Ah, tenure
I’m writing this blog entry while stalling on assembling my tenure dossier. I am honored that my colleagues want me to go up for tenure early but I am so overwhelmed at the prospects for the coming academic year. This dossier itself is a monster… already 50 pages of awards I’ve won, papers I’ve published, talks I’ve given, and student comments on my teaching. I’m working on the “meat” of the dossier… a summary of my group’s research results and direction. After I finish this, 3 of my colleagues will rip the document to shreds, I’ll revise, and then the dossier will go out to 12 of the most famous scientists in my field (National Academy members, department chairs, etc). Each of these people will evaluate me and write a letter back to my department about whether or not they think I deserve tenure. In early October, my Chemistry colleagues will review my dossier and the letters and then vote on my tenure case. Following their vote, there are six more panels, deans, etc that also get to cast their vote on my tenure case. The final decision won’t be known until late next Spring. In the meantime, I have to do an enormous amount of traveling. Usually, a probationary faculty member visits a bunch of universities the year before their tenure case to meet with potential letter writers and do some good PR for their research group. I was pretty busy in the last year with a new baby, and thus, didn’t do said travel. So, while I’m teaching this Fall, I will also visit a university and give a seminar about once every two weeks. While this will be intellectually stimulating, it will make for a blur of a semester. I find myself wishing I had one more year to spread out the travel, get more results, and write more papers… but I suppose, in approaching this huge hurdle, I would always wish for one more year.