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Becoming a Faculty Member: Transition from Graduate Student/Post-Doc to the Tenure Track
(Or…So You Got the Job…Now What?)
Edward McAuley, Ph.D.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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 Edward McAuley is a Shahid and Ann Carlson Khan Endowed Professor of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds appointments in the Departments of Kinesiology and Community Health, Psychology, Internal Medicine, and the Beckman Institute. He is also the director of the Exercise Psychology Laboratory at Illinois. He has published over 250 articles and chapters. He recently completed a 5-year term as Associate Editor of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine and is currently on the editorial boards of Psychology and Aging, and the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences. He is the Chair of the Psychosocial Risk and Disease Prevention study section of the NIH. He is an elected fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the Gerontological Society of America. While at the University of Illinois he has been named a University Scholar and received the both the campus award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Excellence in Guiding Undergraduate Research. His research agenda has focused primarily on physical activity, aging, and psychological function, the use of efficacy-based treatment interventions to enhance exercise adherence in older adults, and the role played by fitness change in neurocognitive function in older adults. The focus of his current work is social cognitive models of physical activity, disability, and quality of life.
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For many years I have been concerned that the majority of graduate programs around the country have failed quite miserably in one vital aspect of graduate education: training graduate students to become faculty members. I don’t believe that I am alone in this belief, as evidenced by the many excellent columns in the Mentoring Forum section of The Physiologist. Indeed, many professors do an excellent job of preparing their graduate students but much of this is informal training. After much discussion with colleagues, my concern prompted me, in 2008, to design and teach a graduate class in Professional Development. In this class, I tried to share my own experiences of mentoring faculty and graduate students in such a way that the students in the class would feel better prepared for what “lay in wait for them” out there on the tenure track. In this column, I address one of those topics, the transition to becoming a faculty member.
What Do Assistant Professors Do?
Although this may appear a rather silly question, I am continually surprised by new faculty members’ realization of the complexity of being on the tenure-track. The majority assume, and often correctly, that the primary focus of their job is building a successful research agenda. This is certainly how our students are trained: develop a line of research; be productive; and fund your research, your laboratory, and your students. However, there are also those not so trivial elements of the position that encompass teaching and service (or public engagement). Please allow me discuss each of these briefly and offer a few tips that hopefully may serve you well as you begin your careers.
Not All Research is Equal
This cryptic sub-heading is not meant to suggest that some research endeavors are necessarily more superior to others. Rather, different institutions have different research demands within the tenure-track system. Some are research intensive and reflect situations where you have lots of independence in putting your research agenda or program together. Here the focus is on generating funding, an independent line of research, and publications. Such endeavors often require forming collaborative research groups across campus and developing a national and international reputation. One has to be particularly cognizant of structuring one’s time appropriately in this type of position. Other institutions are less research intensive and there is somewhat less pressure on being an independent scientist. In these institutions, there is likely to be a greater emphasis placed on teaching, a higher teaching load, and therefore decreased need to structure your time (i.e., the teaching structures it for you). Finally, there are tenure-track positions that are comprised of primarily, possibly all, teaching where there are few expectations relative to conducting research, publishing, and securing funding.
Whether you are required to do a little or a lot of research, it pays to develop a systematic research agenda that has a solid theoretical foundation and progresses logically in solving increasing more complex problems. Of crucial importance at this stage is the establishment of one’s own independent line of research that may, in part, reflect one’s graduate or post-doctoral work and may be somewhat influenced by one’s former mentors. In my own lab, we have several mantras that serve us well, and one that I frequently use with my students is that “You can’t be me!” They may espouse the same theoretical biases that I have, but they must be able to demonstrate that they have something viable and important to bring to the research table over which they can exercise sole ownership. In large part, I am happy to say that the majority of my students have been successful in this endeavor.
Teaching is Not the Diametrical Opposite of Research
For the vast majority of assistant professors, teaching will take an inordinate amount of time during the first few years. Many consider that teaching “takes time away from my research.” However, it is important to remember that, like it or not, as professors we are supposed to be educating students. Moreover, being a “good teacher,” in my view can have many advantages, not the least of which involves assisting in your research program. I know many of you are probably thinking that this makes little sense. However, if you subscribe to the philosophy that your research can inform your teaching and your teaching can inform your research, I believe that teaching can have a remarkable pay-off for your research program. For example, as a new assistant professor, you may not have the luxury of having graduate research assistants to help you with your research. One solution to this is to recruit undergraduates to become involved in your research. This becomes more difficult to do if you are not viewed as a passionate teacher who cares about his/her subject matter. Several years ago, I started to recruit undergraduates to participate in our research as “undergraduate research assistants” (URAs). This has been an extraordinarily successful venture with between 10 and 20 URAs working with us (note: not for us) each year. This would have been impossible without them having had a good experience in the classroom.
There are, however, many challenges associated with teaching. These include: 1) time management (setting aside time for class preparation, reading, and grading); 2) trying to teach everything you have learned in graduate school to an incoming freshman class (remember – they were in high school 6 weeks ago!); 3) teaching new classes every semester (hint – be prepared to take an existing syllabus, modify it as you go along, and get comfortable teaching a couple of classes before moving to something new); 4) overusing technology (sure, your exploding 3D PowerPoint presentations are awesome, but don’t let style destroy substance); 5) having to cover all topics on your syllabus (just because you have a syllabus doesn’t necessarily mean that you HAVE to get through it; making sure that your students are learning the material is more important); 6) being chained to the lectern (movement is important in teaching; it gets you closer to the students and it suggests that you are interested in the students; so, work the room!); and 7) lacking “presence” in the classroom (be enthusiastic; modulate the pitch and cadence of your voice to give the impression that this is the greatest thing imaginable that you are talking about). Finally, being a good teacher demands putting in time and effort. More importantly, it demands that you want to be successful at teaching and not to simply treat is as a necessary evil.
Service (Professional Engagement)
Loosely speaking, service or professional engagement reflects activity that contributes to the successful mission of the department, the institution, and discipline. Most department heads attempt to “protect” assistant professors from too much involvement in service until such time as they receive tenure. Whether this is a good thing can be debated. Nevertheless, we are all expected to be involved in service. But what is this service? It can encompass both internal (department, college, campus committees) and external (disciplinary, professional, community involvement) service. Internal service for the most part involves committee work. Such committee work can be at the elected (e.g., departmental advisory, promotion and tenure, faculty senate), appointed (e.g., faculty searches, budgetary, campus level advisory), or administrative (leaders of institute concentrations, certification, institutional review boards) levels. External service can involve organizational (e.g., leadership committees, holding office in national organizations), journal (e.g., reviewing, editorial boards, editors), and community (e.g., serving on community advisory boards) involvement. Clearly, doing all of this can takes its toll on one’s time, especially when the “tenure clock is ticking.” Thus, judicious decisions must be made relative to what service is taken on voluntarily.
It would appear that service is a burden on the research and teaching demands on an assistant professor, so is it worth it? My answer is a resounding “yes!” It is worth it because it helps you to become a well-rounded departmental citizen. It can also increase your visibility locally and externally, which, in turn, can lead to collaborations that might enhance your research and teaching. Moreover, becoming more visible is important in advancing your reputation as you move through the academic ranks. However, although I advocate for involvement in service, again, one must be judicious in one’s approach. Getting involved early is a great way to begin to understand the system within which you work and potentially to have some control over your own environment. The “dark side” of service is, in many ways, one’s own fault brought about by excessive committee work demanding more time than you can spare. Learn to say no sometimes (albeit apologetically and with a smile!).
Putting Together Your Lab: More than Equipment
Among the many things that will assail you in your transition to being a faculty member will be the organization and structuring of your lab. Although having the funds and space necessary for the equipment that is needed to successfully carry out your research is vital, it is also important to remember that people are important too. Unfortunately, most new assistant professors are not in the position to immediately have a team of advanced doctoral students with a myriad of skills to assist them. So what is one to do? This is where the URA model comes into play again. Our URAs are trained in all of the day-to-day tasks associated with our lab and are integrated as fully functioning lab members. Over the years this model has been revised, upgraded, and nuanced to the point where we attract the very best undergraduates, The model has been championed by a former chancellor as the optimal way for undergraduates to receive undergraduate research experience. Our URA model requires students to commit to a minimum of two semesters in the lab and has minimal expectations in terms of written assignments. Rather, we want them to become committed, responsible, and enthusiastic members of the lab. Most of our URAs are pre-health professionals (i.e., they plan to apply to apply to medical, school, physical or occupational therapy, etc.). My goal is always to try to persuade some of them to enter a research career, and I have been fortunate to have converted a few of them! Importantly, the evaluations of their experience as URAs are uniformly positive, often citing their sense of accomplishment and pride that they are running a metabolic cart flawlessly in front of a cardiologist, that they love interacting with our older participants (despite being terrified to begin with), and, in general, that this experience was the great “hands on” that they could not get in the classroom. So, all of this is by way of saying that upper level URAs can be a tremendous asset to your lab and may be a really good source of future graduate students!
Help: Where Does It Come From?
Needless to say, all of this may seem a bit daunting to say the least. However, within all departments there are numerous sources of assistance, guidance, and wisdom. Many departments have mentoring programs in place. If yours does not, find your own mentor. This may be in your department or across your college but seek someone with experience, success, who is willing to be involved in your career, and who knows their way around the university system. This does not necessarily have to be a seasoned full professor by any means. Other columnists in The Physiologist have previously broached this topic and therefore I will not delve deeply into it in this column (see Additional Resources). Suffice to say that a good mentor can help you navigate the institutional waters more easily, guide your development as a faculty member, and help you to enjoy the transition into your new position.
Some Final Thoughts
Being a faculty member has been one of the great experiences of my life. Although there are certainly more difficulties ahead in these uncertain economic times, a career in higher education can be wonderfully rewarding. The better prepared that you are on entering this career, the more successful you will be. Naturally, in this short column, I have only been able to touch on a few of the topics but I would strongly recommend two books that I have found to be very insightful. The first is “The Compleat Academic: A Career Guide” by Darley, Zanna, and Roediger. This edited text provides some excellent chapters covering sections on starting your career, teaching and mentoring, research and writing, orientation to the academic environment, diversity in academia, and managing your career over time. The second is called “Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year” by James M. Lang, an amusing but insightful treatise on the trials and tribulations of entering higher education (see Additional Resources).
Best wishes for a successful and rewarding career!
Comments:
This article certainly hit the nail on the head. I am a graduate student, and recently I have had a series of conversations with my classmates regarding whether our education has prepared us for success as post docs and beyond. We are getting a solid foundation in scientific knowledge and laboratory research, but there are some seemingly intangible benchmarks that we don’t seem to be meeting. Our program does not offer formal professional development training, and although our individual advisors supply informal guidance, we still find ourselves asking such questions as, “What should we be learning as graduate students to prepare us for what is to come? Are we learning those things?”, and even, “What does an assistant professor actually do?”. This and other articles on the Mentoring Forum provide some concrete answers to these questions, so I have directed my classmates to this website. I think it will help fill in some of the gaps in our training. Thanks, Dr. McAuley, for posting.
Letitia A. Weigand
Johns Hopkins University
One interesting aspect of this article concerns the importance of recognizing different requirements for advancement in different institutions. Having spent 15 years as an Associate Dean with major responsibility for mentoring junior faculty, I continue to be surprised by how many young faculty do not “take ownership” of their own career advancement. There are a few essential steps that should be taken by every individual who starts a new job, no matter whether in academia, industry or elsewhere. 1. Develop your own personal support system. Make a special effort to get to know your colleagues, both individuals at your level, and those who are more experienced. Develop connections in other units in your institution as well as outside. All of these people can be important mentors in different ways.
2. Understand the criteria for advancement in your institution. Talk to your boss, more senior members of your department, and especially those who have recently been advanced. Pay attention to what other successful people have accomplished. When it comes time to prepare your dossier for an advancement review, bear these criteria in mind. Use your support system to help you; don’t hesitate to ask colleagues to review the materials you develop before you hand them in.
3. Know who will evaluate you, when, and by what process. Educate yourself about the process of evaluation. When you prepare your dossier, bear in mind both the evaluation criteria and the audience who will review you. For example, at the University of California, Irvine, there is a campus wide faculty committee that reviews portfolios for advancement and advises the Chancellor. This committee represents all units on the campus, from Arts and Humanities to Social Sciences. In such a committee, it is essential to clearly explain the focus of one’s research, emphasize its significance, and explain, without using jargon, how the different pieces fit into a coherent whole. So, when you start a new job: Keep your antennae out, don’t take things for granted, become a valued colleague by valuing your colleagues themselves, and take ownership of your career success.
Sue Duckles
University of California, Irvine
Questions:
This is a very thorough and helpful article, especially for those of us who are new faculty at universities that require a heavy emphasis on research, but also quite a bit of teaching. Do you have advice or resources that can help junior faculty cope with some of the challenges you list above related to teaching (for instance, efficiently preparing for and teaching new classes, effectively using technology, demonstrating "presence" in the classroom)?
Angela J. Grippo
Northern Illinois University
Response:
The immediate resources would be local. That is, seek out the support of university initiatives in active learning, teaching resource centers, etc. If time allows, one of the most effective methods is to observe and model the teaching behaviors and strategies of good teachers. Visiting their classes, seeking out advice on how to effectively prepare, handle large classes, etc., are all very good approaches to becoming a better teacher. Finally, having good teachers visit your classroom and critique your teaching is an effective learning strategy.
Edward McAuley
As a senior postdoctoral fellow, I am now faced with the reality of how difficult it is to actually obtain an assistant professor position. Is there any advice you can give on this topic?
Sarah Hoffmann Lindsey
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Response:
In my lab we have one very important saying…”You are your vita.” In securing a tenure-track position, you want to put yourself in the very best position possible to be competitive. For most universities, one of the biggest and most important investments that can be made is hiring Assistant Professors. Therefore, they want to see that you have a clear line of research, are independent, and have the potential to secure external funding. Thus, your CV should reflect this potential, as should your letter of application. The latter should outline how you see your research agenda developing, how it is important, and how it would make you a good “fit” to the position for which you are applying.
Edward McAuley