Well, it's out

[Vhagar]

I just sent my tenure dossier to my department head. My CV, statements, and exemplar publications are with external reviewers already. There is still stuff to be done, but not by me. My department had and committee chair take over from here. So, I'm just hanging out and waiting until frickin March. And, you know, quietly applying for other jobs.

It's weird, I actually feel less stressed. I'm writing and analyzing stuff, but at this point, it's unlikely that anything that I'm doing now will matter for tenure (I can add to the dossier until September). So, for better or worse, I'm feeling my foot come off the gas a bit. On Friday, I leave for my first real vacation since the summer I was hired!

[scamp]

Good luck! And enjoy your well deserved vacation!

[clean]

It's weird, I actually feel less stressed.

That is natural. Everything you can do, you have done. It is sufficient or it is not.  IF not you wont know for 11 months, though you may hear rumbling in six months or so.
IF it is sufficient, you still will not hear for six months or so.

When I was first tenured and promoted, I got a letter in the mail. It was signed by an auto pen, not even a live person.  Very anticlimactic.

When promoted to full, at least the provost tried to hand deliver the letters to those getting good news for a handshake. 

In the old site, I posted something about the 'let down' I felt after I got that the final promotion and tenure news.  The feedback was that depression of a sorts, even after the good news, is not uncommon. 

For what it is worth, I suggest that you enter the job market this year.  Not because of any expected bad news, but because you are negotiating in a way a 'contract without renewal' (which is what 'tenure' is).  You want to be certain that you are where you want to be and are in a good negotiating position for this. 

Remember, at this point, if you are tenured, you are not likely to get many more raises (other than 'state' raises - cost of living- and only in the years when the state has money! )  Remember all you have heard about salary inversion?  You are entering the group that is likely to be inverted!!  Unless you are sure that this is where you want to be, and you are happy with all of the aspects of living in that area, NOW is the perfect time to at least LOOK to see, for sure!  that the grass is not greener somewhere else!

Congratulations on turning in your package!!

[ab_grp]

Congratulations! Sending good tenure vibes and wishes for a wonderful and well deserved vacation!

[aside]

Congratulations on submitting!  Now forget all that stuff and have a great vacation.  As you say, it's out of your hands now.  Best wishes for the rest of the process.

[Vhagar]

For what it is worth, I suggest that you enter the job market this year.  Not because of any expected bad news, but because you are negotiating in a way a 'contract without renewal' (which is what 'tenure' is).  You want to be certain that you are where you want to be and are in a good negotiating position for this 

Remember, at this point, if you are tenured, you are not likely to get many more raises (other than 'state' raises - cost of living- and only in the years when the state has money! )  Remember all you have heard about salary inversion?  You are entering the group that is likely to be inverted!!  Unless you are sure that this is where you want to be, and you are happy with all of the aspects of living in that area, NOW is the perfect time to at least LOOK to see, for sure!  that the grass is not greener somewhere else!

Thanks! I have a good friend who is faculty in the department where I did my postdoc. She said this almost exactly. So, I am going on the market quietly. I have no great wish to leave and there are few places where I could really be enticed to go. But, it does cover me, just in case. And it probably the best time that I'll ever have again to look and see what is out there. The hope really is to be in a position to negotiate a better raise. With our percentage raise, a bigger raise now means bigger raises forever.

[mamselle]

Post-partum depression is coming after the birthing process.

Good for you for getting your materials together and moving forward.

Best thoughts.

M.

[youllneverwalkalone]

I just sent my tenure dossier to my department head. My CV, statements, and exemplar publications are with external reviewers already. There is still stuff to be done, but not by me. My department had and committee chair take over from here. So, I'm just hanging out and waiting until frickin March. And, you know, quietly applying for other jobs.

It's weird, I actually feel less stressed. I'm writing and analyzing stuff, but at this point, it's unlikely that anything that I'm doing now will matter for tenure (I can add to the dossier until September). So, for better or worse, I'm feeling my foot come off the gas a bit. On Friday, I leave for my first real vacation since the summer I was hired!

Congrats and hope you get the best vacation ever.

[Kron3007]

What is this "vacation" you speak of?  You sure you remember how?

[Thursday's_Child]

What is this "vacation" you speak of?  You sure you remember how?

Been there!  Vhagar, if you also are there, I hope you re-learn how, and quickly!  They're really worthwhile activities...

[lightning]

Congrats!!

I suppose you could take your foot off the gas pedal for things like getting more papers published and/or presented, winning more new grants, and getting curricula updated. The time between submitting your tenure application and waiting to hear isn't necessarily a time to slow down. It's a time to come to a good stopping point on those long-term multi-year projects that you started, but have not finished, especially if the genesis of these long-term projects were indicated in your tenure application. You want the committee to hear that you can follow through with long term projects. Also, I hate to say this, but the next few months, especially this Fall, is a time where everyone will have leverage over you. It's not that they will use it, but it's just the fact that they have it. It will be a time where someone may hit you up for participation in some service commitment. These are hard to dodge in the year where you apply for tenure. It will be hard for you to say "no" even if the person that solicits your time has good intentions. This upcoming semester is where you want to shine in the "whisper" network, that informal evaluation that seeps its way into P&T committee conversations, whether legal or not . You want the students in your classes to sing praises to your name, in the the hallways and classrooms of other faculty. You want outside partners and academic peers talking about how awesome you are, to those on campus that may know you. You want support staff to tell your admin bosses that you're a nice person. I'm sure you're already a nice person, and treated everyone around you with respect and grace--you just want everyone to express that fact, out in the open, so lay it on!!

I'm not trying to ruin your year. Really. But if you are the type of person that will get anxious because you still want to feel like you have an active role to play in your tenure bid, for the next six months, you have opportunities to do so.

Congrats, again, and laugh at the last-year-version-of-you, when an email from the listserv announcing the next check-the-box-conference call for papers, is sent out to all the hopefuls. Then ignore it and revel in the fact that you can demurely set it aside with no further thought . . . unless it's that one in Hawaii in February, and you will still have some travel money left over.

[darkstarrynight]

That is great, vhagar! I am working on my materials now (they are due in September). I submitted my external reviewer list to my chair, and the chair is gathering names from my colleagues.  I spent a lot of time yesterday organizing files for this.  I need to spend a little time each day on it since I am in the middle of four research projects and teaching two summer classes right now.  As Bob Dylan sang, "Keep on keepin' on!"

[AJ_Katz]

It can be a great feeling to see everything all in one place.  Good luck, vhagar!

When might you hear a decision from the department?  I was told that the department's decision was the biggest hurdle.

[fast_and_bulbous]

I would take a long, hard-earned break, come back refreshed, and continue to work as hard as ever on what I wanted to, as if I had tenure in the bag. I agree with clean in that now is a very logical time to go on the market, especially if you aren't crazy about the idea of being at your current U for another 20 years or if you think there is a good chance you might get shot down.

I hate the tenure system, to be honest. We kill ourselves to get it and sometimes it does irreparable damage to faculty who can never fully recover once they get it. If it were less of a big deal in the first place, and the pressure wasn't so high, it would probably be better for everyone.

Just keep your eye on the ball and keep focusing on what is most important for further career advancement, and try not to worry about what is out of your control - and take the bull by the horns on the things that you do have under your control.