Sunday, 17 September 2006

Know your role

I have yet to master the art of being a “non-tenure-track but otherwise nominally co-equal” faculty member, an art being made more problematic by (a) being expected to attend departmental faculty meetings, at which grand and lofty visions are discussed and (b) participation in said vision being contingent on my continued employment, the odds of which are nominally in the 25–33% range, all job candidates being equal—which surely they are not. That’s better than the 0.5–2.5% range that probably exists normally in these searches, but it’s hardly the sort of odds I’d be betting on either.

It’s hard not to become invested in things in a situation like this one, although working on job applications is a relatively mind-numbing distraction from thinking too hard about these things.

2 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

Show excitement about the delightful and fantastic new direction….help brainstorm on how to achieve it….and stay the Holy Hell away from ANY issue that exposes any divisions in the current faculty.

 

My favorite is when in a meeting one of the tenured or tenure-track professors complain about how they just can’t be expected to do certain things because of their heavy teaching loads—when they know damn well that I’m teaching twice as many classes as they are but have equal service requirements.

 
Comments are now closed on this post.