About St. Lawrence University
Transition to a Small Rural Liberal Arts College
Most faculty come to St. Lawrence from a large, often public university, often in an urban or cosmopolitan setting. It is useful to approach your new social and work environments as requiring the same kind of cultural adjustments one faces in a foreign country. While this may sound like a dramatic statement, the fact is that most faculty come from urban or suburban environments, often in more moderate climates. Life in a rural, almost totally white, extremely northern setting is significantly different from what most of us have come from. The vast majority of St. Lawrence faculty end up loving it, but it takes time. You will be able to buy a house and you don't have to lock your doors or face traffic jams every day, but you won't find Cuban restaurants or international newspapers or some kinds of medical specialists. Over time your perceptions, even of the natural world, will become more subtle and you will find cultural events and outdoor beauties you might miss in your first year or two. Some people will find the small liberal arts college familiar and the North Country strange; others will feel the reverse. That is to say you will probably go through periods of excitement, dismay, confusion, and frustration; you will find many desirable features of life in the North Country and many bewildering ones. Much of this handbook focuses on life in the North Country, so this section will address primarily adapting to the ethos of a small college in general and St. Lawrence (SLU) in particular.
Faculty Culture
As in any new cultural setting, it takes a considerable period of adjustment in order to feel at home. One handbook on cultural adjustment recommends having tolerance of ambiguity, cognitive and behavioral flexibility, a sense of your own cultural identity, enthusiasm and commitment, openness to new experiences and people, empathy, respect, and a sense of humor. Interestingly, while most of us would adopt these dispositions in moving to another country, we do not expect to need them in the United States and we especially do not expect to need them at work. On the contrary we feel that we should be assuming a mantle of authority and professional competence born of graduate training and research, and insecurity makes some new faculty assume a more rigid demeanor rather than a flexible one. The fact is that many of the "cultural" values and practices at St. Lawrence may be diametrically opposed to those of your graduate institution, and that can be disorienting and confusing. While this section gives advice on orienting yourself to SLU's faculty culture, it does not mean to imply that you should thereby accept that culture as you find it. Part of the culture here is its willingness to entertain change and to respect junior faculty who are willing to stick their necks out to intervene, so long as they do it with some tact and understanding of the context. So the first piece of advice is to seek out institutional history from a variety of perspectives before leaping to conclusions. Your criticisms and suggestions will be met with much more respect if you show some knowledge of how things have evolved here over time. While the faculty is not as homogeneous as it appears, there are some dominant values, such as the importance of excellent teaching and collegiality. How these are interpreted can vary a great deal, and some departments have their own strongly held subcultures, which range from a sense of closely-knit community to factionalism to a shared discourse of complaint. But one of the big differences between SLU and a large university is that your department is not the exclusive agent of your success or failure. You are part of the faculty as a whole, and the more connections you can make across the faculty, whether socially, on committees, or in interdisciplinary programs, the stronger your position will be when it comes time for tenure and promotion decisions (see Committees chapter). Once you have these connections, you will be able to seek advice from people with diverse opinions and teaching styles, and you will be assured of a variety of perspectives in evaluating your achievements and contributions. In fact it would be a bad idea to rely exclusively on the views held about university politics and criteria for tenure within any one department.
The St. Lawrence faculty is like a small community in that everyone pretty much knows everyone else at least enough to place them in various categories of curricular politics, teaching skills, and personality. These judgements are not always accurate, but they do circulate, and the best antidote to stereotyping is first-hand conversation. Because a lot of institutional history underlies debate in faculty meetings, for a while you may feel that others are reading bizarre subtexts into seemingly simple statements of position. As you talk to various people you will begin to piece together the different positions people hold, but you might do well to try to bracket your own judgements about people and positions until you have had some first-hand experience.
One of the areas of tension over the past decade has been the relative importance of obligations to interdisciplinary programs versus departments. We seem to be evolving to a point where interdisciplinary programs are accepted as integral to the mission of the university, so this may be less of a conflict in the future. But some junior faculty receive conflicting advice for example about whether to stick within the department until tenure or to go into the First-year program in order to develop their teaching skills and serve the university outside the department. It is important to know that the FYP has been an area of contention in the past (see FYP chapter). If you feel conflicting pressures, you should not hesitate to make an appointment to talk over your situation with the Dean. He or she will have a larger perspective on your situation than any one mentor will, including your department chair.
Some junior faculty fear that voicing controversial opinions or voting against their department members at a faculty meeting will doom them at tenure time. This is not the case. But constant complaining with no counterbalancing positive action can have a negative impact. Find colleagues, including some senior colleagues, who support the same goals you do and work with them. Try to couch your concerns in as constructive and collegial way as possible. There is a kind of dominant manner of discourse among the faculty, characterized by a calm, deliberative, dispassionate manner, culturally specific to northeastern private institutions, and it can feel stifling to people whose cultural or ethnic or class backgrounds have strikingly different discourse patterns. While you should not have to change yourself to be successful here, a bit of camouflage or code switching will ease your ability to intervene and be heard when you need to be. As the faculty becomes more diverse, this should be less of a concern, but it is good to be forewarned.
Attitudes toward Teaching
Whereas at graduate school, your main job, like that of your faculty role models, was to go off and do your research by yourself, at SLU it is important to be a contributing member of the campus community. Just as a liberal arts education aims to educate not just the intellect but the whole person, so a faculty member at a liberal arts institution is expected to be present as a whole person, not just as a classroom teacher or isolated scholar. A faculty member who does great teaching and research but never serves meaningfully on committees or participates in faculty meetings or in some way joins into community building activities will be not be viewed favorably by colleagues (see Committees chapter). Thus, SLU is not a place where you can work from nine to five on Monday through Friday.
You are expected to be a fully participating member of the community. That means organizing and attending some co-curricular events, participating in Family Weekend, and other such activities that mark life at a residential college. Your students will expect more time and attention from you than would students at a big research university. They will expect both formal and informal advising, interaction at cocurricular events, help with papers and other assignments, and interest in them as people. Most faculty at SLU are deeply invested in their teaching. Especially since the inception of the FYP and the Center for Teaching and Learning, a culture of faculty development has evolved here. Through team teaching, faculty development seminars, faculty presentations, teaching with technology grants, attending conferences, and other means, faculty think self-consciously about and talk about their teaching. Most faculty are interested in moving beyond disciplinary boundaries in some way. There is a great deal of exciting ferment around faculty development.
There is also considerable debate over the challenges of moving students toward serious intellectual inquiry. Faculty have a range of opinions about the academic preparation of the students here, probably echoing the opinions of faculty at most other institutions. St. Lawrence students represent a wide range of abilities, but most are well above average and a number are as good as students anywhere. A few faculty have been known to equate arrogance and condescension toward students with holding high academic standards. The ideal here, on the other hand, is to balance high academic standards with respect and concern for the well-being of students. St. Lawrence students will perform up to a very high standard so long as the course is structured in such a way as to hold them accountable for doing the work. They do not tend to do so well when there are no direct consequences for not doing the reading, for example. Thus it is helpful to be as explicit as possible about expectations when you write your syllabi.
Research
So what if you jump enthusiastically into the life of the college and earn a reputation as a great teacher? Is that enough for tenure? And will you have time for a life? Alas, the answers are no and no. Most of us want to do scholarship or create art or do whatever is done to be productive in our fields. You need to set aside enough time for research so that you will be tenurable. Above all, the message of this handbook is that we all need to strike a balance in our lives, and that can be very difficult at a place like St. Lawrence. Some colleagues will be pushing you into more service and students will be asking you for more time. If you have a family you need to be present for them. You need to maintain your own sanity through exercise and recreation (see R&R chapter). But you do need to produce scholarship as well.
Many of us find that we can only do research during vacations and summer. We have almost a month in January, enough to do some serious writing or field work or archival research. You might weigh the benefits to your scholarly profile of entering the FYP sooner rather than later so as to have a pre-tenure leave.
If you are coming to SLU from a large research university, you may be alarmed at losing the resources you have enjoyed in libraries or laboratories. You will find that SLU does everything possible to make resources available. While our library is an undergraduate one, there are funds available to build collections relevant to your teaching and research needs.
We have growing access to full text journal databases and extremely efficient and generous Interlibrary Loan services. We have various grants for technology needs. We are planning new facilities for the arts and sciences within the next five years. We have had numerous opportunities for travel to other countries over the past six years, and hope to have more in the future. We have an extremely generous faculty travel policy and competitive grants available for faculty research. In most cases if faculty members are productive and make a reasonable case, a way can be found to gain access to the resources they need.
So, while SLU is a small, rural college, it will present you most likely with too many opportunities, and your job will be to find the balance that makes sense for you among the demands of teaching, community service, scholarship, and personal life. In order to thrive here, you need not only attend to all four of these areas, but to grow and flourish in all four. Finding this balance will be your greatest challenge, but colleagues will be glad to offer advice.
Eve Stoddard is the primary author of this chapter (1999).
“Take advantage of conference funding—both for disciplinary conferences and for attending a pedagogy conference. Attending a pedagogy conference, especially in the first year, especially in November or March, can help give you new ideas and rejuvenate you at a stressful time of the semester. Also, although you’ll get a ton of great teaching ideas during new faculty orientation, don’t forget to teach to your strengths. Try one or two new ideas, but don’t think you have to change your whole teaching style.”
Erin McCarthy, Philosophy
What does it take to get tenure around here?
Whether implicitly or explicitly asked, this pressing question is on the minds of new tenure-track faculty. While the Faculty Handbook (http://www.stlawu.edu/acadaffairs/faculty%20handbook.pdf) is the authoritative source for the guidelines and criteria for tenure and promotion, pre-tenure faculty appreciate impressionistic answers from faculty members who have recently and successfully gone through the process. Below, a general outline of the tenure and promotion process is followed by St. Lawrence colleagues’ reflections about their own recent tenure cases. The tenure review process occurs in two stages: mid-probationary review and tenure review. At the mid-point in your pre-tenure period (generally in your third year) your department or program will conduct a review of your teaching, scholarship, and service. Directors from other programs in which you have taught (e.g. the FYP) will also be involved at this time. This report will note your strengths and weaknesses in these areas as the department or program sees them, and it will suggest areas for improvement.
The tenure review process typically occurs in the fall of your sixth year of teaching, though this can vary in cases where faculty have taught full-time elsewhere prior to coming to St. Lawrence. You will compile a detailed file documenting your teaching, scholarship, and service at St. Lawrence, so it is extremely important to keep records starting in your first semester. Your file will be evaluated first by your department, which will then write a statement regarding your case to the university’s Professional Standards Committee (PSC). If you have taught in programs outside of your department, representatives from those programs will also be involved in your tenure review. The PSC will evaluate your file and the submitted statement, along with letters solicited from your colleagues, current and former students, and professional peers outside of St. Lawrence University. The PSC will then make its recommendation regarding tenure to the President, who may concur or ask the committee to reconsider. The details on what happens after concurrence or reconsideration are in the Faculty Handbook.
Six recently tenured faculty were asked to reflect on their own tenure cases while answering questions about teaching, scholarship, and service. Their responses appear in the same order after each question.
What do you think mattered most about your teaching?
“As a group, I think (and hope) my students felt that I treated them with respect, and I think this mattered as they evaluated my courses and wrote letters at the time of my tenure review. I think they felt they were free to express their opinions in my classes, and that I would listen whether I agreed or disagreed, and expect everyone else in the class to do the same. I think they appreciated that I was willing to take the time to talk with them outside of class. And I’d like to think they felt that my courses were demanding because I was concerned about their intellectual growth, and while I expected a lot from them, their efforts would be rewarded if they rose to the standards that were set. My own sense is that the PSC is extremely thorough and discerning in the way it considers the qualities of our faculty as teachers, focusing on their ability over the long haul to challenge and convey ideas to all of our students.”
“I think it was very important to have strong written comments and letters from past students. I didn’t focus on or worry too much about the numbers on evaluations. Even more important is to demonstrate that you approach teaching as an evolving process and that you reflect on and learn from teaching evaluations and past teaching experiences. Hint: After the end of each semester, before you receive your teaching evaluations, jot down some notes about each class taught from your perspective – what worked, what were the real positives, what problems arose and how you dealt with them and how you might better deal with them in the future, what changes you are thinking about adopting next time you teach. You can turn to these notes in writing your annual reports and when you prep for the same classes again.You need to show a willingness to adapt and be responsive to students’ needs without compromising your fundamental beliefs about what’s important in your field and your goals for St. Lawrence University students.”
“Clearly, the students had to believe that I was an effective teacher who graded them fairly. The question becomes how to demonstrate that you are an effective teacher. I used a variety of ways to demonstrate my teaching effectiveness in my reviews, however, I think the most important evaluations of my teaching were the student responses to the PSC questions. The PSC questions represent a “standard” evaluation of teaching across campus and they are the first evidence people will look at to determine your “quality as a teacher”. My evaluations were always very strong. Students typically responded very positively on the PSC questions as well as in written comments. It is hard for me to judge how thoroughly the written comments were read by reviewers. I often get the sense that if you are receiving high marks on the PSC questions that many people do not spend much time reading student comments.”
“I think that what stood out in my evaluations and made them strong was my students’ sense of the passion I have for what I do and their sense that I cared about them as students and as people in general. In terms of the latter, in concrete terms, students often commented on my availability to them, my openness to their ideas, and my willingness to work with them on their papers and other assignments.”
“My teaching was very good for the most part, with a couple of exceptions. I’d been in FYP for 3 years. In the first two years, I got pretty good evaluations. In my third year, I got trashed. However, I was able to point out some interesting statistics to explain the horrid evaluations. My department had a couple of negative things to say about my teaching in their letter, but I didn’t rebut them in my original letter. I should have, and did so effectively in the appeal (after originally being turned down by the PSC).”
“My concern about student understanding what we do in the classroom and the fact that they have to get involved in the learning process. In the classroom I place a premium on active student learning. It’s important to teach the class with the students and not just to the students. Also the careful preparation for class (from a carefully crafted syllabus that provide students with a clear sense of the expectations for the course to the use of a wide variety of activities and materials to reach different learning styles), the high standards that I maintain for myself and for my students and the availability to meet students out of class.”
What do you think mattered most about your research or scholarship?
“I think it mattered that I had more than a few publications; having none would have been a problem, and having just one or two probably would have been as well. It mattered that they were in peer-reviewed journals, and that my dissertation was published. How many publications were needed and how they were weighed is more difficult for me to say, since I didn’t see the process from the side of those evaluating my work. I suspect that there isn’t one answer to these questions for all cases, and that they are often very difficult ones for PSC to answer. But in the end I think quality is much more important than quantity—particularly quality which demonstrates a clear connection between the faculty member’s research and teaching interests. Regarding my own approach to scholarship, I’ve tried always to be working on something, even if it’s just a vague idea that I occasionally jot down notes about. I found that I did more research and writing during the semesters than over breaks, though I think I’m an oddity in this regard. On occasion I would work on research instead of grading papers, which resulted in some very late paper returns but more scholarly output. I took every chance I could to present papers at conferences—picking the conferences, to be honest, much more because of where and when they were than any other criteria. This often forced me to write during the semester, which was a good thing, with the added benefit of conveying me to someplace warm in February or March.”
“From my view, three things are important from the research perspective:
- Having enough peer reviewed publications (mostly enough being defined by your department)
- Having favorable outside letters commenting on your research
- Showing an active research agenda, including having working papers and ongoing projects and by participating in professional conferences.”
“I had a strong research program that produced peer reviewed papers and also involved students. I think it has become evident that scholarship in the form of some sort of peer reviewed work has become essential for tenure. I had two peer reviewed papers, one invited book chapter, and an NSF grant proposal. I also had presented my research at several national and international meetings. I involved students in my research and also incorporated it into courses as well as independent student projects. Several of my students presented their work at national meetings as well. Lastly, I know that comments of external reviews helped the PSC understand my work and its importance. I would suggest getting as many external reviews as possible. I think that in my case, the evaluation of scholarship was the most critical element in the both departmental and PSC of review of my tenure case.”
“Both that I had a book published and on the shelves and that I had a scholarly agenda that moved beyond the subject matter of the book.” “I had trouble getting tenure. The PSC heard my case, recommended I be turned down, heard my appeal, and then recommended I get tenure. After that, it was smooth sailing! What was my problem? Mainly, I did not have enough research/scholarship, and what I did have, I didn’t sell well. First problem: I had submitted a paper the summer before going up for tenure, and the committee didn’t know if it was any good. So, in my appeal, I had a bigwig in the field write and say, “Hey, this is worthwhile.” Second problem: my field is more technical, so when I went to write up what I was doing, I didn’t want to get bogged down in a lot of details that the committee wouldn’t follow anyway. THAT was a mistake! In my appeal, I simplified (well, not exactly simplified so much as explained in “English”) what I was doing. Next, and this is VERY important, I had people outside my department who were advocates for me read the appeal. They pointed out stuff like, “Okay, you sound pissed off here. Now that you’ve gotten it out of your system, delete it!” It had read fine to me. Oops. You need folks who will get fired up for you, be willing to read through your tenure file, and help you write a great one; you want people outside of your department/field to make sure it reads well to those not familiar with your research.” “My active participation in conferences by presenting papers, the publication of a book that was well received by outside readers and the broadening of my research interest beyond my dissertation.”
What do you think mattered most about your service to the institution?
“I think quality matters more than quantity, and that the problem for vast majority of junior faculty is not too little service, but too much. You will not be expected to participate in one of the University’s standing committees in your first year, but you also need to be wary of accumulating other service responsibilities—such as departmental subcommittees, interdisciplinary advisory boards, or being advisor to student organizations. You need to be able to say “no,” even to roles that you may be very interested in, or they definitely will start to infringe on the time you need for your teaching, research, and life outside of work. You should expect the support and understanding of your colleagues and especially your department chair when you decide that an assignment will take more time than you can reasonably spare. Also bear in mind that not all University committees will make equal demands on your time; some meet very frequently and have multiple subcommittees; others meet very rarely. It is far better to have a small number or committee responsibilities in which you are deeply and energetically engaged in substantive work, than a greater number for which you don’t have enough time.”
“It is more important to do a very good job serving on one university committee a year – which entails regularly attending meetings, participating in committee discussions, helping with subcommittee work, and even taking on some minor leadership roles – than trying to take on too many responsibilities each year and not performing well on any of them. This enables you to connect with faculty outside your department and get your name known. Through quality committee work, non-department colleagues will appreciate your hard work and will write supporting letters for you at tenure time.“
“I think the most important thing about my service was that it introduced me to faculty in other areas of the University. I served on a variety of committees – University, departmental, special task forces, as well as position searches in other departments. Service on committees also provided me new perspectives about how other departments and disciplines work. Of the three components, service was probably the least important in terms of my evaluation.”
“I would guess that what mattered was that my service wasn’t perfunctory. I found committees and university projects that related to my intellectual interests or my passions and there was a thoughtful coherence to my service.”
“My service was stellar---which was a two-edged sword. Lots of folks on campus knew me, but service was so much easier to do than research. That hurt me.”
“The advising of students, the involvement on interdisciplinary programs, the variety of committees in which I have participated in and outside my department.” Please share any other impressions about the tenure and promotion process that might be helpful for faculty new to St. Lawrence.
Please share any other impressions about the Tenure and Promotion process that might be helpful for faculty new to St. Lawrence.
“As you arrive, understand that you will hear much discussion and often disagreement about any aspect of the tenure process that may arise. In the time I have been here I think it has been the issue we have argued about at the greatest length and with the greatest intensity. This can be unnerving as you’re going through the process, but I think it reflects the fact both the faculty and administration regard our practices regarding tenure as profoundly serious issues. Questions about the tenure process are not taken lightly by anyone, and I think the PSC in particular regards its work with extreme gravity. They expect a lot of information, and they spend a huge amount of time and energy considering it. This reflects a faculty culture that acknowledges that tenure decisions are the most important ones that we make as an institution, and for all the effort and anxiety that it entails, this means that the process is exhaustive and fair. Understand that it is going to be stressful. No matter how hard you work or how successful you are, because there is so much riding on this decision, you are going to be concerned about the outcome. Talk to you colleagues about this—particularly those outside your department, who won’t a have direct role in evaluating you. The bottom line is that it’s not going to be much fun, but neither are you in it alone. I was lucky that I had a department and particularly a Chair that went to great lengths to evaluate my work carefully and represent it fairly. In particular, I found it incredibly helpful to go through a third-year review process with my department that was essentially identical to the tenure process. This meant that the process was clear to me when my tenure consideration came, that my department’s expectations were clear, and that I already had a tenure file which only needed to be updated rather than created from scratch. This meant more work for both me and my departmental colleagues, but it was very much worth the effort in stress and anxiety avoided.”
“The process is quite streamlined and fast compared to large research, public universities. That helps to reduce the stress. The piece that brings together questions 1, 2 and 3 is the personal statement. Take this seriously and do a good job explaining your goals and philosophies about the three areas of teaching, scholarship and service. Explain your research in layman’s terms. Explain how you have changed, matured, and developed as an academic over the pre-tenure time. Don’t be afraid to bug your department colleagues for examples of successful personal statements. Also, ask for examples of well-organized tenure packets from within or outside your department.”
“First, always present a strong, positive outlook on your work. You are your own best advocate. You need to be realistic, but do not down play the strengths of your accomplishments. It is hard for many of us to blow our own horns. However, at the time of your 3rd year and tenure reviews you need to blow your horn loud without seeming too arrogant. Second, there are expectations for achievements in teaching, scholarship, and service, although these expectations are not always written down and differ among departments and areas of the University. You need to meet these expectations as best you can (i.e., you have to play the game as best you can). I think the concern for most people is about scholarship. The nature of the University is that teaching time and service time are scheduled into your life (e.g., classes, labs, and meetings). The hard part is finding the time and energy to conduct and publish your research. I think one of the problems is that often people segregate their teaching and their scholarship. I have found that incorporating my research interests into my courses helps me to schedule research time and helps prepare students to work with me if they continue on to do independent research. The other problem for people is to become over involved in service. Service is great, but service alone will not get you tenure. My last suggestion is that you should start putting together your 3rd year review in your first semester. Keep your course materials and self evaluations organized and maintain an up-to-date CV. For both your 3rd year and tenure reviews, you need to accumulate syllabi, course materials, examples of graded work (including the good, the bad and the ugly), etc. There is a tremendous amount of paper that you have to organize for these reviews. You can reduce your anxiety before each review if you don’t have to spend hours and hours trying to find all of the pieces of paper that you need.”)
“The mid-probationary review is very helpful in terms of gauging your progress toward tenure. Save your statement from that review as well as your department’s statement. Use that as a jumping off point for the second half of the probationary period as well as for crafting your tenure statement. When you do get tenure, the letter you receive from the PSC may surprise you a bit: it is the one opportunity your colleagues have to address you and your strengths and weaknesses. They’ll use that opportunity to do just that.”
“Advice: Address any negatives in your file head on. Don’t ignore them, explain them. Toot your horn! Don’t be afraid to ask for help. When I was first denied, many people told me they hadn’t bothered writing a letter for me because they figured I would sail through. Ask people to write letters for you! Ask people to visit your classroom, and not just before your third year review and tenure. And relax. Good Luck!” “Be active in committees where you can contribute to the SLU campus community and where you can work with colleagues from other departments, pay careful attention to student comments and analyze diligently your courses in order to improve the quality of your teaching and start working as soon as possible in the manuscript of your book or your research project to have it ready before coming up for tenure.”
“Some faculty may tell you that it is unrealistic to try to do research during the academic year, and that they only manage to find the time for research during breaks. But it is worth trying from the very beginning to see if you can integrate some research and writing time during the semester, even if it is only a half-hour to an hour every day. Keeping the momentum up from day to day can for some people turn out to be far more effective than waiting for larger chunks of time. Approaching research in this way also can open up possibilities for your teaching and research to creatively inform each throughout the year.”
Laura Rediehs, Philosophy