- There was a lot of time spent this week, and very little of it belonged to me, though I had to be there. If you're an academic, you probably know that feeling.
- Hearing more about requirements for promotion to full professor was interesting: all involved research productivity, and none involved warming a chair at various meetings and burning a whole writing day to do so. Collegiality and showing up may be important, but it doesn't count as research productivity.
- Ditto for writing committee reports, creating new assignments, and preparing for class.
- Ditto for teaching, especially when you have one class that is . . . challenging . . . in the seeming lack of interest in some members on occasion to read and participate in class discussions.
- But part of this is my own fault for not looking at my own work every day. Except for the days when I got up at 5 a.m. and didn't get home until 9:45 that night, I could have done something, even if it was just reading the chapter over again.
- And there were some good conversations with colleagues whom I rarely see, so that goes on the plus side of the ledger. And a good, sanity-restoring lunch with a colleague from another institution.
So this week's goal at Dame Eleanor's is really to do better than I did this week.
3 comments:
I'm on a committee that reviews applications for tenure and promotion at the next level up from departments, so I can see that I have everything but the research. I've been feeling kind of sick about the research, but as I keep telling people in the writing group (and myself, constantly myself), just keep moving forward. You can change the future but not the past. I'm also trying to figure out which battles to pick. There are changes at work that I am not happy about, and efforts to avoid are not working, so I need to decide what is best to do.
Thanks, Dame Eleanor~. "Just keep moving forward" is a good mantra. I hope that the changes you don't like resolve themselves.
"There was a lot of time spent this week, and very little of it belonged to me, though I had to be there." OMG. THAT.
I'm increasingly convinced that it's a good idea to put a fair amount of work into teaching and service early on - and then learn how to back off. You can coast on your teaching chops for a while, and if you get a reputation for being competent and helpful, people actually don't notice if you stop doing that for a year or two to focus on your own work.
And, DEH, I love your phrase about changing the future but not the past. I'm holding on to that one.
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