When I announced I accepted a tenure track position several years ago, I received one of those awkward, congratulations…but messages from a former colleague. This colleague, who chose to remain an adjunct to raise her family and keep her roots in her hometown, acknowledged in her message that another reason she opted to not pursue tenure-track employment was because she preferred to meet people on her own terms, not terms guided by the prospect of gaining tenure. Her message continued:
The worst part about a tenure-track position is that you have to put yourself out there and meet everybody at the school. You’re pretty much out of the running for tenure if you don’t attend every function and meet every person on campus. Those tenure committees change every few years and you don’t have any way of knowing who is going to be on the committee, so you have to meet them all. Otherwise, how will anybody know you?
Having never taken a tenure track position before, I was a bit concerned about her caution; however, I also knew how much she exaggerates things, so I took her words with a grain of salt. In the past two years, I’ve swept that grain of salt into the corner and dropped a few more grains of salt with it. One grain I added came from a non tenure-track colleague who shared with me the secret to gaining tenure, a secret that involved a lot of bars and drinking with the “establishment.” Another colleague, also a non-tenured faculty member, offered me the advice that there were six people in the department who needed to frequently visit my office for invigorating discussions–none of these six people visit my office. A final grain of salt, also from a non-tenured colleague, was that I needed to boldly announce all the work I am doing to all the people in all the departments.
For some people, these ways of networking and gaining attention come with ease. A dear colleague and friend of mine, who just received tenure, can put herself out there with the best of them. She is the prime example of somebody that everybody knows–faculty, administration, staff, students, even the lawn guy, I’m sure. For me, this kind of putting myself out there is a terrifying idea, as it is with most of us introverts. I don’t mean to say that I don’t want to know people or that I don’t want to meet new people, but the process of small talk does not fit with my Type-A, introverted personality. For awhile, I did fear that this would be detrimental to my academic future. I know people in my department. Okay, so most of those people have offices on my hallway. I know people in other departments. Okay, so I met these people through various university committees. I know people in administration.
But why am I telling you this? Well, my introvert-in-arms, I tell you all this to pass along a bit of wisdom that came to me in this past semester. I’ve put this whole idea of forcing myself to be social on the back burner, and I’ve focused on those things that matter to me (and look good going forward to tenure review). What I’ve learned is that the domino effect that is doing what you love puts you in contact with people without the uncomfortable extra effort. My first year at the university, I received a teaching fellowship, which helped me network with other like-minded faculty members across several disciplines. Hey, we all want to be better educators? These were the people I wanted to work with. Similarly, I volunteered for a college committee that I was interested in and that too put me in contact with a few more people in a few more disciplines. I wanted to pursue a fellowship this year, but I knew I did not have the full expertise to go this alone, so I tapped a colleague in another department to work on the fellowship as well.
I find that working with projects that are important to me are the best way to get out and purposefully meet people. Last fall, I started a veterans writing group. I sat in my office, alone, creating a flyer that I subsequently hung around campus. On a last minute whim, I decided taking the flyer to the campus Veterans Affairs office was a good idea. Never before had I set foot in the office, and I knew nobody there. My heart pounded the entire trip from my office to the Veterans Affairs office. I know the only reason I made it to the office was my passion for getting the group started. Not only did I drop off the flyers, I had a nice chat with one of the administrators, who was thrilled I was working on this project and offered support in any way he could. I used up my socialization for the month on that one excursion, returned to my office, and took a nap. (I’m serious.) The actual socialization was terrifying for me, and I was convinced that I’d given a bad impression, but at that moment, all that mattered was that the flyers were happily sitting in the Veterans Affairs office. Mission accomplished. The writing group did not start as successfully as I hoped, but dropping the flyers off opened another door for me–to our campus Veterans Advisory Board as the faculty liaison. Not long after the board was established, those flyers opened yet another door for me. The board chair (who also happens to be the administrator I spoke to when I dropped off the flyers) asked me to help out with a veterans center grant he and another colleague were putting together.
Whether the university will grant me tenure remains to be unseen and remains four years down the road. What I do know is that I’ve now heard on several occasions “oh, so and so is thrilled to know you are working on/interested in this project.” I’ve not made it this far by attending anything I did not want to attend. Yes, I’ll go to a show at the community theater to show support for a colleague directing a show, but I love community theater. Yes, I’ll meet up with a colleague for a beer after a long semester, but because I want to socialize and spend time with that person. But I have no qualms turning down an impromptu “we’re all going out to do this thing” after an already grueling social event. My advice, then, is to not worry about overwhelming yourself with social outings (though I do advise that you attend some of these social functions–you might just discover that the department chair is an extraordinary grill master if you go to that end-of-the-damn-academic-year bash she throws). If the people we want to be connected to in the academic world are those who can help us work toward the goals we want to set, then what good does it do to spend an hour and a half (or a day in introvert time) chatting up the chair of Physics only to discover that he is probably the least likely person you would ever work with. In other words, be yourself and focus on the projects you want to get off the ground. You’ll be networking without even realizing it. Oh, and do chat up that person who plops down beside you before the committee meeting starts. She may not be related to anything you think you want to do, but you’re on the same committee and you’ve got to pass the time somehow. Who knows, she may be somebody who can help you out later–even if that help is only coming to talk to you before graduation when you only wish you could spot a friendly face in the mass of hoods and robes.
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