Preparing Pre-Tenure Materials
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Transcript Preparing Pre-Tenure Materials
John Holcomb
Cleveland State University
Mathfest 2010
Caveat
Some of the advice in this presentation may not be
appropriate for your institution or circumstances
You MUST learn the expectations and procedures for
your institution
Please cultivate mentors and discuss procedures with
your chair
Youngstown State University
1995-2000
Masters granting comprehensive state
university
Open enrollment
High Teaching load (12-15 hours per
quarter)
I believed the expectation was 2 peer
reviewed papers for tenure
Tenure dry run year before tenure review
Cleveland State University
Comprehensive Masters-granting
institution
Almost open enrollment
Low teaching load (8 hours per
semester)
Higher research expectations
4th and 5th year reviews prior to tenure
year (reviewed by dept, chair, and college
committee)
Documenting Scholarship
Very challenging for Mathematicians
Pitch mathematics to multiple audiences:
department, college cmte, dean (less may be more)
A paragraph or section on each
paper/project/collaboration
Find a quote somewhere in the Notices (I think)
about how impact factors and citation indexes in
mathematics are not necessarily helpful.
Number your papers on your vita and reference them
by number in your narrative
Documenting Scholarship
Get the AMS Notices Article
January 2005 "Patterns of Research in
Mathematics" by Jerrold Grossman.
43% of mathematicians have only
published a single paper
15% for 2 papers, 8% for 3, 5% for 4, and
4% for 5 papers, and 10% for 6-10 papers
and 7% for 11-20 and 6% for 21-50 and 2 %
for 51-100
Publishing
50
45
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1 Paper 2 Papers 3 Papers 4 Papers 5 Papers
6-10
Papers
11-20
Papers
21-50
Papers
Documenting Scholarship
Co-authorship
Take the pulse of your department and
college
You have to explain your contribution
Solicit letters from co-author or lead
author that testifies to your contribution
to include in Appendix
Documenting Teaching
Student Evaluation Data
Necessary evil that administrators seem to love
If it is a Likert Scale, give the percentages for each
category and then collapse
Make a bar graph for the percentage in each category
If classes are small, describe the impact of single
students
If the scores began lower and improved, make that clear
Get data for department/college norms
Explain the steps you have taken to address the issue
Documenting Teaching
Do a Master Teaching Swap
Visit a colleagues class and interview the students for 10
minutes
Tell them you will share their concerns after final grades
are posted with no attribution to specific students
Have the colleague do the same thing for your class
Think deeply about the questions the colleague should
ask
Documenting Teaching
Make scholarly in some way major course overhauls
Articles, presentations, etc.
Give workshops or colloquiums on curriculum
enhancements
Get letters of support from others who have used your
innovations
Learn if you need to include every course syllabus or
simply ones that are a result of redesigning on your
part
Documenting Teaching
Document Teaching Effectiveness
Clearly articulate the “threshold of understanding” and
describe how you evaluated success or failure
Show success rate in class (especially upper level
courses)
Describe the process
Colleagues reviewed materials and get it in writing
Caveat: This is more rare and I have yet to see it done
Documenting Service
Choose fewer committees/projects, but have more of
an impact
Document the impact
Realize that Service may make or break your tenure
General Thoughts
Do not leave this for the last minute
It is up to you to make the case
Have others read it
Find out what is expected in terms of
documentation
Ask a lot of people the same questions
Size does NOT matter
It is like a grant in that it is never quite done
Final Thought
Organization, Organization,
Organization!