My Goals for Year Five on the Tenure Track
For me (and so many others), the 2019-2020 school year was one big crisis after another. Although I checked off a lot of the boxes I was "supposed to," on most days I felt like I was just going through the motions. The 2020-2021 school year had a similar feel to it. The pandemic continued to wreak havoc on so many different aspects of life. Not to mention that pregnancy and my mom's continued health challenges made it really difficult to do any sort of professional planning/goal setting... so I didn't! 😅
In this post I'll share what was going on for me across research, teaching, service, and personal life, as well as my (informal) goals for the year. I’ve written this type of post before, where I go through my goals from the previous year. If you missed the posts about my first four years on the tenure track, you can check them out here.
My First Year on the Tenure Track + Advice to My Past Self: First Year Edition
My Second Year on the Tenure Track + Advice to My Past Self: Second Year Edition
My Third Year on the Tenure Track + Advice to My Past Self: Third Year Edition
My Fourth Year on the Tenure Track + Advice to My Past Self: Fourth Year Edition
What was going on during year 5?
Pandemic life was in full swing and I was pregnant for pretty much the entire school year, minus the very end of spring term when I gave birth.
I changed things up a bit by teaching a new (to me) year long seminar.
In previous years I'd been able to take fall term off from teaching, thanks to buyouts. Because I didn't secure any new funding during the 2019-2020 school year (and with everything going on, how could I have?) I had to teach a full load, or 24 credits, which amounts to 8 classes. Eight classes is a lot and I was very nervous about how the year would go.
One of the appealing parts of the year long seminar was that it's worth 12 credits, or 3 4-credit courses. This left 12 additional credits (4 3-credit courses) to teach. Based on how our online course credits work, I was able to teach 3 additional 3-credit online courses and serve as my own TA for these 3 courses which gave me an additional credit per course. When all was said and done I was slated to teach 6 courses total, 1 course per term for seminar and 3 online courses during winter and spring.
Anyway you slice it, this is a lot of teaching for a tenure track faculty member who is also expected to do research. I can easily see how your research agenda can get lost in the ether because you have no time to actually write the grants that will get you out of teaching. Certainly fine if that's what you want, but really difficult to pull yourself out of if it's not what you want.
While the seminar course was worth a lot of credits, I wouldn't choose to teach it again. For me, teaching the course was emotionally draining and I felt pulled in a lot of different directions when trying to problem solve challenges that came up for students at their internships (which were connected to the seminar). As tempting as the 12 credits are, in my opinion the course requires more energy than I have to give when I'm teaching other courses.
At some point in the future (hopefully) our workload will change so that we're only teaching 5 courses per year instead of 8 and I won't have to make these kinds of decisions. Next year they're also splitting the online courses into multiple sections (which they did not do before). This means I’ll get more course credit for the same number of students.
The main thing that sustained me this year was knowing I was going on leave from May to December. One of my courses in spring did end up getting dropped because of some structural changes to the program, which was a huge relief for my sanity and well-being (but a major issue across our department).
Research was all about lowering my expectations.
I knew going into this year that research was going to take a major hit because of my course load (plus pandemic, plus pregnancy). I know myself and there was no way that I was going to be able to teach a full load and also be productive from a research standpoint… unless I was working 24/7. I had to remind myself of this over and over again. Being pregnant also helped me to be ruthless with prioritization. I mainly focused on trying to wrap up papers that were hanging over my head. I also needed to use up funds from a small grant I'd previously received, as the funds were set to expire in June. This involved data collection in the form of focus groups (all virtual) and surveys.
My final annual review before tenure was submitted.
Year five meant that it was my final annual review for the big submission. I submitted my 5th year review in the fall of 2020. In the fall and winter I worked on preparing my materials for my full tenure review. However, in late March I decided to extend my tenure clock for one year. Had I not decided to pause, I would have been submitting my official tenure materials for outside reviewers this summer. Because I chose to pause this won't happen until the summer/fall of 2022.
In non-tenure track life…
I got pregnant with baby number two! I was nauseous pretty much the entire way through, which was rough. Because of this, and also being nervous about getting covid, we stayed close to home and cut down our socialization to almost zero. Trying to keep a 4 (almost 5) year old entertained while you're trying to work and also nauseous and while Mike was working his part time job was really difficult. Honestly, it's a wonder that anything work related got done. No trips for us other than a few days on the coast in the fall. We went right around the time my morning sickness was kicking in so I stayed in bed and watched Netflix or slept for a good portion of the trip. My mom was hospitalized again and had major surgery the day baby #2 was born, which was difficult to navigate from afar. Though life has been stressful, I've appreciated having so much time with Mike and Ellie, and now Hannah (holding on tight to any silver lining I can find!).
I usually do my yearly planning session right before the school year starts.
This year, I didn't do any formal planning until December 2020, and then I only planned for personal goals. No professional goals this year, or at least I didn't formally set them. I essentially carried over any remaining goals from the previous year and got rid of anything that didn't seem necessary. All of the professional projects listed below are not actually goals that I set, just things that I accomplished (or continued to work on) based on what I was already working on during the previous year.
research
Submit 1 first authored paper: This was the one thing I was hoping to get done before my potential tenure submission but it didn't end up happening. It'll get pushed to the next academic year.
Submit/revise book chapter: A colleague asked me to join her on a book chapter with a few other people. We started this during the 2019-20 school year and finished it up by the end of 2020.
Conduct focus groups: We held 3 focus groups with postpartum WIC participants in April to learn how WIC can better support them during the later postpartum period (i.e., beyond 6 months)
Collect survey data: Because there was so much interest in the focus groups, we also conducted a survey.
Submit 1 co-authored paper: This was a paper that I completely forgot about. I started it in grad school with a mentor but we never finished. It was only peripherally related to my area of interest so I never pursued it after graduation. I got an email that a current grad student had picked it back up and got it ready to submit. Bonus paper!
teaching
Prep 1 year long seminar: Done.
Teach 1 year long seminar: Done.
Prep 1 online research methods class: Done.
Teach 1 online research methods class: Done.
Prep 1 online stats/data analysis class: Done.
Teach 1 online stats/data analysis class: Done.
Prep 1 distance human development class: Nope. Class was cancelled.
Teach 1 distance human development class: Nope. Class was cancelled.
service
Serve on equity committee from September until baby arrives: Done.
Serve as lead instructor for human development course from September until baby arrives, which included revamping two courses (plus some summer work): Done.
Serve as a scholarship judge for one community organization during winter term: Done.
tenure
Submit materials for my 5th year annual review: Submitted
Decide on tenure clock pause: Decided to pause
personal
I did end up setting personal goals for 2021 at the end of 2020, so some of these are still in the works.
Goal: Build my skills/a supportive team for an empowering birth experience
Goal met? Yes. This was my main goal for 2021. My first birth experience wasn't a positive one and I wanted to set myself up for a better experience this time around (fully realizing that most of the birth experience would be out of my control). I did Spinning Babies stretches/exercises on a regular basis, walked at least a mile a day (we got a treadmill and I also walked outside), I did regular guided meditations with Hypnobabies, and I worked with a wonderful doula and midwifery team. I'm happy to say that I think all of these things contributed to an incredibly positive birth experience.
Goal: Experiment with client work and plan(it)* course
Goal met? Yes. And I'm continuing to work on this. I worked with a few one-on-one clients in mid-2021, experimenting with fully virtual/asynchronous support. I also got plan(it)* up and running again and have a few things that I'm planning to add at a later date.
Goal: Build a solid emergency fund
Goal met? Yes. We met this goal earlier this year. With Mike working part time we've essentially just been using his paychecks to help with savings goals since we haven't really been a position to do this in the past.
Goal: Pay off last non public service loan forgiveness high interest loan
Goal met? On hold until the interest pause ends in January of 2022.
Goal: Rebuild a consistent meditation practice —> build a consistent journaling practice
Goal met? In progress. During pregnancy I meditated on my own in the beginning and then started to use the Hypnobabies guided meditations (or hypnosis tracks) as I prepped for birth. After birth, meditation hasn't felt good to me. I've been pretty anxious postpartum and meditation feels like it's making it worse (which I know is a thing), so I'm not delving into it right now. Instead I'm working on 'morning pages' and writing 3 pages of stream of consciousness writing every morning right after I wake up. I think it'll be helpful for all the things swirling around in my brain.