Dealing with a new faculty member

[Ruralguy]

Now you are also sounding like you dot think very highly of your colleagues.

I obviously can't make a judgement on them.

Either cut the some slack or apply out. Or both are fine too.

[polly_mer]

Hmm.

The first thing I would do at this point is phone several of my field colleagues and mentors to get a better idea of the national academic market in my field.  If this current position isn't even on the network's radar of good places, then I'd be asking for references and be applying out for anything else in the field.


You're publishing scientific articles with someone.  A solid post doc or research assistant professor position in one of your colleague's group may be better if research is your path. 

However, I'm now extra curious about accreditation for the program that isn't something like social work and has random 'unqualified' faculty who would be stealing your class as the one applicant.  Chemistry has accredited programs, but the market is fierce even for teaching positions.  Biology doesn't have accreditation, but does have a fierce market.  Engineering has accreditation and many ESL faculty, but seldom is mostly teaching on the TT, even at a regional comprehensive.  Also, engineering tends to have a reasonable response for TT positions, except at places where the engineering programs haven't yet been declared dead yet after the last disastrous ABET visit.

If the department is on probation with ABET, then get out now.  Nothing else matters than getting a different job

[Ruralguy]

There are a number of small universities, really originally colleges, that have engineering programs. While they might not be mostly teaching in the sense you and I have experienced, Polly, they are likely much more so than an R1.

I don't know if the OP is in engineering, but if it's a science that combined 7 departments, it sounds like Life Sciences or Engineering. And, yeah, I could see how a bad program can get few applicants. My little school can get physicists or mathematicians, but computer science has been very very difficult. We don't have a real engineering program, but I have the feeling we might never be able to pay for a real engineer if we wanted to go full ABET, which we probably couldn't.

Anyway, as to the OP,  OP should try to improve current situation as best as possible, but also try to apply out.

[Mobius]

Apply everywhere, but also stop getting involved in "saving" colleagues, only to be disappointed. Teach, hold office hours, and spend as little time around the office as possible if it's that awful.

I also encourage you to not post negatively about the institution and/or colleagues. Be really careful about how you refer to your current situation to colleagues and during interviews. No one wants to hire the person who would do the same to them if given the chance.

[polly_mer]

There are a number of small universities, really originally colleges, that have engineering programs. While they might not be mostly teaching in the sense you and I have experienced, Polly, they are likely much more so than an R1.

I am reminded of a conversation with a new aerospace engineering PhD who said, teaching college?--oh, like Texas Tech!

For those don't know, Texas Tech is an R1 that happens to do excellent undergrad education and has exploded in student enrollment in the past twenty years.

I can think of several excellent smaller STEM-focused colleges with a undergrad education mission.  From colleagues' reports, working at those institutions is nothing like the foolishness of trying to teach at a struggling college with no resources that would have to hire the one crummy applicant.

The good engineering programs at smaller places generally have hyperfocus on facilitating excellent project experience.  From personal experience and colleagues' reports, it's not like teaching at a S(mall) LAC and is more like being involved in continuous seeking of partnership funding for the projects.  It's not the hyperfocused experience of focusing on the PI's research like an R1, but it's much more like doing engineering projects at a reserch place than doing formal classroom teaching that is recognizable to our humunities colleagues.

However, those places get a good hundred applications for a TT engineering position, because they are good places to work for those who want that life.

[spork]

^ The above reminds me of several of my former college roommates with academic careers at PUI institutions that have an emphasis on student-faculty research. E.g., a physicist who runs the campus accelerator lab, or a biologist doing marine science research funded by a state-wide EPSCoR grant. But none of these people work at struggling 1,500-student colleges where the academic experience is nothing but classroom instruction and most students are primarily concerned with continuing to play the sport they played in high school.

[polly_mer]

^ The above reminds me of several of my former college roommates with academic careers at PUI institutions that have an emphasis on student-faculty research. E.g., a physicist who runs the campus accelerator lab, or a biologist doing marine science research funded by a state-wide EPSCoR grant. But none of these people work at struggling 1,500-student colleges where the academic experience is nothing but classroom instruction and most students are primarily concerned with continuing to play the sport they played in high school.

1500?!  I know Spork is familiar with the struggles of smaller institutions, but I will do some perspective for other readers.

When I was doing the situational awareness for Super Dinky, there were several hundred colleges at or below SD's enrollment of 600.  There were almost a thousand colleges that had 1000 students or fewer.

About ten years ago, 1000 student enrollment was the dividing line between small and medium colleges and was also about the break-even point for sustainability in the absence of a large endowment.

There's doing excellent undergrad education at a PUI.  There's being a solid teaching school that claims to be a LAC (true or not), but is definitely providing a college education to enrolled students. Then there's being a place that is focused more on preserving faculty jobs this year, having classes be full enough, and providing a non-academic experience like DIII athletics so more students will pay full price for attendance.

That last category is not limited to small and tiny colleges, but it's pretty common for places that don't have a unique mission and would get almost no applicants for TT jobs that have a market skewed in the applicants' favor.

[Ruralguy]

I don't think the OP need say more about her location or precise profession, but I was thinking more along the lines of a larger LAC that maybe had a modest engineering division or a regional state type school that has had some successes in this area in the past, but is now flagging (I can think of some that this *might* be, but I am uninterested in outing the OP).  So, obviously I am not talking about the success stories, though I know that they exist. Rather, I'm talking about the wannabes who may now have problematic faculty, lack of funds, poor standards for students, etc..