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When To Tell Your Chair You're Moving On?

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Sefton

Got an offer, and I accepted. I don't have tenure yet (up this year, but only thing left is a Board of Regents formality signature). My new institution is going to give me tenure (part of the initial agreement, and confirmed after seeing Dean and Provosts recommendations).

I've been holding out on sharing this news to see if I could finish the T&P process at my current institution and officially land tenure there before departing for my new position in FL23.

Was going to wait for the end of the semester, but now, my chair (who is being weirdly dickish to me), is calling me in for a meeting tomorrow to bitch at me over something insanely trivial. The whole thing is the most wildly unprofessional thing that has happened to me since I started at the university... and that is saying a lot.

Should I just tell him I'm done tomorrow and end the conversation/drama before it starts? Should I wait to see if he says something ridiculous to decide? Do I use it to deescalate? Or... do I decide to hold off telling him if he really pisses me off to insure maximum headaches when I do leave, and go out in a blaze of glory.

For the record, my institution is a regional R2 teetering on R3, full of nepotism, deadwood, and with administrators that have zero respect or understanding for real research. It is in the bottom 10% of institutions one would ever want to work for.

2 months ago # QUOTE 5 YEA 4 NAY !
Racquel

Things fall through all the time. Never burn the ground you're on before you actually arrive at safe terrain.

So I'd wait until the Regents approve the tenure. Signed, sealed, delivered. Then say whatever you want.

2 months ago # QUOTE 24 YEA 2 NAY !
Chantal

I would just put it up in your desk so the janitors can clean underneath

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 0 NAY !
Osborne

OP must hate his dept. You were going to wait until mid May to let your dept know you weren't coming back?

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 6 NAY !
Lenore

Things fall through all the time. Never burn the ground you're on before you actually arrive at safe terrain.
So I'd wait until the Regents approve the tenure. Signed, sealed, delivered. Then say whatever you want.

I agree with thus. It never benefits anyone to burn bridges. I would stick with your original plan.

2 months ago # QUOTE 4 YEA 2 NAY !
Sefton

OP must hate his dept. You were going to wait until mid May to let your dept know you weren't coming back?

I do hate my department. No people to collaborate with. Everyone frustrated teaching core courses for +75% of classes. Department and university couldn't care less if I published in APSR or the Arkansas Political Science Review (legit, counts the same for Tenure). I've out published the entire department combined (nearly 10 people) since arriving, and I am genuinely, a mediocre scholar at best... and that's probably a generous self-assessment. Salary is dogs**t because of "compression concerns." I have friends at worst places, for sure... but it has been a rough go.

2 months ago # QUOTE 7 YEA 2 NAY !
Shania

OP will be unhappy at the next place too because OP is the "constantly unhappy" person every department regrets hiring.

2 months ago # QUOTE 4 YEA 10 NAY !
Chantal

Maybe, but some departments are just plain lousy, and some colleagues have unresolved issues that release via the workplace. There’s not enough information to tell who’s the problem here. So by default I tend to trust the people who are actually in the situation, i.e. OP

OP will be unhappy at the next place too because OP is the "constantly unhappy" person every department regrets hiring.

2 months ago # QUOTE 7 YEA 1 NAY !
Farley

I dream of being in this situation every day

2 months ago # QUOTE 5 YEA 0 NAY !
Jenn

Assuming this isn’t a complete fabrication, your strategy here is laughably suboptimal. You should always tell your chair when you get an outside offer, whether you intend to stay or not. Your home university will make you a retention offer, and you then use that offer to leverage an even better offer from the outside department. You might even be able to go back and forth a few times on this. That you didn’t even bother to tell your chair about your offer is bizarre.

2 months ago # QUOTE 13 YEA 12 NAY !
Descartes

I’ll go back and forth with your wife a few times, pal.

Assuming this isn’t a complete fabrication, your strategy here is laughably suboptimal. You should always tell your chair when you get an outside offer, whether you intend to stay or not. Your home university will make you a retention offer, and you then use that offer to leverage an even better offer from the outside department. You might even be able to go back and forth a few times on this. That you didn’t even bother to tell your chair about your offer is bizarre.

2 months ago # QUOTE 11 YEA 4 NAY !
James

At this point, there's no benefit to you in saying anything. Wait until the semester ends.

2 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 1 NAY !
Kingsley

R2 regional doesn’t do that.

Assuming this isn’t a complete fabrication, your strategy here is laughably suboptimal. You should always tell your chair when you get an outside offer, whether you intend to stay or not. Your home university will make you a retention offer, and you then use that offer to leverage an even better offer from the outside department. You might even be able to go back and forth a few times on this. That you didn’t even bother to tell your chair about your offer is bizarre.

2 months ago # QUOTE 6 YEA 1 NAY !
Madyson

I would sleep with my colleagues attractive partners, daughters or children and then announce my departure

2 months ago # QUOTE 6 YEA 1 NAY !
Audrea

The place that OP described is definitely not going to get in to a bidding war. I wouldn't tell anyone until I had an actual signed contract and that I was going to a state that was supportive of higher ed and wasn't going to go back on that contract.

Assuming this isn’t a complete fabrication, your strategy here is laughably suboptimal. You should always tell your chair when you get an outside offer, whether you intend to stay or not. Your home university will make you a retention offer, and you then use that offer to leverage an even better offer from the outside department. You might even be able to go back and forth a few times on this. That you didn’t even bother to tell your chair about your offer is bizarre.

2 months ago # QUOTE 4 YEA 2 NAY !
Lenora

I would wait until you have a signed contract and then immediately politely tell your chair about that you have a firm offer elsewhere. You can say you intend to take it, or see if your home institution makes any effort to retain you, your call. But I see no reason to wait until your current institution's tenure process has finished.

2 months ago # QUOTE 4 YEA 0 NAY !
Khloe

You owe your current employer nothing.

In this climate i would wait as long as you can to quit the current job.

Assuming the new gig had a July 1 contract start-date, I would wait until you are ‘in the system’ at the new place—-email working, direct deposit set up, etc….

We had a guy quit three weeks before class started. I am Chair and it caused some hassle to get someone to cover his classes but it worked out in the end.

The guy was kind of a pain colleague, but I’m not going to hold his late notice against him given the state of higher Ed these days.

2 months ago # QUOTE 5 YEA 0 NAY !
Basil

Don't do anything until it's 100% official at your new job.

2 months ago # QUOTE 2 YEA 1 NAY !
Mora

Things fall through all the time. Never burn the ground you're on before you actually arrive at safe terrain.
So I'd wait until the Regents approve the tenure. Signed, sealed, delivered. Then say whatever you want.

I agree with thus. It never benefits anyone to burn bridges. I would stick with your original plan.

That would constitute rank cowardice on his part.

2 months ago # QUOTE 0 YEA 0 NAY !
Judie

Jenn is correct. Incredibly du/mb not to notify your chair of this in case your current university wants to make you a retention offer. This is job market 101, folks.

2 months ago # QUOTE 1 YEA 9 NAY !

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