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!