I'm still a couple of years away from going up, but if I stay on my current trajectory, I will most likely be denied tenure at my low ranked R1. There's been lots of discussion on this board about what to do if you don't find an academic job, but what about getting fired after having found one? I would appreciate comments from people who've been through it, or know someone who has.
Getting denied tenure at low ranked place
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First of all, change your trajectory. No offense, if you are a few years out, you have time (unless you have wasted the first few years and have nothing published).
Find some people, either grad school friends, current colleagues, current grad students you teach, or just conference connections, and see if you can co-author with them.
Second, start aiming for "base" hits. Find papers you have written, and don't send them to APSR, or even ISQ or top sub-field journals. Send them to second tier sub field journals. It is easier, especially if you are well liked, for your department to argue you deserve tenure if you have sufficient publications, even if they are not at the highest quality outlets. If you can meet, and even exceed the number of publications asked for, you can argue the outlet later (though, there ARE outlets you should avoid obviously, but most R1 faculty I know aim higher than they ought and then can't figure out why they aren't being published).
Third, if you still think it will be close, start applying for other jobs the year you are up for Tenure. If you absolutely want to stay where you are, it may help a bit in negotiations for tenure. If not, it can definitely help you find a new place to land WITH tenure.
Finally, a TT gig at a Community College is not a horrible outcome. It can pay fairly well and even be semi-rewarding as Holden indicated.
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Sue,
Absolutely aim low in terms of publication outlet. Give you allies some publications to point to when you come up for tenure.
Indeed, publication is normally a game of finding an outlet for your research. The idea of top journals in political science -- a liberal art -- is stupid. What matters is that you find an audience. For many of us publishing in an APSR is a complete waste of time, as the people that would read our work will not read the APSR.
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This is a good reply for the most part. But it is not easy to move with tenure in such a situation. Even people who get denied at major departments and have solid publications often have to do a short clock at the place they move to for a couple of reasons. It's cheaper for the hiring school. They also want to make sure you are a good colleague and teacher. There is always the unspoken fear -esp. if your CV indicates that you had an arguable case- that maybe you are a crazy person or something. I am not saying people don't move with immediate tenure, but it is the minority among the cases with which I am familiar. Maybe it was more common when the market was better.
First of all, change your trajectory. No offense, if you are a few years out, you have time (unless you have wasted the first few years and have nothing published).
Find some people, either grad school friends, current colleagues, current grad students you teach, or just conference connections, and see if you can co-author with them.
Second, start aiming for "base" hits. Find papers you have written, and don't send them to APSR, or even ISQ or top sub-field journals. Send them to second tier sub field journals. It is easier, especially if you are well liked, for your department to argue you deserve tenure if you have sufficient publications, even if they are not at the highest quality outlets. If you can meet, and even exceed the number of publications asked for, you can argue the outlet later (though, there ARE outlets you should avoid obviously, but most R1 faculty I know aim higher than they ought and then can't figure out why they aren't being published).
Third, if you still think it will be close, start applying for other jobs the year you are up for Tenure. If you absolutely want to stay where you are, it may help a bit in negotiations for tenure. If not, it can definitely help you find a new place to land WITH tenure.
Finally, a TT gig at a Community College is not a horrible outcome. It can pay fairly well and even be semi-rewarding as Holden indicated. -
The idea of top journals in political science -- a liberal art -- is stupid. What matters is that you find an audience. For many of us publishing in an APSR is a complete waste of time, as the people that would read our work will not read the APSR.
You don't think all disciplines, from science to liberal arts, have different tiers of journals? Sure, your core audience may be a specialist community that doesn't read the APSR because they are only concerned with how things apply to their narrow issue/area of interest.
Which is the whole point behind the concept of top journals!
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Sure, your core audience may be a specialist community that doesn't read the APSR because they are only concerned with how things apply to their narrow issue/area of interest.
By far, the most narrow, superficial articles in all of political science are to be found in the so-called Big Three -- APSR, AJPS, and JOP. This is precisely why many want to de-link APSA membership from the APSR -- because the APSR is irrelevant to most in political science.
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APSR is less narrow than AJPS. That one is the Methods Uber Alles rallying point. APSR mixes it up once in a while. JOP varies.
Sure, your core audience may be a specialist community that doesn't read the APSR because they are only concerned with how things apply to their narrow issue/area of interest.
By far, the most narrow, superficial articles in all of political science are to be found in the so-called Big Three -- APSR, AJPS, and JOP. This is precisely why many want to de-link APSA membership from the APSR -- because the APSR is irrelevant to most in political science.