Category: USFA e-Letter

e-Letters are brief but timely communications about workplace issues.

How quickly we forget what it’s like to be a new faculty member

For close to a decade now the USFA has hosted events for faculty in the first few years of their appointment at the U of S. Getting to meet new members and hear from them about their views on our workplace is an enriching experience. Each year, while the information we provide can seem quite… Continue reading How quickly we forget what it’s like to be a new faculty member

Copyright

So you’re all set to teach your courses… course syllabus complete, lecture notes in place and posted on PAWS/Blackboard, reading lists done, and assignments prepared. But have you thought about copyright?   Much information has been circulated recently about changes to copyright policy on campus. Out of concern for implications for our members, USFA is alerting… Continue reading Copyright

Promotion/tenure: 8th in a series

Sorry, no substitutions! Something to be aware of during your qualifying period for tenure or promotion is that no special arrangements can be made regarding meeting the standards. As a hypothetical example, suppose a Dean asks you to become a Department Head and offers to champion your promotion/tenure case if your research suffers as a… Continue reading Promotion/tenure: 8th in a series

When to go for tenure or promotion: 7th in a series

Practice of professional skills remains a troublesome category for members in many units, particularly the professional colleges. When the university standards for tenure and promotion were last revised, there was a wish to distinguish recognize practice of professional skills, but still require practitioners to show ability in research, consistent with the teacher/scholar model. Unfortunately, the… Continue reading When to go for tenure or promotion: 7th in a series

Educators create wealth

Discussing the teachers’ job action, a local columnist commented that the arguments of the teachers’ union for “sharing the wealth” is flawed. The author writes that “fair share” “implies someone has contributed directly to creating what is they want to share” and that such reasoning “smacks of an entitlement mentality”. (Star-Phoenix, “Sharing the wealth not… Continue reading Educators create wealth

When to go for tenure or promotion: 6th in a series

It is surprising how often we evaluate a colleague’s research career by metrics like publication counts, page counts, or order of authorship, which border on numerology, rather than considering the actual contribution. Although time is the true test of research, the reason we do this is that the practicalities of our processes force us to… Continue reading When to go for tenure or promotion: 6th in a series

When to go for tenure or promotion: 5th in a series

Today is the best day to start thinking about your promotion/tenure case. You have a lot of resources to help you in the preparation of your case file. By May 31, your Department Head or Dean should have met with you to discuss your progress in meeting the approved standards, which you should make yourself… Continue reading When to go for tenure or promotion: 5th in a series