courtesy appointment?

[dinomom]

Hello! I am looking for advice about getting something similar to a courtesy appointment, only they don't typically exist on my campus. I am up for tenure this year, and have been told that the department vote was positive. So, while I don't know what will happen at the tenure committee level (at my institution the board does not have a meaningful role in tenure decisions), I am hopeful that the decision will come out in my favor.

Which brings me to my question: I teach in a "studies" field (B), which is narrower than the traditional field (A) in which I did my PhD. Since I publish in both fields (but there is absolutely no way in which my publishing in field A could count toward promotion in field B-this is also recent, only one publication in my tenure file was in field A but now I am working on an edited volume in field A) and I would like to teach in field A as well as field B, I am considering having a conversation with department chair in field B to ask if I could move a percentage of my appointment there (this is because our campus, an elite SLAC, does not have courtesy appointments). If this works for them, it would solve a lot of problems for me (eventual promotion but also not feeling intellectually so boxed into the narrower field), and my hope is that it would also help them (I am willing to teach anything within my wheelhouse that would help them-including intro courses, could propose two different advanced content courses as well, or senior thesis, but I think the intro courses might be most helpful since they are a small department and this might give mid-career faculty more choice in what they teach).

I do not want to come off as too presumptuous either about my relationship with this department or about my tenure vote. Any advice about how and when to make the ask? I am considering doing it now (I will hear about my tenure case in about a month) but I could also wait until right after. I just know I would likely need to move quickly to negotiate any changes, but then again on the dean's calendar it might be the end of term anyway. Thanks for your advice.

[Hibush]

With tenure comes the opportunity to expand beyond ones initial appointment. The timing is good (or just a hair premature) to look into possibilities.

The exact title of an appointment in a secondary department will vary, so find out what the practice is at yours. For example, at my school "courtesy" faculty are employed by someone else. "Joint" faculty are in (and paid by) another department at my school. "Adjuncts" are temps we employ to meet transitory needs.

Joint appointments are not that common because faculty see it as doubling the number of faculty meetings without providing concrete benefits.

[bacardiandlime]

What's in it for the chair of dept A? You're pitching a lot of why it's in your interest, less of why it's in theirs.
You need to clarify what you mean by "courtesy appointment" too. Are you expecting Dept A to start ponying up some percentage of your salary?

I've been on campuses where it's extremely common to have people who do interdisciplinary work listed as "affiliated faculty" or something similar (so for instance someone in the Spanish dept who works on women's literature in Mexico could be listed as "affiliated"  to the women's studies dept). Their involvement as affiliated faculty could vary from occasionally showing up at a dept seminar to teaching classes that would be crosslisted. The goal with this type of thing was to encourage cross-departmental collaboration, and also help grad students find potential mentors.

If you feel the tenure decision is likely to go in your favor, I wouldn't start muddying the waters by making it look (to your current chair) like you're trying to ditch them.

[dinomom]

Thanks bacardiandlime and Hibush for your input. I think based on this that I will definitely wait until after decisions are released to have any discussions. (It was more that I didn't want to lose the moment.)

At my institution, all salaries (except for adjuncts in certain strange cases where the dean and chair are in disagreement) are paid from the same pool, so I am not asking for salary support from Dept A.

Hibush, I see your point about it looking like there is more in it for me. I think the case I could make is that I could provide to Dept. A is the following:

-I could provide coverage in a subfield in which they don't currently have coverage (and likely won't have anytime in the near future)
-I am happy to teach anywhere they need coverage (this could include language), thus providing flexibility for their tenured faculty to teach things like first year seminars (which the current chair expressed to me once that they'd like to be able to teach but can't because of coverage needs in other areas)

Do you think the above is enough?

My situation is sort of like the one you mention, bacardiandlime, only it is as if I, working, say on women's literature in Mexico, am appointed to gender studies but not Spanish. I would like to put 25% of my tenure line into Spanish so I could teach in Spanish, both content courses and language courses.

This is the sort of joint appointment (so technically it isn't a courtesy appointment, it is actually the moving of a percentage of a line) that I have seen on my campus, but people are usually hired this way (e.g. 3/4 in history 1/4 gender, 1/2 Black studies 1/2 anthropology) not switched later (unless they move 100% of their line into a department).

[Puget]

We call these "affiliated faculty" and have just decided to tighten who qualifies to require at least one of the following in the last 3 years: having taught at least one class/cross-listed class in the department, advised grad students in the department, or been involved in a significant research collaboration with a member of the department.

The only real downside for a department of having affiliates listed (and the reason we've tightened the criteria) is the administration tends to "count" them as part of our faculty complement and think we are better staffed than we are (important for fighting for new hires).

If they need classes covered though, and you want to cover them at no extra cost to them, and it won't affect their ability to get future hires, that seems like all upside though.

The other question however is how your home department will feel about this-- would your teaching more in the other department negatively impact their course offerings? Would it reduce your service to that department? They may not see any upside to this, especially as it won't save them any money.

[dinomom]

Good question re: the home department. It isn't particularly beneficial to them in any way (except perhaps bringing in students who might not normally take courses with us and perhaps preparing undergrads for stronger grad applications because in my department they do all their work in English translation; the latter point might be appealing to my chair since they are very interested in improving/increasing grad placements) but I am hoping to negotiate directly with the Dean and the other department. My chair is hostile (and the Dean knows this). Besides the very real research and teaching motives, this hostility is also a reason for my request, since I am trying my best to find a way to make my current situation workable.

Without going too deep into the details of my department, I can say that there is a senior faculty/former dept. chair (from before my department was divided by admin) with whom I will consult about the logistics of this once I get close to making the ask (or after I have a response from the other department).

[arcturus]

We have had faculty move from one department to another (either 100% or partial) based on changing research interests that better fit into the new department. Ok, that was the stated reason. The real reason is usually interpersonal conflicts in the home department. These moves usually require support from both department chairs, as it will impact the teaching load/distribution of the home department (fewer courses) and the new department (more courses) and the programatic focus of both departments. Even if the funding is all from the same source, how it is distributed between departments does matter.

Are you eligible for a sabbatical next year? If so, are you taking it? Time away from the daily conflicts can provide breathing room to evaluate the situation. And, if you are planning on taking a sabbatical, you want to do so before you change departments, so that you don't start out on the wrong foot in the new department.

I recommend waiting to broach this matter until (a) your tenure has been confirmed at the highest administrative level; (b) you have taken a sabbatical from your current department; and (c) you have taught courses that are cross-listed between the departments.

[dinomom]

Thanks arcturus for your thoughts.
Unfortunately I am not eligible for sabbatical next year—I am slated to serve a term as department chair before my next leave. I did have a leave before, though, and when I returned things became worse. (This issue has been a problem for more than five years.) I don't envision changing departments entirely, and don't think anyone on my campus would think that was a good idea (or that it would be viable for my current department to effectively lose a line). I have already taught cross-listed courses, though. I don't think of this as a clean break in any way, just a means to strengthen relationships in other areas and situate myself in a department in which my subfield is not denigrated.

[jerseyjay]

I would wait until you are granted tenure before doing this.

It could create some ill will with your current department, either because it is seem as a rejection of the department, or because of budget reasons. (At my school, if a full-timer teaches part of their full load in another department, the home department has to   cover the sections they would otherwise teach by hiring a part-timer. The money for this comes out of a different budget pool, which is much tighter. If a full-timer at my school taught a course in another department, their home department might not in fact have the money to cover their course, because the budget to hire part-timers has been slashed. This usually does not come up with people teaching in another department, but with getting course releases for one or another reason.)

Is the issue that you do not like your current department and want to be partly out of it, or you want to keep connections to your original field? I am not sure teaching in another department would actually bring you closer to their faculty members. And, in some cases, it might create ill will if you are seen as competition for teaching a course that already has a faculty member who claims it.

A while ago at my school, a mid-level staff member (who had not originally been a faculty member) wanted to get a courtesy appointment to an academic department. He was qualified, since he had a doctorate in that field. However, the department already had a specialist in the staff member's field, who feared that if the administrator were brought into the department, the specialist might not be able to teach their classes. The end result is that it increased ill will among all involved and the staff member ended up leaving the school altogether. (He ended up getting a tenure track position at another university.) My point is not that your situation is the same, but that I would advise you to have tenure before risking creating ill will that you cannot envision now.

[artalot]

At my school a joint appointment means both departments pay partial parts of your salary. Unless your place is flush with cash, it seems unlikely that another department would take on the financial burden. Also, as the faculty member it can be difficult because both departments think they 'own' you and want to give you a full load of service.
As others have suggested, affiliation may be the way to go. That usually means that your can teach courses in that department and/or that your courses are cross-listed, but the other department has no financial obligation. I'm affiliated faculty, and while I do help out with service in the affiliated department, it's because I want to. No one expects anything from me except to cross-list my courses.
You might look into affiliation first, and then broach a joint appointment or move once the other department has gotten to know you better.

[dinomom]

Thanks jerseyjay and artalot for your advice.

jerseyjay: it is both. I want to keep connections to my original field (when I was hired, I fit well in the studies field I am working in now, but some of the work I am doing now could not in any legitimate way be counted in the studies field; e.g. per bacardiandlime's example, I was hired to do women's literature in Mexico but now I am working on the same time period but an entirely non-gender related subject). I also would like this new work to count toward eventual promotion.

artalot: I see your point. The problem is that because of teaching in English v. in Spanish, I do something that is like cross-listing (e.g. my courses count for Latin American Studies, but not Spanish credit, whereas if I taught in Spanish, they could count for Spanish credit). I don't think my home department would be thrilled about a change, but there are also discipline-specific reasons they might accept it (don't want to bring those in here as they would make my field quite obvious).

Finally, due to my departmental situation, I will be on the market until something changes (I haven't applied to anything in a few years, but I've been watching) and that will be in the field of my PhD. So, I am also thinking it might help on the market to see me as "accepted" by the department on my own campus. But perhaps affiliation (not sure if this is possible at my institution for a department, rather than an interdisciplinary program) would solve this?