It's time for Faculty Annual Reports in my department. We each provide a list of our research, teaching, and service activities, and these are used in evaluation of (1) whether each faculty member is accomplishing the basic requirements of the job, and (2) who deserves a merit raise. Our files also include our teaching evaluations and syllabi. The files are reviewed by an elected committee of 3 faculty and the department Chair.
I am particularly interested in how things turn out this year because the elected committee consists of 3 brilliant guys who don't seem to be that aware of what goes on outside their own research spheres. All 3 of the committee members are of the faction that decided last year that I am 'too junior' for a leadership position and that I don't 'balance' research, teaching, and service as well as my male colleagues.
If the committee members have even one molecule (each) of objectivity, they will see that my annual report this year argues strongly that I do not have a balance problem and that, in fact, I am more active and productive as a researcher, teacher/adviser, and academic citizen than the 3 of them combined, no matter how you count the research, teaching, and service activities listed on our reports. I hope they can do the math.
Another element of the annual reports is a list of places where we gave invited talks. My husband and I are curious whether anyone will connect the dots when they see that we gave talks at many of the same universities (the universities interested in hiring us away).
My husband and I are curious whether anyone will connect the dots when they see that we gave talks at many of the same universities (the universities interested in hiring us away).
ReplyDeleteHow's that going? Have you seen anywhere that made you tempted to move?
Some options fizzled because we are expensive or decided a place wasn't a positive move, but some options are still 'live'. It will take a while to work out, maybe through the summer.
ReplyDeleteYou go, girl! Having offers elsewhere always ups your market value.
ReplyDeleteAnd I do hope those 'brilliant' guys can do the math to see how productive and generally awesome oyu are. Otherwise they're not brilliant at all in my book.
Unfortunately these committees can be more political than objective. I've heard of stories where committees choose the important criteria in order to benefit the in-crowd. In a year when a favored person publishes many low quality papers, paper counting is used. The next year they publish few papers but maybe one is in a good journal, so quality of journal is the metric. The next year they get a good grant, so that becomes the most important measure of productivity. Meanwhile the work of less favored people always seems to be out-of-phase with the current criteria.
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