I turned in my tenure and promotion dossier on Wednesday. It was 232 pages long, and chock full of examples of what makes me a great teacher, writer, and colleague. Now I await the judgment of my department's Executive Committee: 11 people at various stages in their careers (some newly tenured, most having had it for a while).
Writing the dossier was one of the most emotionally exhausting experiences I've ever had. To condense 6 years' worth of teaching experience into the document was almost more than I could do--knowing that it means the difference between continued employment at a school and in a department that I have come to love, and a terminal year to look for another job. My self-assessment section was limited to 10 single-space pages, and I used all of that space. Perhaps I'll post it here.
In any case, it's done--and I am satisfied. I have flirted with burn-out in previous years due to over-extending myself in service (and frankly, I wasn't that unhappy with doing the service because it made a big difference in the quality of life on my campus). My department forced me to step back and focus on my writing, and I have been less crazed as a result, but I have some doubt that it will be enough for some members of the department. My creative output has increased exponentially, yet the simple fact of the matter is that I can send out work, but I have to wait to hear back as to whether or not it's acceptable for the particular publication to which I've submitted it. And there's the rub.
It's out of my hands. In all senses of the phrase--it's out of my hands. And no matter what, I know in my soul that I'm meant to be a teacher. I will teach.
Showing posts with label dossier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dossier. Show all posts
Friday, January 7, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
A New Year
I am writing this from my "office" in the basement of the tiny house I share with my husband, Thing One and Thing Two, and three cats. Beside me is an oil radiator valiantly attempting to dispel the chill, as the basement is uninsulated and it's 9 degrees outside. In the next room roars the water heater as it works to heat yet another tank (I took a leisurely shower before coming down here--not smart, as my wet hair provides me with a nice chill). The washer and dryer hum and tumble, and I am feeling not unlike the jeans swirling through the heated air--jumbled and rumbled and in desperate need of someone or something to help me get straightened out.
My tenure promotion dossier is nearly complete. What I call my "back brain" (the part that continues to work on problems even when I am not conscious) has been busily organizing my ideas for the article/presentation I am writing on William Gibson's "Bigend" trilogy (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History). It has also been working on my self-assessment (limit of 10 pages, single-spaced). While I was in the shower, it was processing the New Yorker article on CD Wright's latest book of poetry, and started suggesting controlling ideas for chapbooks (at the forefront is a series about my father, with whom I have not spoken in nearly 10 years). There is so much going on in my head that I am having trouble just getting started. I suppose just writing this all down is as good a way to start as any.
I want to write about how I'm starting this year with a renewed sense of purpose, and I'm sure at some level it's true, but what I really feel most clearly right now is a deep and abiding Dread. And yes, that's Dread in the Existential sense. Not quite the Kierkegaardian sense--that I fear failing my responsibilities to God--although I suppose were I to substitute "Department Executive Committee" for "God" that would be something approximating the truth. It's more along the lines of a sense that if I fail at this--an endeavor that has lasted for more 15 years--what am I?
I am still a mother. I am still a wife. I am still a daughter and sister and cousin and friend. No matter what--even in death (and may that be a long way off), I will be all these things.
I have defined myself for two decades as an academic--even at my corporate job, one of the Managing Directors nicknamed me (affectionately) "Professor". I have known that I was meant to teach. My students can sense it--even the ones who don't like my subject--and probably the most common comment out of 8 years' worth of student surveys is some variation of "She's so enthusiastic!"
I love this life, and the thought that I might lose it fills me with a very strong desire to curl up in a fetal ball under my desk.
To date I have resisted that urge--I have been sending work out into the World and I have worked hard to keep doing it despite consistently being rejected (which is partly the reason I didn't send my work out in previous years: like most people, I fear rejection). I wasted $25 to have an editor read my chapbook and tell me "I can't use your ms" and nothing else--nothing that might have helped me understand what she thought was wrong with it. I have spent more money entering chapbook contests only to get form rejections back. I have entered contests with high hopes for my best work, only to get a form rejection, then read the "winning" entries and be unable (not unwilling) to see what made them winners and mine the losers. I have spent hours and hours on my "professional development" Fridays looking for likely markets--and have sent work that matches what those markets are looking for--only to have to sit and wait and wait to hear...nothing. And all the time adding things to my list of PD in the hope that it will be sufficient for the Executive Committee. All the while thinking of my colleague who published and presented and still perished not long after I started on the tenure track. When I asked what happened, I was told that the colleague's teaching hadn't been focused on enough to suit the department.
Up through the last 5 of the 6 years I've been on the TT, I have focused on teaching and service--to the near-exclusion of all else, and to my detriment in the eyes of my department (but not my campus)--and here I am in the last stage of my tenure bid panicking that I haven't done enough. That I'm not good enough.
Does everyone go through this?
My tenure promotion dossier is nearly complete. What I call my "back brain" (the part that continues to work on problems even when I am not conscious) has been busily organizing my ideas for the article/presentation I am writing on William Gibson's "Bigend" trilogy (Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, Zero History). It has also been working on my self-assessment (limit of 10 pages, single-spaced). While I was in the shower, it was processing the New Yorker article on CD Wright's latest book of poetry, and started suggesting controlling ideas for chapbooks (at the forefront is a series about my father, with whom I have not spoken in nearly 10 years). There is so much going on in my head that I am having trouble just getting started. I suppose just writing this all down is as good a way to start as any.
I want to write about how I'm starting this year with a renewed sense of purpose, and I'm sure at some level it's true, but what I really feel most clearly right now is a deep and abiding Dread. And yes, that's Dread in the Existential sense. Not quite the Kierkegaardian sense--that I fear failing my responsibilities to God--although I suppose were I to substitute "Department Executive Committee" for "God" that would be something approximating the truth. It's more along the lines of a sense that if I fail at this--an endeavor that has lasted for more 15 years--what am I?
I am still a mother. I am still a wife. I am still a daughter and sister and cousin and friend. No matter what--even in death (and may that be a long way off), I will be all these things.
I have defined myself for two decades as an academic--even at my corporate job, one of the Managing Directors nicknamed me (affectionately) "Professor". I have known that I was meant to teach. My students can sense it--even the ones who don't like my subject--and probably the most common comment out of 8 years' worth of student surveys is some variation of "She's so enthusiastic!"
I love this life, and the thought that I might lose it fills me with a very strong desire to curl up in a fetal ball under my desk.
To date I have resisted that urge--I have been sending work out into the World and I have worked hard to keep doing it despite consistently being rejected (which is partly the reason I didn't send my work out in previous years: like most people, I fear rejection). I wasted $25 to have an editor read my chapbook and tell me "I can't use your ms" and nothing else--nothing that might have helped me understand what she thought was wrong with it. I have spent more money entering chapbook contests only to get form rejections back. I have entered contests with high hopes for my best work, only to get a form rejection, then read the "winning" entries and be unable (not unwilling) to see what made them winners and mine the losers. I have spent hours and hours on my "professional development" Fridays looking for likely markets--and have sent work that matches what those markets are looking for--only to have to sit and wait and wait to hear...nothing. And all the time adding things to my list of PD in the hope that it will be sufficient for the Executive Committee. All the while thinking of my colleague who published and presented and still perished not long after I started on the tenure track. When I asked what happened, I was told that the colleague's teaching hadn't been focused on enough to suit the department.
Up through the last 5 of the 6 years I've been on the TT, I have focused on teaching and service--to the near-exclusion of all else, and to my detriment in the eyes of my department (but not my campus)--and here I am in the last stage of my tenure bid panicking that I haven't done enough. That I'm not good enough.
Does everyone go through this?
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The Deep Breath Before the Plunge
Now that this seemingly never-ending semester is over and finals are done and Christmas has been celebrated, comes the existential dread: my tenure dossier.
After 15 years of teaching, I am finally in the last stage of my attempt to remain gainfully employed without having to worry about a semester-to-semester contract, as I did when I was an adjunct. My office is the only one occupied in my building; the rest of my colleagues are a) tenured, b)working from home, or c) adjunct and as such exempt from this exercise. It's so quiet that hours pass unnoticed as I toggle back and forth between documents, collecting evidence from my 6 years on this campus that will show my department colleagues that I am worthy to remain one of them. The material is there--but the process of getting it in order is very time-consuming. I'd say I'm a little more than halfway done, and the thing is due next week.
The Executive Committee of my department meets during the third weekend in January to make its retention and promotion decisions. If the vote is positive, it is then up to my campus Tenure Retention and Promotion committee to vote. If the vote from the department is negative (and this is a possibility), I will have a "terminal year" during which to look for other jobs; I will also get a chance to appeal the decision.
This whole process has taught me a lot about myself. It's taught me that I have more energy and enthusiasm than I thought possible, even while dealing with first one, then a second child. It's taught me that I am just as dogged now [at nearly 40] as I was in my early 20s when I pursued a double major in philosophy and English and darn near had a minor in writing before I graduated (while also on work/study and as an athlete all 3 quarters of an academic year: water polo in Fall and Spring, and swim team in Winter).
Twenty years ago as an undergrad at Hiram College, I told my mentor, Hale Chatfield, that I wanted to become an English professor. I honestly could think of no better life than one in which I would spend my time reading, thinking, and talking to students (I hadn't really thought about grading papers...). Though he died 10 years ago, I have thought of him often as I've moved along this path. He was a poet who was interested in computers and technology, and he probably would have loved the explosion of writing that has taken place on the interwebs. In some ways I think of my reaching tenure as a way of repaying the faith that he and my other professors have had in me and in my abilities. Their knowledge continues to be passed along--because every day, I use what I learned as student to help my own students learn. I am thankful to have had wonderful professors, and it has been my honor to follow in their footsteps.
After 15 years of teaching, I am finally in the last stage of my attempt to remain gainfully employed without having to worry about a semester-to-semester contract, as I did when I was an adjunct. My office is the only one occupied in my building; the rest of my colleagues are a) tenured, b)working from home, or c) adjunct and as such exempt from this exercise. It's so quiet that hours pass unnoticed as I toggle back and forth between documents, collecting evidence from my 6 years on this campus that will show my department colleagues that I am worthy to remain one of them. The material is there--but the process of getting it in order is very time-consuming. I'd say I'm a little more than halfway done, and the thing is due next week.
The Executive Committee of my department meets during the third weekend in January to make its retention and promotion decisions. If the vote is positive, it is then up to my campus Tenure Retention and Promotion committee to vote. If the vote from the department is negative (and this is a possibility), I will have a "terminal year" during which to look for other jobs; I will also get a chance to appeal the decision.
This whole process has taught me a lot about myself. It's taught me that I have more energy and enthusiasm than I thought possible, even while dealing with first one, then a second child. It's taught me that I am just as dogged now [at nearly 40] as I was in my early 20s when I pursued a double major in philosophy and English and darn near had a minor in writing before I graduated (while also on work/study and as an athlete all 3 quarters of an academic year: water polo in Fall and Spring, and swim team in Winter).
Twenty years ago as an undergrad at Hiram College, I told my mentor, Hale Chatfield, that I wanted to become an English professor. I honestly could think of no better life than one in which I would spend my time reading, thinking, and talking to students (I hadn't really thought about grading papers...). Though he died 10 years ago, I have thought of him often as I've moved along this path. He was a poet who was interested in computers and technology, and he probably would have loved the explosion of writing that has taken place on the interwebs. In some ways I think of my reaching tenure as a way of repaying the faith that he and my other professors have had in me and in my abilities. Their knowledge continues to be passed along--because every day, I use what I learned as student to help my own students learn. I am thankful to have had wonderful professors, and it has been my honor to follow in their footsteps.
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