In my continuing effort to make non-authoritative pronouncements on sundry subjects (and in response to a reader who floated this suggestion my way), I thought I might offer a few bits and bobs to those just starting out on the tenure track. There are plenty of fine guidebooks out there, and I hope readers will feel welcome to post the texts they find indispensable in the comments section. In the belly of the blog, however, I’ll try to jot down some first-person findings that may be of use to folks trying to get their feet under them.
All the usual limitations and qualifications apply–please don’t take anything I say as gospel, and please keep in mind that any recommendations I might make stem from my own idiosyncratic perspectives and experiences. I’ve only come across a few of the guidebooks that youngsters use to chart their courses, and most of them focus on higher-order concerns. Me, I’m a brass tacks man, so be sure to consult your own rulebooks and bylaws before plotting your own progress.
I’ll begin with some initial observations, and I’ll try to correct my own course along the way based on readerly needs and feedback.
1. Learn the rules of the road. As a new member of the faculty of Highfalutin’ U., you can expect to be bombarded with paper the moment you set foot on campus. I recently did some cleaning of my office, and I found all sorts of resources stashed away in various drawers and the Filing Cabinet of the Damned. Most of these resources will fall into the broad category of useful-but-not-crucial: I found paperwork for putting items on reserve in the library, for example, as well as reams of policy statements that apply to writers and researchers in other fields. Our new faculty orientation at CMU includes a special page set aside to address Bloodborne Pathogen Exposure Control, which I find applies to only the most dangerous kinds of poetry.
There are a few documents, however, with which you should–nay, must–be intimately familiar. Know your contract; if you are a member of a union, know your bargaining agreement; know your local bylaws (the special terms and conditions that apply to members of your department). You’ll be able to priotize pretty readily once you’ve got your foot in the door, and good mentors and chairfolk will most assuredly sit you down and apprise you of the particulars that apply to your circumstances. Nothing beats firsthand knowledge of policy and practice, however, and you can spare yourself a lot of blind fumbling if you dogear your copies of critical documents.
2. Establish connections. In all likelihood you’re going to arrive on campus with limited contacts. You’ll probably know one or two folks on the search committee that hired you, although that familiarity will likely be the product of a few months of correspondence. Once you arrive on campus, it’s good policy (and probably pretty healthy in a psychosocial way) to start throwing out lines. First of all, get to know the administrative folk who work in your department; in my experience, they’re often the ones who are secretly running the show, the ones who know the ins and outs of policy and procedure so the profs can drift around in blissful ignorance. If you haven’t done so already, also touch base with the folks whose specialties abut and abet your own. You’ll probably be divvying up some classes with them (surveys and special topics courses in particular, as well as seminars that rotate among periods), and you can gain a lot of insight and pedagogical perspective by seeing what they do and why. I teach film and literature from time to time, for example, and I talked with the other profs who cover that class before I got started. That allowed us to handle some of the blander pragmatics like scheduling preferences, but it also helped me to do a bit of pedagogical counterprogramming, to design my variation of the course in a way that complements theirs.
It’s also a good idea to find out who’s responsible for what within the department–who runs the speaker series, for example, or who makes curricular decisions, or who makes the calls when it comes to personnel. Since you’re starting out at square one, it’s perfectly fair to let self-interest be your guide: seek out the folks who are likely to have an impact on your days and ways. That’s a path worth pursuing both inside and outside your own particular department. You may never have cause to sit down to a friendly with your local dean or the provost, but you should know who they are and get some sense of what they do and where they are coming from. At some point your paperwork will roll upriver to them, and it never hurts to know your audience.
As an editorial afterthought, I’d also urge you not to fret overmuch if some of your early overtures are ignored. I’ve taught in a variety of contexts, and profs (just like real people) range across the entire spectrum of interactive skills and proclivities. Some will receive you warmly, some will spend time sussing out who you are and what you’re all about, and some will have no idea who you are or why you’re approaching them. At one school, for example, I tried to make nice with a person who was nine months from retirement and wanted nothing to do with the department’s pesky whippersnappers, and at another I accidentally poached a program (a conference I assumed was uncovered, since the person who covered it had been tacitly associated with it for decades), earning a year’s worth of enmity before I appreciated the cause of the conflict. Every group of people will have its own set of dynamics already in motion, and it will almost certainly take you a little time to adjust and adapt.
3. Consider circumspection. I’m spectatorial by nature, and I’ve always been unduly fascinated by the methods and motives that drive human interaction. I seldom wade into a river until I’m certain of its depth and currents. As a result, I tend to take a traditional piece of advice–don’t speak until you have a really good sense of who’s listening–a bit further than most. I know full well, however, that many profs are spitfires through and through. They have strong opinions and a need to have them heard. Because I am not always a jackass, I would never urge the spitfirily inclined to stifle themselves for the sake of group felicity. I would urge them, however, to contribute to collegial conversations with discretion wrought up to a higher pitch.
Have you ever been to a meeting at which some doctoral delinquent rolls in late, listens to the tail end of a discussion, and then proceeds to weigh in clumsily (and underinformedly) on a topic the group has already addressed in full? Being the new kid on the block can be a bit like that. Few things are more discomfiting than watching a new arrival blithely waltz across a minefield that his peers have laid over the course of several semesters. In all departments–and I do mean all of them, ever, from the moment the earth cooled up unto the present–there are underlying, ongoing sources of conflict and contestation to be managed, soft spots and toes to be pressed or stepped on, and cliques and divisions to be reckoned with. Even the most urbane and genteel profs I’ve known will bare their teeth when it comes to certain causes. Accordingly, while my Conradian “Look on–make no sound” approach is certainly not for everyone, I would still recommend wading in to these conversations in much the same way you would talk about your sex life with your grandma. A little decorous restraint in the early going–and in the late going, frankly–will help you get situated and help your new colleagues get a better sense of where you stand.
That’ll have to do for now. I’ll see what I can add as I mosey along, and please feel welcome to offer your own insights along the way.
