Kristin: So, what types of things can one expect and should one be prepared for in the first year? We got a lot of good advice on this one. Since I'm only 15 weeks in, it's hard for me to say much, but I can say that I'm really happy to see that "it takes a year to recover from writing a dissertation." It's a traumatic experience! Ok, maybe not traumatic, but exhausting.
Cheryl: Very exhausting.
Kristin: When you're in the thick of it, you don't realize what an emotional suck it is. Then when you're out, you want six months to nap and travel.
Cheryl: I defended a week before I left for Utah, arrived with two weeks to prepare for a new semester, and had my first tenure meeting one month into the term -- it felt like I was defending all over again! Have you had a tenure meeting yet?
Kristin: Nope. There's an annual review that takes place in the spring (it's calendar year, not academic year), so I'll report on my one semester here. I've met w/ the chair a few times, but I really wish Tenure and Promotion were a checklist as opposed to this mysterious entity. I mean, there are requirements written down, but they're very loose. I want a CHECKLIST! I guess it's a matter of learning how to be self-driven, which is hard when you've had other people telling you what to do for years.
Cheryl: In our first year, we had to attend about four meetings on the tenure process. All the new folks got so sick of these meetings because they told us the same information over and over again. But, they make the process really explicit, which is comforting.
Kristin: WOW! That would be nice. I'm worried I'm going to get blindsided. Do you think having all those meetings made it easier to plan during your first year? Or tougher?
Cheryl: The first year was a blow-off. I mean my first tenure meeting with my committee was all about what I had done in the month I'd been there, so it was kinda just to introduce me. We have five tenured faculty members who sit on our committee, and we meet every year. Do you similar meetings?
Kristin: I'm still unclear whether, when we do annual review, what happens. I'm realizing as I type this how little I have contact w/ my peers here. I MISS PEOPLE!
Cheryl: It seems to me that our annual meetings here speak to the advice we got about getting mentors. And it’s very good advice! I had almost no contact with my peers my first year at USU.
Kristin: That makes me feel a little better.
Cheryl: No one knew what it was that I did. My committee initially needed a little help understanding what ‘new media’ was (at that point, I needed help describing it!), so we met twice that year. I was proactive in calling for the second meeting.
Kristin: I was assigned three mentors, but I'm worried they're not the best fit with what I do so it's tough. I've met with two of them so far.
Cheryl: I think that one of our main jobs as first-year folks is to educate our colleagues about what it is that we do. I've asked for some replacement committee members because sometimes the colleagues that get picked to serve on your committee are not the best ones. That's part of the education process, for both the new faculty member, the tenure committee/mentors, and the department head (who is usually in charge of assigning your committee).
Kristin: MUST BE ASSERTIVE
Cheryl: And you know how I figured out who was a good fit for my committee? Parties. Socializing with faculty members at functions and asking them about their research.
Kristin: Too funny! I haven’t gotten into the dept faculty socializing scene yet (not sure if there is one). But that's a good idea.
Cheryl: Some departments don't socialize that much, which isn’t unusual. So, another idea is to borrow the big book of vitas that the English office keeps on record and study them to see who researches what. Or, YOU can throw a party! You LOVE parties!
Kristin: There are SO many people in my department -- do I invite them all? :)
Cheryl: Y'all have about the same breadth of faculty that we do here -- lots of smaller areas of work, lots of academic diversity. Still, here I was really surprised at the crossover between what might otherwise seem like faculty in totally unrelated areas. At one party, I noticed that a colleague in American Studies had a shelf-full of visual rhetoric books. She teaches stuff like photographs of the American West.
Kristin: Awesome!
Cheryl: We had a great conversation about our research connections because of that party, and now she knows what it is that I do.
Kristin: I guess what I learned mostly from reading people's advice on the first year is to find a mentor, don't be too hard on yourself, and plan ahead as much as is possible. Did you do that? Did it work for you?
Cheryl: I had the T&P committee built in as mentors, and I also had another junior colleague, Kelli, who had been there for several years and who gave me lots of good advice. I didn't plan ahead very much because adjusting was about all I could handle. I liked Christine Hult's advice about ethos. Her advice connected to Becky and Rich's advice about how your first-year actions can impact the rest of your time at a place.
Kristin: That reminds me of Kristie’s narrative about starting a family in her first year. Talk about how you never know what’s going to impact your career – or how! It's no secret that I want kids someday, and thinking about it seems like an emotional suck in the first year (the what ifs? when? should I? how to balance career/family? can I even have a kid?)
Cheryl: All the women I came in with had babies after their first years (and nearly all had problem pregnancies – is this a scary trend for female academics??). Since I don’t want children, my (now seemingly petty) challenge was to figure out how to hang out with married-with-kids folks since it was not a social situation I was used to.
Kristin: It's tough trying to feel so many things out this first year. We're so good at being hard on ourselves! (TV is my savior.) It's a matter, I think, of trying to set reasonable goals. (I told myself: Two articles out by Thanksgiving! CRAZY!)
Cheryl: Two articles by Thanksgiving IS crazy for your first year. You've got new preps, new colleagues, you have to figure out where the grocery store is, and how you're going to get to campus, and on top of that decide(?) when to have a child?! You mentioned in your introduction that your view of time has changed. No wonder!
Kristin: Yes, definitely. I used to have something called FREE time. It was pretty cool.
Cheryl: lol
Kristin: Prepping for new courses is a major time suck, especially because you want to impress everyone.
Cheryl: You know what my T&P committee kept telling me? You don't have to worry about evaluations from your first-year classes, because you have to show "improvement" (as if we'd never taught before...). That advice helped me to not freak out when I had to change the syllabus four times the first semester because we didn't have the technology to complete the projects I had assigned.
Kristin: I've changed my syllabi at least three times in each class. This is TOTALLY not my style!
Cheryl: Yeah, I've learned to explain really well to students why I'm changing the syllabus because I ended up doing it so frequently my first year. Kalmbach talks about letting your students be your advocates. He is so right. The students commented about the lack of technology in their evaluations, and I ended up using that as support for getting updated and more equipment so I could teach the classes the department hired me to teach. And THAT will help me get tenure (especially since much of my research is based on teaching…).
Kristin: That's a good way to think about all the challenges encountered in the first year: Turn them into learning experiences and/or fodder for change.
Cheryl: Exactly! You'll have to narrate in your tenure binder how you improved as a teacher (and what teaching innovations you made), so the first year is a good benchmark for getting things wrong :) Which reminds me...our subtitle says "successes and regrets." I know you're only 15 weeks in, but what would you say your successes have been? (Figuring out the bus line is certainly one of them!)
Kristin: Using the bus! Totally. Meeting people from other departments. Getting a CFP together. Teaching two brand new classes and only one of them stinking. I guess when I think about it, I'm fairly pleased with what I've accomplished this semester, other than failing on the two-articles pipe dream...
Cheryl: The two articles are for winter break, or spring term. Plan to do one. I have research leave in the spring and was feeling overwhelmed. Beth Hewett gave me great advice: Give myself permission to slow down. Instead of having to get the whole book revised, plan for two chapters.
Kristin: In a way, you're mentor-like to me (I just thought about that :)). Maybe keeping in touch w/ grad student friends is a worthwhile piece of advice.
Cheryl: And, see? You ARE getting one article out around Thanksgiving -- this one!
Kristin: True, true.
Cheryl: Collaboration is wonderful peer-pressure.
Kristin: This piece is more a major act of collaboration than an individual piece of brilliant knowledge though.
Cheryl: That is so true. I mean, look at all the people who so willingly (and QUICKLY!) gave advice for us to use. Talking about coping as new faculty members is so important and so useful, and everyone has advice about it!
Kristin: I shall continue to, as the brilliant post-modern scholars, the New Kids on the Block, once advised, "hang tough." Or, more aptly, I shall remain "hangin' tough."
Cheryl: Ok, see you tomorrow. Good luck teaching class today.
Kristin: Alright, gotta run. Thanks! Bye!
Cheryl: Bye.