In Case You're Wondering

This is what a tenure package looks like; this is actually Kim's (who had loaned me hers as a model) because I only remembered that I was going to take a picture of it after I had turned it in. More or less like mine, though the tabbing is far neater. It contains the letter applying for tenure and promotion (the hardest part to produce), CV, all your year end reports, all your faculty data forms (another kind of end-of-year report), nine teaching observations, from other faculty members, and course evaluations from twelve different courses. The letter has to highlight what's important in the hundreds of pages of data included in the binder, so the committee gets a picture of who you are as a teacher, scholar and colleague (assuming they don't already know). I'm fortunate that at least a couple members of the committee know me personally and are acquainted with what I do. The problem of being a medievalist -- what you do seems odd and often obscure to others.

Consummatum est

The tenure package has been submitted. Hallelujah. Now the five month or so wait...

Assessment

I dislike being assessed. Being judged and evaluated, measured against some abstract scale, always makes me resentful. I have my own measures of success and have no interest in conforming to anyone else's opinions of what is valuable.

Of course, when you choose to become part of academia, it's a non-stop parade of evaluation. As a student you're graded on what you write, what you say and what you do. When you become a faculty member, you're graded on your grading and general teaching, on your writing, as well as the publishing and presenting of that writing and its attendant research, as well as how many committees you sit on, organisations you join and contributions you bring. Bleh.

Everyone gets evaluated on their job; I should just get over myself. But I have a lot of material to gather together. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the tenure package before I deliver it. Nearly there. The letter is out to friends for scrutiny. Meanwhile, holes to punch. It may prove soothing after straining to pull meaningful but not too clever prose from my brain.

UPDATE: It also didn't help that I discovered that all of last year's course evaluations were missing. It turns out our departmental secretary has them (after assuring me this morning she did not); I would have gone to get them by now, but she's apparently left for the day.