The assistant professor was shocked. For six years on the tenure track, all the assessments of his work had been positive--or at least not negative. His annual evaluations rated him consistently good or better on teaching, service, and research. The sparse written comments from his chair were in the vein of "you are doing what you need to do." The…

The academic conference is stereotyped in popular culture--not without cause--as a confluence of the bizarre and the boring. But for faculty members, especially those on the tenure-and-promotion track, learning how to get the most out of those meetings has become an essential skill. Even for doctoral students who, once upon a time, did not need to…

In this article, the author talks about the tenure process of being a professor which can be gloomy for assistant professors as they share a common culture of the joyless quest for promotion and tenure. Life as an assistant professor has its bleak moments; however, the downbeat cosmology is, in the end, dysfunctional and hurts more than it…

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) recently commissioned a study to review the research that finds liberal bias run amok in academe. Believing that the AFT is not a dispassionate observer of this debate, this article provides "The Chronicle of Higher Education's" survey of the genre. The studies reviewed include: (1) "Political Bias in the…

Institutions letting tenure candidates look at their review files report that openness boosts faculty morale and instills confidence that tenure decisions are fair. (MSE)