Tenure Denial Whining « Political Science Rumors

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OP: 9 Goods vs 7 No Goods
Thread: 549 Goods vs 93 No Goods

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Tenure Denial Whining

Macie

True, but it must have been some special situation ($$$, kid, spouse) to give up the sure thing and gamble at AU. Surely, she had to have seen the signs after a couple years.
Yes, it was (spousal in this case). There usually is a reason like that for giving up tenure. That's life.

Yes, but life shouldn't involve eight years of complaining about it after it doesn't go according to plan. She didn't do enough to get tenure at American. Period, end of sentence.

Why the nay? There's an infallible way to determine whether or not she did enough to get tenure at American: she didn't get tenure at American.

7 months ago # QUOTE 7 YEA 3 NAY !
Byrne

True, but it must have been some special situation ($$$, kid, spouse) to give up the sure thing and gamble at AU. Surely, she had to have seen the signs after a couple years.
Yes, it was (spousal in this case). There usually is a reason like that for giving up tenure. That's life.

Yes, but life shouldn't involve eight years of complaining about it after it doesn't go according to plan. She didn't do enough to get tenure at American. Period, end of sentence.

Yeah not sure who you're responding to. All I did was to reply to the person who was surprised that she gave up tenure. And then confirmed that it was for spousal reasons.

7 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 1 NAY !
Byrne

Ie the person who said "wow" above implying that this giving up of tenure never happens.

7 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 1 NAY !
Brendon

Achieving tenure is difficult if you are a bad match for the institution, eg a great teacher who doesn't publish much at a high volume R1

True, but really applicable here. AU is hardly a "high volume R1" and it certainly was not when she joined the department. They taught a 3-2 at least until the late 1990s, if not later.

7 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 0 NAY !
Scottie

The ways in which people are being ahistorical:

1. AU, while not a leading university even today, has become more research oriented than it was 15 years ago. As has been said, their location attracts people and they can be more picky. She was probably looking at people hired 20-25 years ago who were tenured before she got there.

2. She did get good interim reports.

Putting these two things together I think that standards changed somewhat during her time there. That and -surprise- people aren't always honest. If those two things happened to you, you'd also be unhappy. If you had given up tenure only to have that happen and then because of locational constraints knew it was very unlikely you could ever get it elsewhere, you might be even more unhappy. And that's true even if you did not have what is now seen as a strong record. That's a natural human reaction.

Whether this is the best thing for her professionally or personally to continue to discuss several years later is doubtful, but I think some of the other essays she got published were valuable and junior people need to know some of the ways in which things can go wrong.

7 months ago # QUOTE 8 YEA 2 NAY !
Brendon

The fact is that at a top research university, a tenure file with a co-authored Cambridge book written while as a graduate student a decade ago whose top article is Political Research Quarterly and a handful of Judicature articles is a very weak record. No solo book, no top general interest journals, and no top sub-field articles in American politics. And I have no doubt that she claimed she would be productive when they hired her at the second job at AU. And she did get a powerful signal: when hired, they did not in the contract say she could go up early at AU; had they thought she was good enough for them, they would clearly have done so (every case of moving as an advanced AP involves such language or discussions in the contract).
Bottom line: she knew her record was not good enough for AU, and did essentially nothing to change that prior. And just looking at the record, it is not good enough for a research university, and would surely fail at top liberal arts colleges.
Tl;dr. The tenure process work.

Ok, you all have to stop calling AU a top research university. Even now, it is NOT the case in political science and back when she joined the department it was even less so.

7 months ago # QUOTE 5 YEA 0 NAY !
Judd

There are hundreds of political science departments in the country. AU is a top research university compared to the vast majority of places. For example, look at Lawless, who went up for tenure around the same time as JD. Lawless has a profile of a top research uni. Look at Leighley, Lublin. It is not a top 50 political science department, but you look beyond the department when considering a research university and its standards.

The fact is that at a top research university, a tenure file with a co-authored Cambridge book written while as a graduate student a decade ago whose top article is Political Research Quarterly and a handful of Judicature articles is a very weak record. No solo book, no top general interest journals, and no top sub-field articles in American politics. And I have no doubt that she claimed she would be productive when they hired her at the second job at AU. And she did get a powerful signal: when hired, they did not in the contract say she could go up early at AU; had they thought she was good enough for them, they would clearly have done so (every case of moving as an advanced AP involves such language or discussions in the contract).
Bottom line: she knew her record was not good enough for AU, and did essentially nothing to change that prior. And just looking at the record, it is not good enough for a research university, and would surely fail at top liberal arts colleges.
Tl;dr. The tenure process work.
Ok, you all have to stop calling AU a top research university. Even now, it is NOT the case in political science and back when she joined the department it was even less so.

7 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 3 NAY !
Chelsey

her file seems to be a real failure.

7 months ago # QUOTE 4 YEA 0 NAY !
Rodolphe

There are hundreds of political science departments in the country. AU is a top research university compared to the vast majority of places. For example, look at Lawless, who went up for tenure around the same time as JD. Lawless has a profile of a top research uni. Look at Leighley, Lublin. It is not a top 50 political science department, but you look beyond the department when considering a research university and its standards.
The fact is that at a top research university, a tenure file with a co-authored Cambridge book written while as a graduate student a decade ago whose top article is Political Research Quarterly and a handful of Judicature articles is a very weak record. No solo book, no top general interest journals, and no top sub-field articles in American politics. And I have no doubt that she claimed she would be productive when they hired her at the second job at AU. And she did get a powerful signal: when hired, they did not in the contract say she could go up early at AU; had they thought she was good enough for them, they would clearly have done so (every case of moving as an advanced AP involves such language or discussions in the contract).
Bottom line: she knew her record was not good enough for AU, and did essentially nothing to change that prior. And just looking at the record, it is not good enough for a research university, and would surely fail at top liberal arts colleges.
Tl;dr. The tenure process work.
Ok, you all have to stop calling AU a top research university. Even now, it is NOT the case in political science and back when she joined the department it was even less so.

It's an R2. Kentucky is an R1. For whatever that's worth.

7 months ago # QUOTE 5 YEA 0 NAY !
Gilberta

They were hired several years after her and came in with tenure. That does not refute the point that things changed during her time there.

There are hundreds of political science departments in the country. AU is a top research university compared to the vast majority of places. For example, look at Lawless, who went up for tenure around the same time as JD. Lawless has a profile of a top research uni. Look at Leighley, Lublin. It is not a top 50 political science department, but you look beyond the department when considering a research university and its standards.
The fact is that at a top research university, a tenure file with a co-authored Cambridge book written while as a graduate student a decade ago whose top article is Political Research Quarterly and a handful of Judicature articles is a very weak record. No solo book, no top general interest journals, and no top sub-field articles in American politics. And I have no doubt that she claimed she would be productive when they hired her at the second job at AU. And she did get a powerful signal: when hired, they did not in the contract say she could go up early at AU; had they thought she was good enough for them, they would clearly have done so (every case of moving as an advanced AP involves such language or discussions in the contract).
Bottom line: she knew her record was not good enough for AU, and did essentially nothing to change that prior. And just looking at the record, it is not good enough for a research university, and would surely fail at top liberal arts colleges.
Tl;dr. The tenure process work.
Ok, you all have to stop calling AU a top research university. Even now, it is NOT the case in political science and back when she joined the department it was even less so.

7 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 1 NAY !
Joel

Fascinating thread. Most interesting part: none (or almost none) of you have a clue as to what department chairs/heads face in this situation. Everybody's got a story: for why it's unfair, for why not enough was done, for why the candidate has so many good qualities that are being overlooked, for why the progress reports should be interpreted as great rather than clearly mixed, etc.

What you appear not to realize is that, aggregately, if taken seriously, all of these complaints would boil down to nobody ever getting denied tenure. You will say that's bulls**t. I know for a fact that it is not.

- Fmr dept head.

7 months ago # QUOTE 13 YEA 2 NAY !
Bernard

APSA has a lower acceptance rate than Judicature. Quite a bit lower, actually.

Given that fact, I’m inclined to agree Judicature should count for 0 in a tenure file.

7 months ago # QUOTE 5 YEA 0 NAY !
Tracy

APSA has a lower acceptance rate than Judicature. Quite a bit lower, actually.
Given that fact, I’m inclined to agree Judicature should count for 0 in a tenure file.

I heard she got a piece in PS this year so maybe she's turning it around!

7 months ago # QUOTE 6 YEA 0 NAY !
Marissa

University of Central Asia is hiring in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.
The Tajikistan campus, located in scenic Khorog, with Afghanistan across the river, could be an ideal location for a political scientist looking to seem some action.

7 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 0 NAY !
Brenden

Honestly, it looks like a pretty thin record. And her letter to the chair (which she linked to in her piece) comes off as incredibly angry and unprofessional.

That said, I do have some empathy for her. This was clearly a deeply painful experience, as it would surely be for many people in our discipline. I wish her well, and hope that she can move forward (after all, it's been 8 years!)

7 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 0 NAY !
Gypsy

She is not moving forward: she has a lawsuit agains the school and is writing about in the apsa journal. The latter perhaps because of the former.

7 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 0 NAY !
Brenden

She is not moving forward: she has a lawsuit agains the school and is writing about in the apsa journal. The latter perhaps because of the former.

Oh ye gods.

It is understandable to spend time processing and discussing a traumatic experience. It's clearly unwise to do so in public, and even worse to do so in a professional venue.

I think she and the discipline would be better served if she spent some time processing lingering frustrations with the experience with a therapist before discussing it within the discipline. I believe she has valuable contributions to make, but the perception that she has an axe to grind with her former department is destroying any credibility she may have.

And I don't say this flippantly - therapy has been incredibly helpful to me personally in processing my own difficult experiences in life.

7 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 0 NAY !

Reply

Post <blockquote>Re: the letters. Lol, just lol. Tenure committees looks at CVs for the publications and trajectory. This is basically all that counts at an R1. They then look at the teaching evals. As long as the evaluations don't say x is appalling, that is put to one. Issues of collegiality and admin efficiency are then factored in. Finally, the recommendation letters are looked at for confirmation of the decision that has already been made in the minds of the committee. The idea that these letters could swing a decision one way or another is ludicrous. And this woman, who has been going on and on and on about her failure (8 years and counting) is delusional if she thinks that the "positive" letters (as someone else has pointed out, they're edited so we don't actually know the full details) should've meant tenure. She clearly has no clue and comes across as entitled and precious. The simple fact is that her publication record was not good enough for tenure at AU. Period. Don’t really agree with your position on the letters. At least at my university, they play a huge role. It could be in part because our department is dominated by one subfield, so they are less capable of reviewing the work of juniors in other subfields. However, just because letters are always “positive” doesn’t mean that they’re actually supportive of tenure. Committees and deans can read between the lines. After all, I’m sure we’ve all written letters for students before that claim to recommend them but are tepid enough that they amount to non-recommendations. The other issue is that a handful of positive letters don’t matter if 10-15 people decline to write one. Does she say anything about refusals?</blockquote>

Markup: a blockquote code em strong ul ol li.