Joshua: This is a big year. As we chronicled in our previous column, my wife, Kathleen, and I are both up for tenure -- she in a department of chemistry at a liberal-arts college, me in a department of psychology at a nearby regional state university. Kathleen had given up tenure at her previous job so that we could live together. It was time to see if that gamble would pay off.
Then in a bit of timing that Ms. Mentor would probably not endorse, Kathleen became pregnant. With twins.
By the spring of 2003, both of us had been told, in no uncertain terms, what we needed to accomplish to achieve tenure. Kathleen needed to increase her campus visibility and show evidence of continued scholarship. I needed four more publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Fortunately, after a rough couple of years, some of my articles started to hit. One paper was accepted into a decent empirical journal after two rounds of revisions; another was accepted after three. Then a theoretical paper got into a high-profile review journal. I hoped that that fairly prestigious publication would enable me to squeak by even if I was one paper short of the four I was told I needed for tenure.
Then, a few months before my final pretenure review, the fourth piece found a home. Or so I thought.
Three anonymous reviewers all recommended that the journal accept the paper, pending minor revisions. The editor, however, requested four copies of the revised manuscript so he could send it out for a second round of review.
I was somewhat mystified. What else would the new reviewers have to say that hadn't already been said in the first round? Well, he's the editor. So I revised the manuscript, dutifully made four copies, and sent them off. I hoped I would hear back soon.
I did hear back soon, but the news wasn't good. One of the new reviewers did not like the paper. Based on that one negative review, the editor demoted my paper from "accept pending minor revisions" to "revise and resubmit." With a bit of dread, I inserted the manuscript and the correspondence with the editor into my tenure file and submitted it to my department's tenure committee.
In the final pretenure review, the committee could render one of three decisions. It could indicate (in suitably hedged language) that I was in good shape for the tenure decision, coming in five months. It could specify what needed to happen before the tenure decision to avoid getting voted down. Or it could suggest that I start looking for another job.
The feedback fell somewhere between options one and two. The committee felt that I would probably be OK with just the three new publications. But they'd really like to see a fourth before the final tenure vote.
Hey, I'm trying!
Kathleen: The semester you are pregnant with twins is not the best time to teach an extra course as an overload. Fortunately, through creative course scheduling, an understanding department, and a lot of help from Joshua, I was able to make it through without going on bed rest -- a possibility my obstetrician had threatened more than once.
Early last summer, I gave birth to two healthy full-term babies. As Joshua and I tried to adjust to these new beings in our lives, there were two problems looming in the distance. Our tenure files were due in the fall. Joshua was hoping to update his already assembled tenure file with one more publication. I still needed to assemble mine, as well as write a long reflective narrative making my case for tenure.
It quickly became apparent that my tenure file was not going to get written while I was at home with the babies. Just getting a shower or going to the bathroom was an accomplishment.
In July, Joshua and I set up a schedule. Each of us went to campus two days a week, while the other stayed home. Then, right before our fall semesters started, we had a blissful few days while family members visited, allowing us to both go into work. It worked; I completed my tenure file on time.
Joshua: As my final tenure vote approached, senior colleagues inquired with increasing frequency into the status of my manuscripts under review. Their inquiries did nothing to increase my optimism about my case, should a fourth publication fail to materialize.
To get that fourth publication, I had sent out several other manuscripts. In response to each inquiry from my colleagues, I would enumerate their status: I had revised and resubmitted my demoted paper and the journal had sent it out for a third round of review. Another paper had been rejected, but the editor had consented to a resubmission after a substantial revision. And yet another paper had gotten lost in an academic black hole.
That black hole took the form of an editor who had been sitting on the article for nearly 17 months. My polite (but increasingly frantic) inquiries were met by sincere apologies and empty promises.
That part of the publication process can make you feel pretty helpless. But there was nothing to do but wait.
Kathleen: So, Joshua was fairly stressed out. I was nervous about my own tenure prospects. And neither of us was getting enough sleep. Two newborns in the house left little time to dwell on our situation, but the tenure clock was ticking, so there was no avoiding the inevitable.
I alternated between feeling OK about my tenure case and worrying that I wasn't worried enough. Unlike Joshua, I had been through the process before. Having achieved tenure once made me optimistic I would do so again, but this was a new place, with a different process and different requirements.
The main focus for tenure at my college is on teaching. So, as part of the tenure process, faculty members from the college's tenure committee visited my classes. The first one they chose to visit was a chemistry course for nonmajors. I usually have success with nonmajors, but I was finding this group to be very challenging. The course has a dozen students, and about two thirds of them regularly show up late. The day of the visit was no exception.
Rattled, I did not do my best. Fortunately I had another chance. I was also being observed the following class period. I reminded the students to show up on time since I was also being observed and many tried to comply. I say tried, because the next day about half the class was still three minutes late. Fortunately, the students were very interactive that day and the committee's subsequent visits to my upper-division courses went well, too.
Service and campus visibility are also very important in tenure decisions at my college. Over the last year and a half, I had worked hard to increase both. My one remaining concern was the research component. My college expects continued evidence of scholarly activity. Unfortunately, I have a hole in my publication record, partly because of the time I spent in administration working at a teaching center. I had restarted my research program, but it was slow going when combined with a heavy teaching load.
Since coming to my small college two years ago, I've had one publication accepted and I currently have another paper under review. With other scholarly activities, including a small grant and a few presentations, I'm hoping to make it through the tenure process. But will it be enough? No one can say. The word on the street is that the scholarship bar has been raised. The problem is, no one knows by how much, or where the bar was to begin with.
Joshua: Right before the final tenure vote, I had a fourth paper provisionally accepted for publication. To my surprise, it turned out to be the one that had been substantially revised and resubmitted after rejection. I showed the editorial decision letter to a tenured colleague who assured me it would suffice as evidence of my fourth publication. (I had heard nothing yet on the other two manuscripts. The demoted paper was still under review. And the black hole was avoiding my calls and ignoring my e-mails.)
On the day of the tenure committee's final meeting, I was stressed. One of my colleagues, who is also up for tenure this year, told me how her daughter had tried to reassure her that morning. Her daughter predicted the committee would say, "You do good work, and you're very pretty." Her daughter's optimism notwithstanding, we were all pretty nervous.
In the end, the meeting lasted less than an hour. The chairwoman called me with the good news: The committee had voted in favor of my tenure. The decision needs to wind its way up the academic bureaucracy over the course of this academic year. But I had passed the first big hurdle.
Ironically, shortly after my tenure file was forwarded to the dean's office, both of the papers in limbo came through -- too late to add to the file. The timing could have been better, but all things considered, it's been a good year.
Kathleen: Things look good for Joshua's tenure and it's up to me now. In just a few weeks, I have an interview with the dean and then one with the personnel board. I will either have achieved tenure again, or I will have gambled unadvisedly -- given up a tenured position I loved only to lose the game elsewhere.
