences said building the Stanford West Apartments was a great idea, but the rents are too high.

"I applied for a two-bedroom apartment and the cheapest one available was $2,300. That's about 70 percent of my take-home pay. That's not a workable solution," he said. Rents at the complex for a two-bedroom apartment currently start at $2,142.

(A misunderstanding circulated last year that faculty would pay no more than 30 percent of their household income toward rent at Stanford West, Sargent said.)

Fox takes a somewhat different view of the housing costs. "It's just not an issue that I'd expect the university to be able to do anything about," he said. "If I got a job at Columbia I wouldn't say, 'Oh, but you're in New York City, and it's going to cost too much.' If I went to the University of Washington, it would rain all the time and I can't do anything about that."

In any case, university officials are quite sensitive to the housing problems that have plagued the area over the past half-dozen years, Jones said.

"I think the current administration ... is very attuned to the impact of the cost of living on the quality of life and on the ability of people to come," she said. "Of course, how they're feeling about their jobs is going to affect what they say to people who are coming to interview at Stanford during this year. So if people are totally stressed and are thinking, 'How  am I ever going to be able to afford to stay?' that's not going to be good for recruiting."

On top of the mortgage or rent, many assistant professors  must pay a great deal for childcare. To help out, the university launched a pilot program at the start of the year giving eligible employees with children 6 years old and younger as much as $5,000 a year
(tax-free) for childcare costs.

For others, however, the cost is only one facet of the problem. One assistant professor said he and his wife waited two-and-a-half years before getting a spot for their child at a campus daycare center. He was critical of the university's handling of the matter in general.

"I think this whole [childcare subsidy initiative] is a ruse, if you ask me, because it's a lot cheaper to give a few faculty a few thousand dollars than to use campus land to develop more daycare centers," he said.

Santa Clara County's General Use Permit for the university allows, in fact, for another daycare center to be built on campus, Jones said.

There are now roughly 550 children on waiting lists for one of the two on-campus daycare centers, said Teresa Rasco,  director of the WorkLife Office. An additional 75 are on the waiting list for the Rainbow School at Escondido Village, which operates from 9 a.m. to 3
p.m.

However, a new daycare center, Knowledge Beginnings, is set to open in March at the Stanford West Apartments, and spaces are still available, Rasco said.

THE BIG PICTURE

Junior faculty interviewed for this article said they came to Stanford knowing the stakes, as well as the rewards, were great.

"Stanford's reputation is no accident," said an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Business. "There are a lot of smart and interesting people around here who provide useful ideas."

Fox agreed. "The biggest real benefit at a place like Stanford is that pretty much anyone you work with is first class," he said.

According to a professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, "You have some of the best colleagues you could wish for, some of the best students you could find anywhere, an amazing library and other scholarly resources, and really  generous financial resources. But
there's a constant and always growing sense of anxiety and pressure. You don't take the job
thinking that it's otherwise."

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 The CJT 685 course is started!

 

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"Introducing the New Faculty"

A huge and active audience showed up for the colloquium dedicated to the "New Faculty Members," held on February 7th, 2002 at the Graduate Center. 

Our three heroic "New Faculty Members." From left to right: Anthony "Tony" Roberto, Leola McClure, and Sorin Matei (Michael Tidwell has a justified absence, which won't affect his final grade)

Leola McClure, who in the picture hinders the vision of interesting pieces of paleo-tech, offered the grad students a wealth of tips and suggestions and confirmed us that: "The best dissertation is a dissertation done."

Anthony Roberto caught in a moment of intense self-disclosure.

Everybody wins at the GSA Colloquia! The New Faculty Members with our "Thank you" cards. The meeting has been funny and interesting at the same time. Amongst other things, we also learnt that Dracula wasn't such a bad guy but he was victim of one of the first mass media campaigns! Thank you to everybody who participated at the event! 

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Official presentation of the PFCF course

On Thursday, November 8th, Prof. Enid Waldhart and some members of the PFCF Steering Committee have officially presented the course CJT 685 "Seminar in Preparing Future Faculty for the Multicultural Communication Classroom" to the graduate students.  

Several of our doctoral students have participated in the general PFF courses currently available here on campus. And each has talked about benefits they've received from having the opportunity to learn about colleges and universities other than Research I institutions.  Not only do they hope that this will prepare them to make informed choices about their future academic careers but to be better future faculty members as a result. 

The course CJT 685 "Seminar in Preparing Future Faculty for the Multicultural Communication Classroom" is designed to help graduate students further develop their teaching skills as they consider the various aspects in teaching an increasingly multicultural student body. 

Schedule Book states that this course is 3 credit hours and lists it as CJT 780. Please note: THIS IS AN ERROR. The course is one-credit only: it is now correctly listed as CJT 685 "Seminar in Preparing Future Faculty for the Multicultural Communication Classroom".

CJT 685 will  meet Wednesday afternoons from 1-3 in EGJ 223. The course has been designed so that topics, readings, and the expertise of many panelists will make it both exciting and informative.

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN TAKING THIS, YOU CAN USE THE SECONDARY REGISTRATION WINDOW ON NOV. 20TH.

For any questions, see or call Enid Waldhart (235 EGJ, tel. 257-2886) or email her at waldhart@uky.edu.

The participants! From left clockwise: Maria Spirankova, Prof. Enid Waldhart, Donna Wills, Adel Iskandar, Mary Lee Matuza, Prof. James Hertog, Prof. Derek Lane, Cartwright Stephens, Billy Wooten (not in the picture: Annalise Bratcher and Davide Girardelli)

Jim and Cartwright kept an eye on Derek: nobody got hurt during the colloquium...

While Enid explained the nuts and bolts of the CJT 685 course, Donna and Mary Lee presented their own experiences with the campus-wide PFF. Adel seems to be interested into the dialogue: in reality he is aiming for the last donut in the box... 

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Holly Payne's commentary on the first page of the NCA PFF leaflet!!!

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(PFF) KCTCS Collaboration: The University of Kentucky’s Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System’s (KCTCS) offer a distance education practicum experience.

!!!Graduate Students!!!

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