If you have been around academic environments for any length of time, you know the scenario. You study for years past the undergraduate degree because you love your discipline. You aren’t quite thinking about a job just yet, as that decision is years away. Instead, you love the thought of being a university professor and you focus on the wonder of the books you are reading. You finish your coursework, you labor over comprehensive exams, and you sweat blood and tears (mostly blood) over the dissertation. You graduate with a Ph.D. (or other terminal degree). You go on the job market. You are one of the lucky ones to find a job. You accept the job. You move (yourself and possibly your family) across country to start this job.
Then what?
Graduate schools prepare us for most of the above-mentioned struggles (the coursework, the exams, sometimes even the dissertation). Maybe, if you are fortunate, you are in a program that provided you with some mock-interview experience. But grad programs don’t often guide newly-minted Ph.D.s about what to do after one has accepted a position and moved to a new location. How do we get acclimated to the new cultural environment (geographically)? How do we adjust to the changes the new university culture brings us? How do we make friends? Or, do we have time to make friends because publishing and teaching and service (and all the other crap very important job responsibilities that accompanies a tenure-track position) is overwhelming? How do we fit into a community outside the institution? Or, will the university be our own community until we have tenure?
You have the degree and the job, but you wonder about your life. When will you have one of those again?
We (those of with great educations who actually remember what being new was like) often don’t do a good job of training / guiding graduate students and new faculty in their new positions. Many times, these new faculty are left alone to figure out their new academic careers, new environments, and new ways of conducting themselves. They may or may not do a healthy job of adjusting. And sometimes they struggle. The lore is great; many seasoned faculty talk about their first year on the job as a new faculty member and that it was difficult to adjust to various expectations, how it was hard to find a hair dresser or doctor, how lonely it was to be somewhere new without family and friends. Some of us, unfortunately, have the “training” to not let them see us sweat (or let other faculty know of our struggles).
I recently heard a story of a new faculty member* who had several difficult experiences his/her first semester at a university. The person’s pet died, the apartment caught fire, and the car broke down. Along with this, she/he was teaching a full load of classes (some new courses), involved in university service, and was expected to produce scholarship. The new faculty member didn’t feel comfortable sharing difficulties—professional or personal–with her/his new peers, so no one knew anything about the difficulties the faculty member faced. This person experienced significant depression, and ultimately left the institution. (*More exists to this story, but let this suffice for our example.)
As a new faculty member myself, I’ve experienced a sense of being overwhelmed and lonely. I have terrific colleagues who have been very good about helping me acclimate to this new culture and find my way around. They have been kind enough to include me in events and excursions. As kind and as wonderful as they have been, they are not my family and they are not the friends I left at home. I’m working in a new institution with new ways and old histories that I don’t understand. I’m teaching different types of students. I’m teaching different courses. In short, the first semester has been hard. It’s hard, and I thought I was prepared (years of experience teaching and working in different universities).
How hard is it for a new faculty member without similar experience and preparation? Particularly, how hard is it when we don’t want to talk (or hear) about how hard it is?
How about you? Institutions: what does your campus to help new faculty adjust to their new roles? New faculty: what have you done to get yourself prepared for the intense changes in your life? How have you begun to acclimate to your new surroundings?
Please leave your suggestions in comments below.
[Image by Flickr user v1ctory 1s m1ne. Used under the Creative Commons license.]
12 Comments
I’m conducting an interview study to answer these very questions, only about post doctoral researchers rather than new instructional faculty. If you’re a Post Doc, or you work with a Post Doc, and are interested in hearing about or participating in our study, please contact me! libby.hemphill@asu.edu
Hi, this post is particularly timely since I’m doing some research on faculty development and doctoral programs and I’ve been thinking about transitions a lot. Are doctoral programs really preparing new faculty for the jobs available in academia which have a much different set of skills and responsibilities (see “Preparing the Next Generation of Faculty: Graduate School as Socialization to the Academic Career” by Ann Austin) or making them aware of alternate careers outside of academia. But this is a particularly interesting question. Do institutions have mentoring for new faculty? other supports? I’m looking forward to reading the comments!
Beth
I am in charge of staff and professional development at our two-year institution. We have a formal mentoring program for new faculty members, which lasts for two semesters. New faculty members are paired with an experienced faculty member, usually from outside of the new faculty’s discipline and division. We do this to break down silos between departments and divisions.
Each new faculty member, besides the close mentor-protege relationship, also receives a copy of James Lang’s book On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching. New faculty members tell me the mentor and the book are very helpful; our faculty make the transition from working, technical professional to faculty member, ususally with no significant teaching experience.
In addition to the mandatory mentoring program, all new faculty members are required to take seven 2-credit courses in order to become certified to teach in our system (the courses include 1) curriculum design, 2) teaching methods, 3) educational evaluation, 4) guidance and counseling, 5) educational psychology, 6) diversity, and 7) a course on our system’s history. Deans and associate deans take the same courses plus a supervision course. The courses are taken over the first two or three years of service; once the courses are completed, the faculty member is certified for five years and has to earn CEUs to remain certified. Our system requires faculty and instructional supervisors to take the seven classes because we know they’re already subject matter experts; it’s the system’s job to help them transition into teaching.
The system works well, in my opinion.
Kenneth, my campus also has a mentor-mentee program, but the faculty reside in the same department. I like the idea of differing departments … seems a little safer for the mentee. But about the courses your new faculty must take, how much of a time commitment are these courses? Do you have faculty– faculty, who say, have been teaching for some years– resist taking a course on “teaching methods” (for example)? Can the certification be transferred to other institutions in your area, or it is institution specific?
I’m a first semester Assistant Professor. My institution provided a 1 day orientation during which representatives of various administrative departments (student activities, dining, athletics, security, safety, bank) came to tell us about themselves. I would give almost anything if this (or other) time had been spent setting up email, learning the registration and payroll systems, testing out the classroom technology, and meeting other new faculty instead. I wish I had a mentor, but I find no likely candidates for the position.
As for my preparation for this move, I threw everything into a truck, dumped it in a spare bedroom, and still haven’t unpacked. I wrote new syllabi for new textbooks, but stuck fast to my demand for no more than 2 preps this semester. The teaching part doesn’t change much at least.
Thanks for the comment, Courtney. A lot of institutions offer the type of orientation you describe (mine included). And that info can be helpful, but as you note, there are other types of info that are more important. What I was more concerned about– and what I wanted to hear about– was the fuller look at new faculty and how they adjust. Yes, we have orientations, but how about the balance of our lives? (That’s not for you to answer, but for others to comment.)
FWIW, I have often found Emily Toth’s (Ms. Mentor’s) column at the Chronicle website to be helpful- funny but also full of really good advice. For anybody who is freshly into a new job, or even for grad students contemplating that light at the end of the tunnel, I’d recommend it as a regular read.
I would recommend making friends with the department secretary first. Schmooze this person a couple times a week, and go to lunch with her once in a while if you can.
Next, make friends with the dean’s secretary. Then, make friends with your dept chair or program director — whoever makes the course schedules. You can schmooze these two VIPs at a lesser frequency than the dept secretary.
Sometime before the end of the first year, you need to establish what the tenure standards are for someone in your positions. The real, unpublished standards — not the official published standards. How to find these out? That can get tricky….
The other day, I realized (along with a colleague who came in the same year) that I’m in my 5th year….5th year! Yet, I still operate in my department as if I’m a newbie. Granted my years are never as taxing as that first year. There was a moment where I had to become the teacher instead of the student. Indeed, I got a graduate course my first year and an undergraduate one in my field. Negotiating student identities and developing mine was troublesome. There are many faculty who struggle with expectations and adjusting them for their institution and their students. I balked at that having been an alum of the system oh so many years ago. And, I believe in public education so the job was more than just a job out of grad school. I was dedicated, heart-felt, passionate.
What I learned is that no one cares about that.
The business of running the department and the university rests on the shoulders of faculty and the politicking needs to begin almost immediately. There are no more engaged conversations with wild gesticulations in the hallway. Instead, there are measured responses to gauge a colleagues level of interest and his/her willingness to participate. Then there are the students and finding your voice as a faculty member. Some are brilliant and inspiring; some are recalcitrant and resentful; some are well-meaning and hopeful.
I wouldn’t trade anything for getting to know any and all of those students. But, it was a tough transition from grad student to professor.
One of my dissertation advisors said that “now the real work begins.” I was dismayed at this because I had just accomplished something great: defending my dissertation. But, yes, he was right; the real work began the moment I set foot on campus.
I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for it.
My institution also has some orientation and an optional mentoring program that starts after the first year. But, I think that the University of Florida (not where I am) has some really concise and good tips for us newbies: http://www.aa.ufl.edu/Handbook/newFaculty.html
I will second making friends with the department secretary. Mine is my go to person for, as I put it to her, the answers to life, the universe, and everything. She is always very helpful and has offered a lot of sound advice and guidance for traversing the first semester.
I also meet with a full time faculty member on Fridays once or twice a month to talk and discuss how things are going. That has been helpful as well.
Also, seriously, posting on Prof Hacker and talking about teaching on Twitter with a lot of you has been, above and beyond everything else, the most helpful thing for me this first semester. I can’t even begin to explain how many times a problem I was having has been answered via Prof Hacker or a tweet.
We are crucially aware of the difficulty for our new hires of making a new start in a new place. Our sensitivity to this is perhaps heightened by the fact that we are on the South Plains of Texas, literally 5 hours drive from a major metropolitan area–now, those are nice areas (Dallas, Austin, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos) but they are still 5 hours away.
That being the case, across my entire academic (music) division, we are at pains to be collegial, welcoming, and supportive, of both new hires and long-term colleagues: we have regular social events, we help with housing/infrastructure information, we schlep boxes to and from the moving trucks, etc. I actually sat down and wrote a 3-page “Countercultural guide to Lubbock”, including information on everything from chiropractic to acupuncture, public radio to CD stores, the best places to buy wine, good auto mechanics, restaurant options, spouse/family day-trips, and every other kind of information I could think of that would help a new hire begin to build both the practical and personal relationships to make the place feel like home.
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