Many thanks to Ellen Cohn for her assistance this time around!
Future question for "Ask a Tenured Professor" should be sent to Lisa Growette Bostaph at lisabostaph@boisestate.edu
QUESTION 1:
I was wondering what are the biggest mistakes young scholars make that impact tenure decisions. I am at a college that may not be as good of a fit as I thought when deciding to take the offer. The position is not tenure-track which I really wanted and there is little faculty support or opportunity work with graduate students (there are none in my department) to help move publications along. Would it be better to leave academia for 1-2 years and work in an applied setting where I could be more productive with my publication agenda, look for a post doc, fellowship, or what….given the current economic times, and certain constraints on where I can live, I don’t suspect getting back on the job market band wagon will do much good this year or even next.
ANSWER 1:
I’m not certain if I’m the best person to answer this, but I think I would suggest trying to stay in academia in some way. There are tenure track jobs out there (we just finished conducting a successful search in my department, in fact). I’m just concerned that if you leave academia, you may find it more difficult to get back in. Search committees may wonder why you left university teaching and why you now want back in, or may be concerned that you may repeat your “defection” and decide to return to an applied setting a year or two down the road. You do not need graduate students to produce workable publications, you know – my research usually does not lend itself to outside funding but I generally manage to publish several articles each year without the help of graduate assistants.
ANSWER 2:
One of the biggest mistakes is not knowing what questions are important to ask when deciding to take a position. I’m assuming (possibly erroneously) that you took this position, even though it wasn’t tenure track, because you were not able to find anything else within your constraints. Non-tenure track positions are often positions that are focused solely on teaching, so it is not surprising that you have little support for your agenda. But these are exactly the types of questions that you should be asking when considering a position: what support exists for research? Is there a possibility of this position moving onto the tenure track? How are other faculty producing research with their teaching/service loads and lack of graduate students or are they? This may seem as though I am being critical of your choice to take this initial position, however I bring up these points because I think leaving academia is exactly what you should NOT do. The job market is really no better outside of academia right now than it is inside academia. You are making an assumption that in an applied setting you would have time to produce and publish research. That is not a given; in fact, you may have even less time and you still will not have graduate students or assistants. I think other institutions would question why you left and ask themselves whether you would leave again. I see your choices as such: find a tenure track position that meets your requirements or find a way to get your research agenda underway at your current institution. Institutions are hiring, but if they are not within your constraints, then you need to make the best of your situation while you wait for your next opportunity. Start carving out time to research and write. If you have a large teaching load, this may mean finding time in the evenings and/or weekends to do it. If you truly cannot undertake this without assistance, look for talented undergraduates who could benefit from your tutelage and this experience to prepare them for graduate school at another institution. Either way, leaving academia is not the answer and not the best choice for making tenure in the future.