My life today is very different from what it was just a couple of years ago. In the early spring of 2000, I was sweating out the end of my 11-year run as a college student. All I had left to do: make final revisions to my dissertation and defend it. Well, that and find a job, of course.
I was pretty fortunate in my first dip into the job pool. I had lined up a postdoctoral position for after graduation, but I applied for teaching jobs at a handful of small colleges that piqued my interest. In the end I opted for a non-tenure-track position at a liberal-arts college. I gained some valuable teaching experience there, and my good fortune in job-hunting continued, as I landed a tenure-track job where I am now quite happily approaching the end of my first year.
A cursory comparison of then and now reveals a world of difference. Prior to graduation, I didn't have an office so much as I had a "space" -- a cubicle among several others with walls that stood only four feet high. When listening to music while working, I felt compelled to wear headphones so as to minimize the disruption to others. (Perhaps some of my former cube-mates would take exception to my version of things here, but they aren't writing the column, so you'll just have to have the truth as I recall it.) All seven students inhabiting my cluster of cubicles shared a single phone line. Regardless of how little I wanted to be privy to the conversations of others, or to have them eavesdrop on me, we cube-mates accepted that we would know far more about each other than we wanted. Obviously, personalized voice mail for our single line was a practical impossibility; we relied on each other, for better or worse, for phone messages.
Shelf space was as spare as the privacy. As an aspiring academic, I relished each new book I bought, borrowed, or stole, and I was constantly at a loss for where to put these treasured (and seldom-opened) tomes.
Things are different now. The office I inhabit is rather spacious, and it came fully appointed with a huge new desk, plush chair, and top-of-the-line computer. My books and journals fill the walls (what a happy sight). I work sans headphones these days. I have a nice solid wood door (with my name on it) that I can shut whenever I want to turn the music up (or take a nap). If you call me these days I am likely the only one who will answer the phone. If I am not in, you can leave me a voice-mail message and I am the only one who will hear it.
Beyond personal space, my intellectual space has changed as well. Back then, my only teaching duties were as a part-time adjunct at a local state university. While I was thankful for the opportunity, the teaching was less than fulfilling. The classes were never really mine; I was always teaching the lab sections for a general biology course taught by a tenured professor. As a result I was restricted to meeting someone else's educational goals, rather than my own. Moreover, most of the students were hardly interested in biology and resented having to be in the class. And I was teaching three consecutive sections of the same two-and-a-half hour lab, all on the same day. By the end of the day, I was given to wonder exactly why I wanted to land a teaching job.
Each semester now, I teach a specialized upper-level course for majors in addition to my introductory biology course, lecturing an hour or two each day. A far saner schedule by all measures. My class sizes are small and the students are more often, but not universally, committed to education for the sake of education, regardless of whether they like the particular topics we are wrestling with. I am stretching my pedagogical wings, trying different approaches to the material, free to teach as I see fit. Things are different now.
Two years ago, however, teaching was a relatively small part of my professional life. I was immersed in fieldwork, laboratory research, and careful statistical analysis of data sets I had collected over the course of several years. In the evenings I wrote and revised manuscripts, trying to publish as much of my research as possible in an effort to shape up my CV as I prepared to enter the job market. When it comes down to it, I became accustomed to (and successful at) doing science in the Research I model.
Working now at a primarily undergraduate institution, most of my time is committed to my teaching duties. As a result I have collected new data sparingly in the past year or two. I sneak afternoons here and there to organize some data, perhaps write a paragraph or two (quickly erased). Sometimes I spend a Saturday morning in the field, taking one of my kids (which in some cases means a student, and in other cases means my actual progeny) along for the ride. My research activity recently has been limited to setting up new projects at my new locale, drafting students to aid in the effort, and showing them the ropes of actual ecological research. Involving students in my research is why I looked for work at small colleges rather than Research I institutions. As a result, the research I do now has changed to a considerable degree. I said it before, and I will say it again: Things sure are different now.
Or are they?
I have the terminal degree, the tenure-track job, and for the first time, a retirement savings program. My transition to the tenure track has been smooth enough as far as I am concerned. But I have come to realize that I may not be nearly as far from where I was two years ago as I might have thought.
Recently, in a conversation concerning my performance and how it would relate to my eventual tenure application, my department chairman uttered the phrase "two-year review." As far as I can tell, the best way to describe the two-year review is to compare it with the first great test of graduate school -- the "comprehensive exam." The purpose of the comprehensive exam within the doctoral program is to determine whether the student is making satisfactory progress toward fulfilling the requirements of the doctoral degree. And the purpose of the two-year review (or, as it's known in some institutions, the three-year review)? To determine whether the junior faculty member is making satisfactory progress toward fulfilling the criteria for tenure. If you goof up at either point, you may get a chance to right your course. However, failing to make significant improvement toward the specified goals in the near future will get you booted from campus whether you are a grad student or a junior faculty member.
And really, what exactly is the difference between the doctoral dissertation defense -- the justification of how you spent the last five to six years as a graduate student -- and the tenure review -- the evaluation of how you have spent the last five or six years as a faculty member? If you are successful in the former, you get to join the academic club. Put on the uniform, strut around for a while, and then get back in line as you begin the long preparation for the latter, and more extensive, grilling. If you are successful in meeting the goals at the tenure review, not only do you get to stay in the club, you are allowed to stay at your chosen clubhouse for life. But to win approval in either case you must endure a rather thorough examination of your past accomplishments and potential for future success. In both cases, the people you work most closely with are deciding your professional worth, and the decisions are likely to have lifelong (or at least career-long) implications.
As a graduate student, I noted my every professional accomplishment -- every guest lecture given, meeting attended, class audited, and so on -- as a justification for my advancement to graduation. Now I squirrel them all away -- every committee I serve on, each journal I review manuscripts for, every student I advise -- for my tenure dossier. Does writing an occasional column for this Web site end up on the list? Do you even have to ask?
I entered graduate school nearly seven years ago with a potent mix of enthusiasm and apprehension. My enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that I had managed to find a way to stay in college and stave off a normal job. Not knowing if I would have the intellectual, emotional, and fiscal wherewithal to complete the odyssey fed my apprehension. But that emotion quickly gave way to enthusiasm, however, as I met the challenges of graduate school. I had the same combination of feelings when I started my tenure-track job last fall. I am still in college, still without a normal job (12 years now and counting!). My feet seem to finally be firmly beneath me, the residual apprehension is waning, and my enthusiasm continues to grow.
So, while nothing -- from my office, to my daily duties, to my paycheck -- is the same as it was two years ago, the goal is essentially unaffected: meet the expectations of the evaluators, and proceed to the next (the biggest?) stage in the academic life cycle.
