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[patio_chair]

I'm sure the mirror image of this question exists on the tenure track forum.  I work in a humanities dept at an R1.

My department and university's tenure standards are as clear as these things can be.  I meet with junior faculty once a year and discuss their progress toward these requirements, offer to read work in progress, help them find publishers, etc.  I talk with them informally more often than that, of course.  I have a couple senior colleagues who watch out for these kinds of issues as well.  Some junior profs publish a lot and are fine.  Others are cutting it awfully close if you do the math and look ahead a few years.  This appears to have little correlation to things like service load and teaching releases (ie, the most productive people are not the ones with the lightest teaching or service loads). 

What are my responsibilities here?  Is there something else I should be doing?  Any success stories of cases where you were able to do something to help a junior person get into position to cross the finish line at tenure time?

[tenured_feminist]

How much help are your juniors getting from seniors with the same specialties? I do a lot of mentoring of people in my areas.

Can you diagnose what's going on with the marginal folks? Are there any common factors or does it seem to be totally idiosyncratic? Is your department reasonably accommodating of work/family issues, health issues, etc.?

Do you have a departmental work in progress series or an informal workshopping group? These can be good ways of getting slower folks to get things done via the threat of personal humiliation.

But if I've learned one thing, it's that you can't save everyone.

[waxwing]

One problem with attempting to do more than you are already doing is the unpredictable time lag produced by the review process.  If you get way behind you can't just assume that reviewers will move expeditiously enough to help you.

I always advise anyone who will listen to pursue a variety of projects that ideally will be at different stages, and so give them something productive to do during those times when they are waiting to hear from an editor. 

WW