Mid-Career Faculty : Trends, Barriers, and Possibilities [1 ed.] 9789004408180, 9789004398207

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Mid-Career Faculty

Mid-Career Faculty Trends, Barriers, and Possibilities

Edited by

Anita G. Welch, Jocelyn Bolin and Daniel Reardon

leiden | boston

All chapters in this book have undergone peer review. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Welch, Anita G., editor. | Bolin, Jocelyn H., editor. | Reardon, Daniel (English professor) editor. Title: Mid-career faculty : trends, barriers, and possibilities / Edited by Anita G. Welch, Jocelyn H. Bolin and Daniel Reardon. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill Sense, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019023136 (print) | LCCN 2019023137 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004408166 (paperback) | ISBN 9789004398207 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004408180 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: College teachers--Tenure--United States. | Mid-career--United States. | Universities and colleges--United States--Faculty. | Occupational mobility--United States. Classification: LCC LB2335.7 .M53 2019 (print) | LCC LB2335.7 (ebook) | DDC 378.1/214--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023136 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023137

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. isbn 978-90-04-40816-6 (paperback) isbn 978-90-04-39820-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-40818-0 (e-book) Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents List of Figures and Tables vii Notes on Contributors viii Introduction 1 Anita G. Welch, Jocelyn Bolin and Daniel Reardon

PART 1 Barriers and Challenges in the Lives of Mid-Career Faculty 1 Mid-Career Faculty: The Current State of the Field 7 Michael Terwillegar, Jenna Thomas and Jocelyn Bolin 2 Sustaining Faculty Vitality at Mid-Career: Individual and Institutional Strategies 17 Anne M. DeFelippo and Jay R. Dee 3 The Academic Mother at Mid-Career 41 Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw 4 Career Advancement Experiences of Mid-Career Women Faculty and Those across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas 61 Carrie Graham and Jennifer McGarry

Part 2 Strategies to Support Mid-Career Faculty 5 Making Time: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty through Mentoring 89 Michael Bernard-Donals 6 A Comprehensive Approach to Supporting and Promoting Mid-Career Faculty 108 Kimberly Buch, Andrea Dulin and Yvette Huet 7 Faculty Writing Groups: A Tool for Providing Support, Community, and Accountability at Mid-Career 126 Laura Plummer, Eliza Pavalko, Joyce Alexander and Jane McLeod

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8 Career Development Strategies for Mid-Career Faculty 143 Pradeep Bhardwaj, Debbie L. Hahs-Vaughn, Florencio Eloy Hernandez and J. Blake Scott 9 Keeping the Momentum: Mid-Career Faculty Mentorship 178 Mandy Rispoli 10 Using Organizational, Functional, and Personal Development to Help Mid-Career Faculty Members 197 Javier Cavazos-Vela, Maria L. Morales, Claudia Vela and Jeremiah Fisk Conclusion: Protecting and Promoting Higher Education’s Greatest Resource 217 Daniel Reardon Index 223

Figures and Tables Figures 2.1 6.1 8.1

Faculty vitality, antecedents, and outcomes. 24 Mid-career planning process. 112 Action steps to close gaps. 156

Tables 2.1 2.2 2.3 4.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5

Faculty vitality contrasted with faculty burnout. 21 Faculty vitality survey: Sample items. 25 Strategies to enhance faculty vitality. 36 Number (percentage) of faculty demographics across all ranks. 63 Perceived barriers to full professor promotion. 111 Changes in perceptions of female faculty to promotion to full professor. 119 COACHE survey data on promotion to full professor. 120 Change in % of associate and full professors by gender and demographic category in STEM and non-STEM disciplines. 121 Participation in Indiana University Bloomington Faculty Writing Groups. 135 10 Year goals and career road map. 152 SWOT analysis. 154 GAP analysis. 155 Pre- to post-Kendall’s tau correlation coefficients for satisfaction with culture related to mid-career advancement. 168 Pre- to post-Kendall’s tau correlation coefficients for clarity of items related to mid-career advancement. 169

Notes on Contributors Joyce Alexander (PhD, University of Georgia) is an educational psychologist that studies learning, motivation, and interest. She was previously executive dean for the School of Education at Indiana University. Dr. Alexander is now Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University. Michael Bernard-Donals (PhD, State University of New York at Stony Brook) is the Chaim Perelman Professor of Rhetoric and Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is also an affiliate of the Mosse-Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies. He previously served as the chair of the English Department and the Director of Jewish Studies, and currently serves as the Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff Pradeep Bhardwaj (PhD, University of Toronto) is the Chair of the Department of Marketing and the Carl H. Galloway Professor of Marketing at the University of Central Florida. His research interests include sales force management, channel management, customer relationship management, pharmaceutical marketing, and corporate social responsibility. He has experience teaching in several middle and senior management executive development programs at UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill, UBC, and UCF. As Provost Faculty Fellow for 2017–2018, he actively participated in Faculty Excellence initiatives relating to Mid-Career advising and mentoring. Jocelyn Bolin (PhD, Indiana University Bloomington) is a professor in the Educational Psychology department at Ball State University. Her main areas of expertise include research methodology and statistics, focusing on statistical best practices using classification analysis and the general linear model. She is an active statistical and research methods consultant as well as graduate student mentor. She has also been involved in several research projects studying midcareer faculty productivity and the use of the NSOPF national database. Kimberly Buch (PhD, Iowa State University) is Professor of Psychological Science and member of the ADVANCE Leadership Team at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. She has been involved in efforts to promote the success and diversity of faculty and students in STEM through work supported by the National Science

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Foundation and has numerous publications and presentations on the topic of equity and diversity among mid-career and adjunct faculty. Javier Cavazos-Vela (PhD, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi) is the director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is also an Associate Professor in the College of Education and P-16 Integration. Jay R. Dee (PhD, University of Iowa) is professor of higher education at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Dee’s research interests include organizational theory, higher education leadership, faculty development, and the academic workplace. He teaches courses in higher education governance, organizational change, and administrative decision making. Anne M. DeFelippo (PhD, University of Massachusetts) is associate professor of nursing at Salem State University. Her research interests include mid-career faculty, faculty vitality, and innovative teaching strategies. In 2014, she won the Massachusetts Colleges of Nursing (MACN) award for innovative teaching simulations in mental health nursing. Andrea Dulin (PhD, University College Cardiff) is the Project Director for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte ADVANCE Faculty Affairs and Diversity Office, a position she has held for the past six years. As project manager, she serves an integral role in the development and implementation of programming to support all faculty at the institution, in addition to promotion the hiring, advancement, and retention of women and URM faculty to increase the diversity of faculty body at the university. Jeremiah Fisk (BA, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) is a student in the clinical mental health master’s program at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He is also president of the Brownsville Counseling Student Association (BCSA). His current research interest includes cross-cultural motivational reading practices of university students. Carrie Graham (PhD, University of Connecticut) is an assistant professor in health care education with a focus on leadership development at Catawba College,

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Salisbury, NC. She also serves as the founding Director of Undergraduate Research and Creativity. Her research interests explores factors that impede and support adult workplace learning of marginalized groups in higher education, with focus on faculty development, institutional culture, and mentoring. Debbie L. Hahs-Vaughn (PhD, University of Alabama) is a Professor in the Methodology, Measurement and Analysis Program at the University of Central Florida. She previously served as Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Excellence and led faculty development efforts, including programs for assistant professor, mid-career faculty, and nontenure earning faculty as well as leadership programs for faculty and department chairs. In addition, she oversaw the Targeted Opportunity Program, a program to recruit and retain academic couples and inclusive excellence faculty. Florencio Eloy Hernandez (PhD, Universidad Central de Venezuela and L’Université Franche-Comté) is a professor of chemistry and optics at the University of Central Florida. During his career he has been devoted to mentor graduate and undergraduate students, and to impart peer to peer mentoring in the College of Sciences at UCF. As Provost Faculty Fellow during the 2017–2018 academic year, he co-led Faculty Excellence initiatives such as the Associate Professor Mentoring Community Program and the Mid-Career Advisory Sub-Committees and developed the Deans’ Ever-increasing Empathy & Motivation (DEEM) Program. Yvette Huet (PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center) is Professor of Kinesiology and Director of the ADVANCE Faculty Affairs and Diversity Office at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. She has been involved in efforts to promote the success of women and faculty of color in the academy throughout her career. She has had publications and presentations at a variety of campuses and national organizations regarding strategies for success for women and faculty of color in the academy from recruitment to leadership. She is a moderator for COACh presenting their Negotiations and Leadership workshops. Jennifer (Bruening) McGarry (PhD, The Ohio State University) has been a faculty member in the Sport Management program at the University of Connecticut since 2002. She currently serves as Department Head in Educational Leadership. Her research has focused on the experiences of minoritized individuals in sport, particularly African American college athletes, women leaders in intercollegiate settings, and youth from low income environments.

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Jane McLeod (PhD, University of Michigan) is a social psychologist who studies health inequalities and social exclusion. Her most recent project focuses on the experiences of college students on the autism spectrum. Previously Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Social & Historical Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University, she is now chair of the Department of Sociology. Maria L. Morales (MEd, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, MFA New Mexico State university) is a recent graduate of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at UTRGV. She currently works for a state mental health inpatient hospital in Texas. She was previously an English Lecturer for the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College. Eliza Pavalko (PhD, Florida State University) is a sociologist who studies work, health, gender and the life course. Her long-standing research interest has been to understand women’s changing work careers and implications for health and aging. She is currently Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington. Laura Plummer (PhD, Indiana University) directs the Scholarly Writing Program, under the auspices of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, at Indiana University. For fifteen years, Laura directed Indiana’s Writing Across the Curriculum program, which administered the university-wide writing center. Daniel Reardon (DA, SUNY-Albany) is Associate Professor of English at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Dan teaches education course, science fiction, and fantasy literature. Dr. Reardon’s research is in program administration and reading/writing pedagogy. He also researches digital games as narrative mediums, and is currently writing a monograph on technical communication and digital game narratives. Mandy Rispoli (PhD, University of Texas at Austin) is an Professor of Special Education at Purdue University, the Co-Director of the Purdue Autism Research Center, and a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Dr. Rispoli’s research explores functional behavior assessment and function-based interventions in education settings for young children with autism and developmental disabilities. Her research

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also explores innovations in professional development for teachers of young children with challenging behavior. Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw (EdD, Regent University; PhD, Liberty University) is an Associate Professor for the Instructional Design and Technology Program at the University of Memphis (UofM). Prior to her appointment at UofM, she served as an Associate Professor and chair of Research and Doctoral programs for a private institution in Central Virginia. Dr. Rockinson-Szapkiw research has focused on persistence and identity development of distance doctoral students and the advancement of women in higher education. J. Blake Scott (PhD, Penn State University) is a Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, former Faculty Excellence Fellow, and former Provost Fellow at the University of Central Florida. As Provost Fellow, he contributed to an academic leadership series. As Faculty Excellence Fellow, he co-lead the Associate Professor Mentoring Committees and Summer Conference track, Mid-Career Advisory Subcommittee, Leadership Series workshops, and other programming. Michael Terwillegar is currently a doctoral student in the Ball State University Educational Psychology doctoral program working under the advisement of Jocelyn Bolin. Jenna Thomas is currently a doctoral student in the Ball State University Educational Psychology doctoral program working under the advisement of Jocelyn Bolin. Claudia Vela (EdD, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) is an Instructional Designer for the Center of Online Learning and Teaching Technologies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her research interests include professional development, teacher effectiveness, administration in higher education, and second language teaching. Anita G. Welch (PhD, University of Kansas) is Dean of the College of Education at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Her research includes mid-career faculty, teaching dispositions, cross-cultural studies of STEM education, and the development of instruments used in distance education. Dr. Welch has over twenty-five years of experience teaching in higher education, including courses in statistics for educational research, research methodology for education, and instructional strategies with emphasis on the use of educational technology in the classroom.

Introduction Anita G. Welch, Jocelyn Bolin and Daniel Reardon

At a time when higher education institutions in the United States are the subject of increased media scrutiny and nearly continuous loss of funding by resourcestrapped state legislatures, a greater understanding of higher education’s bulwark resource—mid-career research and teaching faculty—is more important than ever. Faculty at mid-career comprise the largest segment of academia. For some, this is a time of significant productivity and creativity, yet for others, it is a time of disillusionment and stagnation. Revealing impediments and pathways to faculty job satisfaction and productivity will strengthen higher education institutions by protecting, fostering, and maintaining this vital workforce. In this collection we will explore the lives of mid-career faculty as our authors uncover the complexities in this stage of professional life and discuss support systems for the transition into this period of faculties’ academic careers. Part 1 of this book deals with some of the many barriers and challenges faced by faculty at the mid-point of their careers. These barriers, whether real or perceived, often result in mid-career faculty feeling either frustrated, angry, anxious, or stagnant (Baker-Fletcher, Carr, Menn, & Ramsay, 2005; Hart, 2016; Strage & Merdinger, 2016; Terosky, O’Meara, & Campbell, 2014). The feelings of uncertainly and isolation result from an absence of attention, often due to lack of institutional and department support for mid-career faculty and the increased support and attention given to early career faculty (Baldwin, DeZure, Shaw, & Moretto, 2008; Buch, Huet, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011; Strage & Merdinger, 2014). Mid-career faculty may feel as though they are isolated or marginalized because of attention, resources, and professional development opportunities afforded junior faculty but unavailable for them (Lumpkin, 2009). Chapter 1, “Mid-Career Faculty: The Current State of the Field,” provides an overview of lives of mid-career faculty working at institutions of higher education in the United Stated, based on data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. In broad strokes, authors Michael Terwillegar, Jenna Thomas and Jocelyn Bolin reveal that while faculties’ lives are becoming increasingly complex and diverse, academic employment policies have not always kept pace with the variety of professional and personal challenges that faculty often encounter in mid-career. Primary among these challenges were lack of time for research, difficulties with work-life balance, and a sense of feeling “adrift,” without guidance or mentorship during the post-tenure years. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_001

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In Chapter 2, “Sustaining Faculty Vitality at Mid-Career,” Anne M. DeFelippo and Jay R. Dee remind us that while mid-career faculty tend to achieve high levels of productivity and accomplishment, they may also struggle to maintain their vitality. They argue that while mid-career can be a transition stage in life, where faculty members reassess their goals and priorities, this is time of self-reflection may reveal some dissonance between current work demands and desired work activities. As workload demands increase, mid-career faculty may experience high levels of burnout and frustration that erode any remaining semblance of vitality. In Chapter 3, “The Academic Mother at Mid-Career,” Amanda J. RockinsonSzapkiw focuses on the personal and institutional “barriers, challenges and triumphs” of mid-career Academic Mother and strategies to integrate life, children, and academia. She describes ways that women who are both mothers and academics experience a unique set of externally and internally experienced challenges. In Chapter 4, “Career Advancement Experiences of Mid-Career Women Faculty Across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas,” Carrie Graham and Jennifer McGarry survey the landscape of mid-career African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American women as they struggle through the tenure and promotion process. Graham and McGarry review studies on diverse women faculty’s career experiences; their study represents a call to action for education administrators to reinvent leadership development programs that include diverse women faculty through mid- and later career stages. Part 2 of this book considers various strategies to support mid-career faculty, including mentoring, professional development, and writing groups. Research demonstrates that institutions often do not provide adequate resources in the form of support programs or incentives for mid-career faculty (Nottis, 2005; Strage & Merdinger, 2014), yet resources are essential to facilitate mid-career academic’s growth. At a time when higher education institutions in the United States are the subject of increased media scrutiny and nearly continuous loss of funding by resource-strapped state legislatures, a greater understanding of mid-career faculty, and how best to support them is more important than ever. In Chapter 5, “Making Time: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty through Mentoring,” Michael Bernard-Donals maps the relationship between the creation of mentoring spaces – the forging of a relation between faculty at mid-career and more senior faculty in which work-life integration is at its center – and the way that relation seeks to create time. Bernard-Donals defines time as duree, the longitudinal temporality required for research and planning, and as those moments of opportunity (kairos) that are sometimes lost among the chaotic swirl of the academic workday. Through the relationships established

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in scaffolded meetings between mentor-mentee pairs may establish trust and engagement early in a mentorship relation. In Chapter 6, “A Comprehensive Approach to Supporting and Promoting Mid-Career Faculty,” Kimberly Buch, Andrea Dulin, and Yvette Huet highlight the development, evaluation, and evolution of a faculty professional development program originating from a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. In the chapter Buch et al. describe the major elements of the program and provide insight from the program goal for engaging mid-career faculty in intentional, ongoing career development. In Chapter 7, “Faculty Writing Groups: A Tool for Providing Support, Community, and Accountability at Midcareer,” Laura Plummer, Eliza Pavalko, Joyce Alexander, and Jane McLeod detail the establishment of a campus-wide scholarly writing program with the goal of addressing the gendered and midcareer challenges faced by many women on research campuses. They argue for a multi-generational, interdisciplinary approach to writing groups to in supporting midcareer writers. In Chapter 8, “Career Development Strategies for Mid-Career Faculty,” Pradeep Bhardwaj, Debbie L. Hahs-Vaughn, Florencio Eloy Hernandez, and J. Blake Scott provide a personal case narrative detailing one faculty member’s journey from assistant professor to associate professor and finally to the rank of full professor. Along with details of the many challenges and roadblocks this faculty member encountered along the way, the authors also provide specific recommendations for institutions seeking to provide or enhance mid-career faculty support programs. In Chapter 9, “Keeping the Momentum: Mid-Career Faculty Mentorship,” Mandy Rispoli provides a review of scholarship on mid-career mentorship in higher education, including mentorship programs in the US and abroad. Rispoli then formulates a mid-career mentorship model grounded in institutional and administrative support, professional development, and recognition and reinforcement. In Chapter 10, “Using Organizational, Functional, and Personal Development to Help Mid-Career Faculty Members,” Javier Cavazoes Vela, Maria L. Morales, Claudia Vela and Jeremiah Fisk focus on the current state of mid-career faculty, including their roles, responsibilities, expectations, and challenges. In addition, the authors provide an overview of experiences of mid-career faculty who struggle or persist in the face of adversity. The authors also provide institutional recommendations for creating a culture that values teaching and professional development. Daniel Reardon concludes our discussion of mid-career faculty and reflects on ways our authors describe how institutions may re-invest in the energy,

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satisfaction, and loyalty of the individuals who both chart and navigate the future of higher education. One idea consistently reinforces itself throughout this collection: developing faculty careers after the initial promotion stage need not be costly or overly complex. Indeed—our authors reinforce that while mid-career faculty productivity does require the investment of resources, those resources are often not financial. Instead, what mid-career faculty most need, as evidenced in our collection’s chapters, is space and time—the space to grow and develop in teaching, research, and service, and the time provided by mentors who are best positioned to assist faculty in maintaining work-life balance. The emerging themes of this collection are hopeful and productive, as our authors provide ways for higher education institutions to obtain maximum return on their faculty investments, and in doing so create an environment of dedicated and loyal educators.

References Baker-Fletcher, K., Carr, D., Menn, E., & Ramsay, N. (2005). Taking stock at mid-career: Challenges and opportunities for faculty. Teaching Theology and Religion, 8(1), 3–10. Baldwin, R., DeZure, D., Shaw, A., & Moretto, K. (2008). Mapping the terrain of midcareer faculty at a research university: Implications for faculty and academic leaders. Change, 40(5), 46–55. Buch, K., Huet, Y., Rorrer, A., & Roberson, L. (2011). Removing the barriers to full professor. Change, 46(6), 38–45. Hart, J. (2016). Dissecting a gendered organization: Implications for career trajectories for mid-career faculty women in STEM. The Journal of Higher Education, 87(5), 605–634. Lumpkin, A. (2009). Follow the yellow brick road to a successful professional career in higher education. The Educational Forum, 73, 200–214. Nottis, K. E. (2005). Supporting the mid-career researcher. Journal of Faculty Development, 20(2), 95–98. Strage, A., & Merdinger, J. (2014). Professional growth and renewal for mid-career faculty. The Journal of Faculty Development, 28(3), 77–86. Terosky, A., O’Meara, K., & Campbell, C. (2014). Enabling possibility: Women associate professors’ sense of agency in career advancement. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 7(1), 58–76.

PART 1 Barriers and Challenges in the Lives of Mid-Career Faculty

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CHAPTER 1

Mid-Career Faculty: The Current State of the Field Michael Terwillegar, Jenna Thomas and Jocelyn Bolin

Abstract Mid-career faculty comprise the largest segment of the academy yet there is scant empirical evidence for the policies and practices related to mid-career faculty. The aim of this chapter is to provide an introduction to the lives of mid-career faculty working at institutions of higher education in the United States. The National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, conducted in 2004, served as the source of the demographic information and included a sample of 1,080 public and private not-for-profit degree granting postsecondary institutions, as well as a sample of 35,000 faculty and instructional staff (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2004). An analysis of recent articles related to mid-career faculty provided a theoretical foundation from which to begin our exploration into the topic.

Keywords faculty – mid-career – mentoring

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Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the characteristics of mid-career faculty, the largest segment of the academic profession. Scant empirical evidence has been gathered for the policies and practices related to post-tenure mid-career faculty this lack of data underscores that the largest and most important population of academia has been largely ignored by both researchers and policymakers. Using data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), this chapter provides a demographic overview of post-tenure mid-career faculty and highlights some of the many challenges mid-career faculty encounter in their careers. Used for this analysis is data from the Institutional Survey and Faculty Survey of the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF) for 2004, the most comprehensive study of faculty in © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_002

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postsecondary educational instructions ever undertaken in the United States. Data was limited to associate professors who worked for universities with tenure track systems. These criteria produced a sample size of 2,941 faculty from 583 institutions.

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Demographic Background: NSOPF Findings

Tenured associate professors teaching at the doctoral level or those conducting research at universities appear to be quite similar. Men hold approximately 62.9% of the positions whereas women hold only 37.1%. Regarding marital status, 75.2% of tenured associate professors are married. Unmarried faculty comprise much smaller groups, 10.7% reporting as divorced, separated, or widowed 10.7%, 9.6% single and never married, and 4.5% living with their partner or significant other. Regarding race, 83.2% are White non-Hispanic, 6.8% Asian or Pacific Islander, 3.9% Hispanic White or Hispanic Black, 3.6% Black, 0.7% are American Indian, and 1.8% are Multiracial. Tenured associate professors seem to be more variable in terms of their age, ranging from as young as 32 years old to 81 years old. Mean age reported was 50 years old with the majority of faculty between 42 and 58.

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Job Satisfaction

Faculty were asked about both their satisfaction with their job overall as well as their satisfaction with more specific components of their job, on a 4-point Likert scale from “very dissatisfied” to “very satisfied.” Overall, 80.7% of faculty reported being satisfied with their job. More specifically, 31.6% reported being very satisfied and about half, 49.1%, reported to be somewhat satisfied. Many fewer were dissatisfied with their job overall, with 15.6% reporting to be somewhat dissatisfied while only about 3.7% reported to be very dissatisfied. Faculty were also asked about their satisfaction with seven unique job components. Satisfaction in their authority to make decisions was the component with the highest satisfaction, with 92.6% of faculty reporting to be satisfied, with 78% reporting to be very satisfied, 14.6% reporting to be somewhat satisfied, 2.6% reported to be somewhat dissatisfied, and 1.3% reporting to be very dissatisfied. Regarding satisfaction in technology-based activities, 78.8% of faculty reporting to be satisfied. Though similar in levels of satisfaction to authority

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to make decisions, extreme satisfaction was less reported with about 35.3% reporting to be very satisfied and about 43.5% reporting to be somewhat satisfied. A smaller portion voiced dissatisfaction in technology-based activities, with about 14.4% reporting to be somewhat dissatisfied and 3.2% reported to be very dissatisfied. Also examined was faculty’s satisfaction in equipment and facilities, with approximately 72.3% reporting to be satisfied, with 28.5% reporting to be very satisfied and 43.8% reporting to be somewhat satisfied. Alternatively, 18.7% reported to be somewhat dissatisfied and 5.5% reported being very dissatisfied. Faculty were asked about their satisfaction of received benefits, with 72.1% reporting to be satisfied, 27.3% reported to be very satisfied, and 44.8% reported to be somewhat satisfied. Some reported being dissatisfied with their received benefits, 20.5% reporting to be somewhat dissatisfied and 7.4% were very dissatisfied. Faculty’s satisfaction in their workload was also examined, 68.2% reporting to be satisfied, 24.5% reporting to be very satisfied, and 43.7% reporting to be somewhat satisfied. On the other hand, 23% reported to be somewhat dissatisfied, 8.8% reported to be very dissatisfied. Regarding faculty’s satisfaction in their institution’s support for teaching improvement, 62.5% reported to be satisfied, 20.8% reporting to be very satisfied, and 41.7% reporting to be somewhat satisfied. Others were not satisfied with their institution’s support for teaching improvement, with 22.6% reporting to be somewhat dissatisfied and 11.4% reporting to be very dissatisfied. For these six components of faculty satisfaction, a majority of respondents reported to be satisfied. However, faculty’s satisfaction in their salary held the lowest satisfaction rate, with 47.6% reporting to be satisfied. Salary satisfaction also had the lowest rate of very satisfied faculty, with 11.8% reporting to be very satisfied, whereas 35.8% reporting to be somewhat satisfied. A slight majority of faculty, 52.4%, reported to be dissatisfied with their salary, with just 29.9% reporting to be somewhat dissatisfied and 22.5% reporting to be very dissatisfied.

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General Opinions

Faculty responded to several opinion questions as well. When asked if they thought that teaching is rewarding, 49.6% of those surveyed responded that they somewhat agreed while only a portion of them 15.7% strongly agreed, indicating that although many faculty find teaching rewarding, it may not be the most rewarding aspect of their job. In contrast, 34.8% disagreed that

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teaching is rewarding, with 22.6% somewhat disagreeing, and 12.2% strongly disagreeing. A large majority, 88.6%, also responded that they would choose their academic career again over other fields, 11.4% said that they would not. Regarding questions about the treatment of part-time faculty, opinions were split, with 51% agreeing that part-time faculty were treated fairly and the 49% disagreeing. When asked about women and racial minority faculty, however, there was no such even split. 79.8% agreed that women faculty were treated fairly, with 38.6% strongly agreeing. Only 20.1% disagreed that women faculty were treated fairly, with 4.5% strongly disagreeing. An even larger majority, 84.9%, agreed that racial minority faculty were treated fairly, with 41.7% strongly agreeing, while 15% disagreed that racial minority faculty were treated fairly, with 3.4% strongly disagreeing.

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Time

Faculty reported spending 50% of their time teaching graduate and/or undergraduate classes, or about two classes on average, and about a third of their time, 29.11%, on research activities. Faculty also reported spending an average of 8.7 hours per week on committee and/or administrative duties, as well as meeting with advisees. Faculty reported spending time on unspecified work about 20% of the time. Since faculty responsibilities vary depending on job status or years of service, many faculty reported no activity for some categories, while others reported spending up to twice the average amount of time. Additionally, some faculty spent 100% of their time completely within one of the activities listed. Research faculty regularly produce scholarly articles, presentations, reports, reviews, textbooks, and chapters. Faculty reported producing an average of 3.21 refereed articles, 1.51 non-refereed articles, 1.23, chapters, book reviews, or creative works, 0.60 books, textbooks, or reports, and 5.44 presentations. Over the course of their career, faculty reported producing 20.42 refereed articles, 10.50 non-refereed articles, 5.84 chapters, book reviews, or creative works, 3.06 books, textbooks, or reports, and 42.21 presentations. High standard deviations among these percentages indicate that many faculty do not produce any of the works listed, while others produce far more.

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Institution Characteristics

Beyond the faculty’s thoughts and opinions, institutional information was also gathered about paid leave and the size of universities. Almost all institutions

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provided paid sabbatical leave, with 65.5% providing some paid leave and 30.1% provided complete sabbatical leave. Only 4.2% provided no sabbatical leave. Regarding family-related paid leave, 24.5% provided some paid maternity leave and 47.5% provided complete paid maternity leave, 28% institutions provided no paid maternity leave. Many fewer institutions provided paid paternity leave, with the 42.7% providing none, 22.7% provided some paid paternity leave, and 34.6% provided complete paternity leave. Institutionally-provided childcare was more scarce, with 58.5% providing no form of childcare, 12.3% provided partial childcare, and 29.2% provided all childcare for faculty. Size of institutions varied dramatically. Institutions averaged 23,430 students, with most between 12,000 and 35,000 students. The average number of undergraduate students far exceeded the average number of graduate students: 17,141 compared to 5,319. The number of faculty also varied greatly, ranging from 143 faculty up to 7,322 faculty with an average of 2,059. In sum, several trends seem to emerge. The majority of mid-career faculty tend to be married, male and white. Most faculty work for universities without childcare. The majority of faculty report that most of their time is spent on teaching, which they do find teaching rewarding. Faculty in gernal are also satisfied with their teaching and its intrinsic reward. In general, this married, white male faculty majority are generally satisfied with their jobs. A smaller proportion of mid-career faculty are female, are of minority status, and report large amounts of time spent on other aspects of their job in addition to teaching. And several faculty do report being unsatisfied with various aspects of their job. At this point the conversation turns to an explanation of the mechanisms that may in part explain the variation in responses.

7

Burnout

In 1981, Maslach and Jackson published a measure called the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which was designed to assess burnout among human service professionals. Now widely accepted within the psychological field, the scale used factor analysis to yield a multidimensional view of the construct. Specifically, three sub-components of burnout appeared in the analysis: Emotional Exhaustion, and Depersonalization, and Reduced Personal Accomplishment. Emotional Exhaustion can be described as “feelings of being emotionally overextended and depleted of one’s emotional resources” (Maslach, 1993, p. 2). Depersonalization refers to “a negative, callous, or excessively detached response to other people, who are usually the recipients of one’s service or care” (Maslach, 1993, p. 2). Finally, Reduced Personal Accomplishment was

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defined as “a decline in one’s feelings of competence and successful achievement in one’s work” (Maslach, 1993, p. 2). Studies have demonstrated that faculty are highly susceptible to burnout, with estimates indicating between 20% to 27% of faculty members experience burnout at some point in their career (Lackritz, 2004; Padilla & Thompson, 2016). However, relatively few studies have specifically looked at burnout among faculty, revealing a paucity of research in this area over the last 10 years. Lack of optimism significantly contributed to faculty burnout (Otero-López, Mariño, & Bolaño, 2008). While a positive outlook provides some protection against burnout (Otero-López, Mariño, & Bolaño, 2008). A positive outlook may be a result of indirect effects, as optimism that can change a faculty member’s perspective on available resources; the lack of these resources may ultimately contribute to burnout (Barkhuizen, Rothmann, & van de Vijver, 2013). Studies observing the effects of social support as a buffer against burnout have yielded mixed results. Some research has provided evidence that social support provides a cushion against burnout, especially within the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization domains (Otero-López, Mariño, & Bolaño, 2008). However, Padilla and Thompson (2016) found only small effect sizes for social support acting as a cushion against burnout among faculty members. Instead, peer support for various projects, such as applying for grants, may help to relieve some of the tendency toward burnout among many faculty members (Padilla & Thompson, 2016). When discussing gender differences in burnout, various studies have noted that women score higher on the Emotional Exhaustion component, whereas men showed higher levels on the Depersonalization scale (Lackritz, 2004; Ghorpade, Lackritz, & Singh, 2007). No differences between gender were found with regard to the Personal Accomplishment scale (Lackritz, 2004). Personality factors also contribute to a faculty member’s burnout. According to Otero-López, Mariño, & Bolaño (2008), burnout often results from a Type A personality. In observing the correlations between the Big Five and burnout among academia, Ghorpade, Lackritz, and Singh (2007) noted that personality factors accounted for between 13% and 28% of the variance among all three subscales of burnout. The trait of extroversion was also a major contributing factor across all dimensions of burnout (Ghorpade, Lackritz, & Singh, 2007). Factors related to job demands also affect faculty’s levels of burnout. The overall number of hours spent working contributes both to Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization (Otero-López, Mariño, & Bolaño, 2008). Other factors related to time spent on the job, such as office hours, teaching load, and grading time also correlate positively with the Emotional Exhaustion scale (Lackritz, 2004). Major daily hassles were also an important predictor, as this

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factor correlates positively with Emotional Exhaustion and negatively with Personal Accomplishment (Otero-López, Mariño, & Bolaño, 2008). Finally, the amount of time a faculty member has worked in academia is an important demographic factor leading to burnout. Early career faculty tend to have loftier goals but experience more pressure to publish, Therefore, early career faculty tend to experience higher levels of burnout, especially on the Emotional Exhaustion and Personal Accomplishment scales (Lackritz, 2004). Additional stresses outside of work, such as major life events, may also be more prominent among younger faculty (Lackritz, 2004). The number of students a faculty member teaches is another predictive factor of burnout (Lackritz, 2004). Since early career faculty are also more likely to spend a significant portion of their time with students, these faculty may experience greater amounts of burnout, especially due to emotional exhaustion (Watts & Robertson, 2011).

8

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is the affective state of enjoying one’s career due to one’s perception of the career as fulfilling job values (Locke, 1969). Based on this definition, workers meaure their job satisfaction based on two constructs: one’s career-related desires and one’s belief that these desires are granted in one’s current position (Locke, 1969). Thus, job satisfaction includes one’s perception of the specific offerings of a job, one’s ideals about what a job should offer, and one’s analysis of the job success in fulfilling those ideals (Locke, 1969). Another theory of job satisfaction includes motivators and hygienes (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959). While motivators result in increased job satisfaction, hygienes serve to decrease satisfaction (Herzberg et al., 1959). Although these delineators may appear to be binary and opposing constructs, the theory distinguishes between the causes of both motivators and hygienes. The most notable factors influencing both satisfaction and dissatisfaction are to be the work itself, achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and salary (Herzberg et al., 1959). Scholars have also analyzed other factors that may affect university professionals’ career satisfaction. For instance, in 1990 Smart developed a causal model of faculty turnover intentions which described job satisfaction as dependent on three variables: organizational satisfaction, salary satisfaction, and career satisfaction. These three factors were based on previous research that described these variables as significant predictors for job satisfaction across all fields (Cotton & Tuttle, 1986).

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In creating his Conceptual Framework of Faculty Job Satisfaction, Hagedorn (2000) refined Herzberg’s definitions of motivators and hygienes. Hagedorn described faculty as existing in one of three phases along a continuum: disengagement, acceptance/tolerance, and active engagement. Other factors that mediate a faculty member’s stage within this continuum include demographic variables and environment conditions (Hagedorn, 2000). Demographic factors Hagedorn (2000) considered influential include gender, ethnicity, institutional type, and academic discipline. Hagedorn (2000) also analyzed environmental conditions affecting faculty satisfaction, consisting of peer relationships, student relationships, administration, and institutional climate. Hagedorn also defined “triggers” as another type of satisfaction influence. Triggers include major life changes, such as life stage changes, personal or family-related changes, rank or tenure changes, mood or emotional changes, changes in perceived justice, and transfer to a new institution. According to Hagedorn, all of these factors combine to impact faculty’s satisfaction with their careers. Rosser (2005) proposed a two-factor model of faculty perceptions, including both work-life balance and job satisfaction. According to the job satisfaction section of Rosser’s model, the variable is dependent upon four primary rating scales: advising and coursework, quality of students, benefits of security, and self-rated overall satisfaction. Advising and coursework refers faculty participation in advising and faculty course load (Rosser, 2004). Quality of students refers to the interactions between students and faculty, which prior research has demonstrated to be important for satisfaction (Rosser, 2005; Hagedorn, 2000). Satisfaction with benefits and security denote the extent to which faculty are content with the salary and benefits they receive from their institution (Rosser, 2004). Research has pointed to discontent with salary as one of the primary reasons that faculty leave their institutions (Rosser, 2005; Hagedorn, 2000). Finally, the scale included a means for faculty to report their own feelings of satisfaction with their careers.

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Work-Life Balance

For many faculty, typical work hours often exceed fifty hours a week, thereby rendering work-life balance especially difficult (Jacobs & Winslow, 2004). Often, faculty responsibilities require them to work beyond regular working hours, including the evenings, weekends, and during holidays (Misra, Lundquist, & Templer, 2012). Faculty also must balance multiple roles, including teaching, researching, mentoring and service (Misra et al., 2012). Pressures placed on faculty to meet work demands therefore threaten to overwhelm their personal and family commitments (Heijstra & Rafnsdottir, 2013).

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Research on work-life balance among academics has often focused on issues related to gender and care-giving (Misra et al., 2012; Heijstra & Rafnsdottir, 2013). As noted by Misra and colleagues (2012), all faculty must develop a balance between work and personal life. However, women often tend to have greater familial expectations, which can lead to greater conflict between work and family life (Misra et al., 2012). The stress of work-life balance is exacerbated by the tendency of married faculty to be dual-career couples, with most married male faculty and nearly all married female faculty living in two-income households (Jacobs & Winslow, 2004). Mid-career faculty often experience challenges regarding childcare, eldercare, and housework, but male faculty members often struggle with the greatest amount of conflict between their competing roles (Misra et al., 2012). Since universities often idealize employees who dedicate long hours to work, women’s competing roles can impede them from fitting the ideal faculty member profile (Misra et al., 2012). Consequently, women are less likely than men to gain tenure or promotion, and remain underrepresented in higher-level faculty positions (Misra et al., 2012).

References Barkhuizen, N., Rothmann, S., & Vijver, F. J. R. (2014). Burnout and work engagement of academics in higher education institutions: Effects of dispositional optimism. Stress & Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 30(4), 322–332. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2520 Cotton, T. L., & Tuttle, J. M. (1986). Employee turnover: A meta-analysis and review with implications for research. Academy of Management Review, 11(1), 55–70. Ghorpade, J., Lackritz, J., & Singh, G. (2007). Burnout and Personality: Evidence from academia. Journal of Career Assessment, 15(2), 240–256. Hagedorn, L. S. (2000). Conceptualizing faculty job satisfaction: Components, theories, and outcomes. New Directions for Institutional Research, 105, 5–20. Heijstra, T. M., & Rafnsdottir, G. L. (2010). The Internet and academics’ workload and work–family balance. Internet & Higher Education, 13(3), 158–163. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.iheduc.2010.03.004 Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. (1959). The motivation to work (2nd ed.). Oxford: John Wiley. Jacobs, J., & Winslow, S. (2004). The academic life course, time pressures and gender inequality. Community. Work and Family, 7(2), 143–161. Lackritz, J. R. (2004). Exploring burnout among university faculty: Incidence, performance, and demographic issues. Teaching & Teacher Education, 20(7), 713–729. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2004.07.002

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Locke, E. A. (1969). What is Job Satisfaction? Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 4(4), 309–336. Maslach, C. (1993). Burnout: A multidimensional perspective. In W. B. Schaufeli, C. Maslach, & T. Marek (Eds.), Professional burnout: Recent developments in theory and research (pp. 19–32). Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis. Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1981). The measurement of experienced burnout. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2(2), 99–113. Misra, J., Lundquist, J. H., & Templer, A. (2012). Gender, work time, and care responsibilities among faculty. Sociological Forum, 27(2), 300–323. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2012.01319.x National Center for Educational Statistics. (2004). National study of postsecondary faculty [Data file and code book]. Otero-López, J. M., Mariño, M. J. S., & Bolaño, C. C. (2008). An integrating approach to the study of burnout in university professors. Psicothema, 20(4), 766–772. Padilla, M. A., & Thompson, J. N. (2016). Burning out faculty at doctoral research universities. Stress & Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 32(5), 551–558. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2661 Rosser, V. J. (2004). A national study on their worklife and satisfaction. Research in Higher Education, 45(3), 285–309. Rosser, V. J. (2005). Measuring the change in faculty perceptions over time: An examination of their worklife and satisfaction. Research in Higher Education, 46(1), 81–107. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-004-6290-y Smart, J. T. (1990). A causal model of faculty turnover intentions. Research in Higher Education, 31(5), 405–424. Watts, J., & Robertson, N. (2011). Burnout in university teaching staff: A systematic literature review. Educational Research, 53(1), 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00131881.2011.552235

chapter 2

Sustaining Faculty Vitality at Mid-Career: Individual and Institutional Strategies Anne M. DeFelippo and Jay R. Dee

Abstract While mid-career faculty tend to achieve high levels of productivity and accomplishment, they may also struggle to maintain their vitality. As an affective state that drives effort and engagement, vitality may be essential for both individual and institutional effectiveness. This chapter provides vignettes to illustrate how mid-career faculty can revitalize their work through interdisciplinary collaboration, community engagement, and integrated scholarship. Based on case study research, the chapter also shows how institutional leaders can enhance vitality by providing resources for faculty learning communities, offering funds for innovative faculty-led projects, and creating venues for communication among faculty and between faculty and administrators.

Key words faculty vitality – faculty development – interdisciplinary collaboration – community engagement – faculty learning communities

1

Introduction

Given the myriad challenges that confront the academic profession, resurgent interest in the concept of faculty vitality is not surprising. Vitality refers to an affective state that drives effort and engagement (Baldwin, 1990; DeFelippo & Dee, 2016; Gardner, 1978). Pressures for accountability, increasing workload demands, and expectations to keep pace with rapidly-expanding knowledge bases could cause even the most productive faculty to lose their vitality. The academic work environment, in fact, may be more demoralizing than vitalizing. Diminished resources, fractured relationships between faculty and administrators, and interpersonal tensions within academic departments can © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_003

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hinder the psychological well-being of faculty (Bess & Dee, 2014; Finkelstein, Conley, & Schuster, 2016). Scholars have responded to these challenging conditions by arguing that colleges and universities need to become vitality-enhancing organizations (Bland, Seaquist, Pacah, Center, & Finstad, 2002; DeFelippo & Dee, 2016). These authors suggest that rather than simply focusing on efficiency, outcomes, and performance, college and university administrators can help faculty reengage with the emotional and affective dimensions of their work. The emerging literature on faculty vitality suggests that a focus on psychological well-being and emotions can contribute to more creative, innovative, and productive teaching and research (Cavanagh, 2016; Weimer, 2010). The current interest in vitality recalls an earlier era when faculty vitality was first conceptualized, and when faculty were also encountering dramatic changes in their work context (Baldwin & Blackburn, 1981). The late 1970s and early 1980s were characterized by an economic reckoning for higher education, where budget cuts, retrenchment, and government regulation became commonplace. Scholars during this period began to question whether the academic profession could continue to attract the best and brightest (Schuster & Bowen, 1985). In this context, researchers began to explore the concept of vitality as a means for faculty to maintain their morale and motivation in spite of challenging conditions (Baldwin, 1985; Bland & Schmitz, 1988; Rice, 1985). Some of the scholars who first conceptualized faculty vitality suggested that the concept was particularly relevant to the mid-career phase of academic life (Baldwin & Blackburn, 1981). While mid-career faculty tend to achieve high levels of productivity and accomplishment, they may also struggle to maintain their vitality. Baldwin (1990), for example, notes that mid-career faculty are susceptible to a “plateauing trap” (p. 176), where they rely upon previously accumulated expertise and fail to explore new ideas and approaches. When mid-career faculty fall victim to this “trap,” their teaching becomes repetitive, research agendas become stuck, and they struggle to determine the focus for the next stage of their career (Bess, 1997; Neumann, 2009). Challenges to vitality may also emerge from within the higher education workplace. Mid-career faculty are often expected to assume additional institutional service responsibilities, such as chairing academic departments and leading major campus committees (Misra, Lundquist, Holmes, & Agiomavritis, 2011). As workload demands increase, mid-career faculty may experience high levels of burnout and frustration which erode any remaining semblance of vitality. Loss of vitality is a problem not only for the mid-career faculty who experience it, but also for the institutions in which they work (Huston, Norman, & Ambrose, 2007). Simply put, vital faculty are necessary for a vital institution.

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According to Baldwin (1990), vital faculty members continually pursue and acquire new skills and knowledge that contribute to the overall effectiveness of the institution. Furthermore, colleges and universities depend on mid-career faculty to drive change and lead new academic initiatives (Baldwin & Chang, 2006). If large numbers of mid-career faculty experience a loss of vitality, then institutions will struggle in efforts to promote innovation or improve organizational performance. Despite numerous obstacles and challenges, many mid-career faculty have found ways to revitalize their work, and institutional leaders have implemented policies and practices that can enhance faculty vitality. These stories of individual and institutional revitalization are the focus of this chapter. First, the chapter reviews the literature on faculty vitality. While scholars have written about faculty vitality for more than four decades (Bland & Bergquist, 1997; Kirschling, 1978; Rice, 1985), the field lacks a consistent understanding of the term. This chapter uses social psychological literature to define faculty vitality and relate the concept to important antecedents and outcomes. Second, this chapter draws from our study of mid-career faculty to show how faculty have engaged in activities that promote and sustain their vitality. Specifically, the chapter provides vignettes to illustrate how mid-career faculty have revitalized their work through interdisciplinary collaboration, community engagement, and integrated scholarship. Finally, the chapter draws again from our study of mid-career faculty to offer case examples of institutional practices that enhance mid-career faculty vitality. The institutions in our study were supporting mid-career vitality by providing resources for faculty learning communities, offering small grants for innovative projects, and creating venues for frequent and meaningful communication among faculty and between faculty and academic administrators.

2

Defining Vitality

2.1 Review of Previous Definitions The literature provides many definitions but little clarity for understanding faculty vitality. Typically, scholars have developed their own definitions of vitality, rather than build upon and improve previous definitions. As a result, the field of higher education lacks a consensus definition of faculty vitality. Without a consensus definition, higher education professionals may struggle to apply the concept to practice. They might not be able to design programs and policies that effectively target and strengthen specific components of vitality.

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Some definitions of faculty vitality are imprecise, because they do not identify the specific components that comprise vitality. Clark, Boyer, and Corcoran (1985), for example, define faculty vitality as “those essential yet intangible, positive qualities of individuals that enable purposeful production” (p. 3). The specific “qualities” that enable such production, however, are not included in the definition. Similarly, Baldwin (1985) notes that “vitality is an inner quality of individuals who go beyond the parameters of their job descriptions only because they want to” (p. 23). Additional conceptual work is needed, however, to identify exactly which inner qualities propel individuals to work beyond the stated expectations of their jobs. Other definitions have conflated vitality with the behaviors and outcomes that vitality produces. For example, vitality is sometimes defined in terms of productivity. Clark, Corcoran, and Lewis (1986) equated vitality with faculty who perform “at highly productive levels” (p. 182), and Baldwin (1990) referred to vital faculty as “star performers” (p. 163). But some highly-productive faculty might not feel vital, and some vital faculty might not be highly productive. Some productive faculty might feel burned out, while some vital faculty might be entering a period of exploration that has not yet produced many tangible results. Thus, while vitality and productivity are highly correlated, they are not synonymous (Huston, Norman, & Ambrose, 2007). Therefore, definitions of vitality should avoid conflating the concept with its outcomes. In other publications, vitality is defined in terms of the behaviors that vital faculty exhibit. Peterson (2003), for example, defines faculty vitality in terms of professors who are “inquisitive and engaged academically” (p. 53). Nicholson’s (1988) definition also emphasizes the behaviors and outcomes of vital faculty. In this definition, vitality is an ability of faculty to align their goals with those of their institution, maintain a high level of professional effectiveness, and engage in challenging activities. Such definitions focus on what vital faculty do, rather than on what faculty vitality is. While no single definition in the literature appeared to capture all of the components of this multifaceted concept, previous authors have referred to a variety of social psychological concepts in their discussions of vitality. We used those concepts to develop a composite definition that identifies specific components of vitality. This definition also clearly differentiates the concept of vitality from the behaviors and outcomes that vitality produces. 2.2 Components of Vitality This chapter defines vitality as an affective state that is characterized by high levels of motivation, energy, curiosity, creativity, optimism, and grit. This affective state propels individuals to seek challenges, take risks, collaborate with others, and pursue opportunities for self-improvement. Thus, while vitality is an

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table 2.1  Faculty vitality contrasted with faculty burnout

Faculty vitality

Faculty burnout

Motivated Energetic Curious Creative Optimistic, future-oriented Passionate (grit) Persevering (grit)

Unmotivated Physical and emotional exhaustion Apathetic Lacking imagination Pessimistic, stuck in the past Dispassionate Giving up, defeated

Related behaviors Challenge seeking Risk taking Collaborative Engaging in self-improvement

Related behaviors Maintaining routines Cautious, risk averse Isolated, withdrawn Repetitive, stagnant

affective state, it can be observed in the behavior of individuals (Duckworth, Petersen, Matthew, & Kelly, 2007; Gardner, 1978). Furthermore, vitality can be understood in contrast to the concept of burnout (Weimer, 2010). In fact, much of the early research on faculty vitality sought to establish vitality as an alternative or antidote to burnout (Jellicorse & Tilley, 1985; Kelly, 1990). Burnout refers to a psychological reaction to interpersonal and emotional stressors in the workplace, where the reaction is characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). Burnout and vitality can be viewed as opposite ends of a continuum, ranging from high levels of vitality to high levels of burnout. Table 2.1 compares these concepts. The following paragraphs provide brief explanations of the six components that comprise this study’s definition of vitality. Several scholars have discussed faculty vitality in terms of maintaining high levels of motivation (Centra, 1978; Nicolson, 1988). Motivation is defined as an inner drive that compels people to act; the strength of this drive affects how much effort and time people will devote to a task (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Motivation can be derived from intrinsic or extrinsic sources. Extrinsic motivation occurs when people perform an activity or engage in a behavior to earn a reward, such as a higher salary, or avoid punishment, such as a reprimand from a supervisor. Intrinsic motivation occurs when the behavior or activity is personally meaningful and rewarding. In organizations, intrinsic motivation is related to the enjoyment that people derive from doing work that they

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believe is meaningful. In other words, the work itself is rewarding (Hackman & Oldham, 1980). As a component of vitality, motivation operates as a positive force for setting goals, focusing attention, and sustaining effort. The literature suggests that faculty vitality is synonymous with a heightened sense of energy (Baldwin, 1990; Clark & Corcoran, 1985; Weimer, 2010). In relation to vitality, Gardner (1978) defines energy as “physical drive and durability” (p. 59). Energy is observable in body movements and can be heard in voice tone and in the pace and rhythm of speech. When considering the connection between motivation and energy, scholars suggest that people can derive energy from tasks that they view as intrinsically rewarding. While some tasks drain energy from individuals, other tasks are revitalizing and actually give the individual more energy. In some cases, people become so engrossed in the activity that they lose all track of time. Csikszentmihalyi (1997) refers to these revitalizing moments as experiences of flow, which are “characterized by a deep, spontaneous involvement with the task at hand” (p. 82). Faculty may experience a sense of flow when they are immersed in activities that they find exhilarating. In relation to vitality, energy can provide a source of stamina and sustained focus that serves as a driving force for initiating change. Several authors have noted that vital faculty possess a high level of intellectual curiosity (Baldwin, 1985; McLaughlin, 1999). Curiosity refers to a desire for new information (Kidd & Hayden, 2015), which leads to asking questions and acquiring knowledge to answer those questions. It is often viewed as a sense of wonder and a need to understand how things are made or why things exist. Curiosity brings about discoveries, new ways of thinking, and innovative approaches to practice. As a component of vitality, curiosity compels faculty to learn more and grow professionally. The literature on faculty vitality occasionally refers to the concept of creativity (Patton & Palmer, 1985; Weimer, 2010). Creativity is a process of originating, transforming, or adapting ideas, artifacts, or practices so that they differ from what already exists in a given context (Burns, Machado, & Corte, 2015). Through creative activity, people invent something new, or they introduce something that is new to the context in which they are operating. Creative individuals possess “divergent-thinking abilities including idea production, fluency, flexibility, and originality” (Fadel, Bialik, & Trilling, 2015, p.112). In relation to vitality, creativity places the faculty member in the realm of new ideas, which can be inspiring and exhilarating. In contrast, being engaged in repetitive activities can result in boredom and frustration. Some scholars link faculty vitality to high levels of optimism (Kalivoda, 1993; Peterson, 2003). Optimism can be defined as resilience in the face of failure (Latham, 2007). Learned optimism is a self-developed attitude of hope and

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a belief in a positive outcome in the face of challenge or adversity (Seligman, 2006). Optimism relates to the belief that challenges and obstacles can be surmounted, and that, over time, solutions will be found. This positive perspective enables people to focus on the future, rather than allow prior setbacks to define subsequent courses of action. As a component of vitality, optimism provides a reservoir of resilience that sustains effort even in the face of challenging circumstances. Previous studies have not equated faculty vitality with the concept of grit, but this chapter argues that grit contributes to a more comprehensive conceptualization of vitality. Grit has been defined as passion and perseverance in the completion of long-term goals (Duckworth et al., 2007). Passion is the emotional response to something of utmost importance, of unusually high interest, and from which deep gratification is obtained. Perseverance is, in essence, not giving up. Grit is about finding a goal and persevering until it is achieved. As Duckworth (2016) notes, “to be gritty is to invest, day after week after year in challenging practice” (p. 275). In relation to vitality, grit is a mindset that compels faculty to engage in sustained goal-directed activity until they become an expert in the skill, discipline, or practice in which they have been engaged. 2.3 Antecedents and Outcomes of Vitality Research has identified several antecedent conditions that are likely to promote and enhance vitality in the workplace. The organizational antecedents of vitality may include flexible work structures, resources to support professional development, and reward systems that encourage experimentation and innovation (Blackburn & Lawrence, 1995; Chan & Burton, 1995). The interpersonal context of work is also likely to shape experiences with vitality. Important variables in the interpersonal context may include workplace climate, supportive leadership, and relationships with colleagues (Bland & Bergquist, 1997; Lindholm, 2003). Furthermore, the literature notes that vitality may also depend upon several individual-level antecedents. These factors may include the extent of an individual’s professional network, access to mentoring, and prior socialization experiences (Huston, Norman, & Ambrose, 2007). Faculty with wider professional networks, deeper mentoring relationships, and more extensive socialization experiences may report higher levels of vitality. The literature also suggests that vitality is associated with a range of positive outcomes for individuals (Baldwin, 1990; Bland & Bergquist, 1997; Chan & Burton, 1995). Specifically, vitality may contribute to greater productivity, higher levels of job satisfaction, feelings of fulfilment or well-being, and an enhanced sense of agency in the workplace. Vitality may also be associated with reductions in stress and improvements in work-life balance (Lindholm, 2003). The

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figure 2.1 Faculty vitality, antecedents, and outcomes

concept of vitality, along with its antecedents and outcomes, is displayed in Figure 2.1.

3

Vitality-Enhancing Practices of Faculty

3.1 The Study Vitality is not a fixed trait; levels of vitality can vary across the career span (Baldwin & Blackburn, 1981; Bland & Bergquist, 1997). Furthermore, individuals can take steps to enhance their own vitality. While faculty certainly encounter many administrative directives and external expectations for their performance, they are still primarily responsible for determining how they teach and for identifying what they will research (Finkelstein, Conley, & Schuster, 2016). This measure of professional autonomy provides faculty with opportunities to structure their work in ways that can enhance their vitality. This section of the chapter provides three vignettes that illustrate how mid-career faculty can enact practices that enhance their vitality. The vignettes are drawn from our study of mid-career faculty vitality. This study engaged in a two-step process (expert interviews and institutional website reviews) to

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Sustaining Faculty Vitality at Mid-Career table 2.2  Faculty vitality survey: Sample items

Survey item

Vitality construct

I am driven to succeed at work. I have more energy now than I had earlier in my career. I fijind some part or parts of my work exciting. I keep up with the latest innovations. I look on the bright side of things. I have achieved a goal that took a long time to complete.

Motivation Energy Curiosity Creativity Optimism Grit

identify three public comprehensive universities that have policies and practices to promote mid-career faculty development. Comprehensive universities pursue missions that tend to emphasize teaching and providing service to local regions and communities (Henderson, 2007). Comprehensive universities offer undergraduate programs in a full range of disciplines. Research and graduate education at these institutions are typically oriented toward applied fields of study. Faculty experiences with vitality are heavily shaped by institutional type, and this study does not attempt to generalize the findings to suggest that faculty at all types of institutions can achieve high levels of vitality simply by enacting the practices described in these vignettes. Rather than generalization, this study seeks to provide a contextualized understanding of mid-career faculty vitality. The vignettes provide stories of inspiration that can encourage mid-career faculty to change their work practices in ways that subsequently may enhance their vitality. An online survey was distributed to a random sample of 100 mid-career faculty at each of the three selected institutions. Mid-career was defined as being a tenured associate or full professor who did not intend to retire within the next five years. The survey included a 16-item measure of faculty vitality (see sample items in Table 2.2). Participants with high scores on the vitality measure (one standard deviation above the mean) were selected for in-person interviews. Based on interviews with 30 mid-career faculty (10 at each institution), this study sought to understand how mid-career faculty sustain their vitality, and to identify the institutional and departmental conditions that affect their ability to remain vital. Study participants included 15 women and 15 men, an equal number of associate and full professors, and faculty from 14 academic disciplines. Pseudonyms are used for all institutions and individuals.

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In their interviews, study participants identified the types of scholarly work that best sustain their vitality. The following vignettes represent the three most common types of scholarly work that contributed to vitality for the faculty in the study: – Interdisciplinary collaboration for research and/or teaching – Community engagement: conducting research, teaching, or public service with local partners and organizations – Integrated scholarship: engaging in activities that weave together research interests with teaching areas (for example, teaching a course on a topic that is a focal point of the faculty member’s research agenda) 3.2 Interdisciplinary Collaboration Interdisciplinary activities occur when teaching issues or research questions bridge distinct fields of knowledge (Lattuca, 2003). This form of bridging emerges when scholars identify issues or questions at the intersection of disciplines or in gaps between disciplines. In our study, several mid-career faculty indicated that their interdisciplinary work enhances their feelings of energy, curiosity, and creativity. Professor Opportunity, for example, described himself as “a perpetual student” whose intellectual curiosity led him toward interdisciplinary teaching and research. He accepted the job at Exemplary University five years ago and is now an associate professor of management. His scholarly expertise focuses on information systems. Professor Opportunity indicated that his interest in interdisciplinary topics emerged as soon as he was hired by Exemplary. “When I got up here [at Exemplary], I started hanging out with other people outside of my department.” His interdisciplinary collaborations are with scholars in fields that are related to management, such as finance and accounting, but his partnerships extend to disciplines that are somewhat more distant from his own, such as sociology and linguistics. Professor Opportunity finds Exemplary University to be “very progressive and conducive to academic freedom.” Having worked in the field of information systems for four large private sector firms over 20 years, Professor Opportunity has much knowledge in the business world and understands the importance of reciprocity and mutual respect in successful business enterprises. He admits to being passionate about his work. “I think the most important thing is perseverance. Ultimately, it gets down to that.” Professor Opportunity indicated that the largest risk he ever took was when he reluctantly accepted an offer to deliver lectures about one of his articles at several international universities and technological institutes. He was selected for this lecture series because of his journal article on knowledge management.

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Professor Opportunity explained that he could have tarnished his reputation if the lectures did not go well, but he was pleased to learn that his lectures were considered highly successful, and they boosted the reputation of both Exemplary University and Professor Opportunity. Since then, he has taken students on trips abroad and helps to organize faculty research excursions to other nations. Professor Opportunity noted that his international lectures brought him into contact with scholars from multiple disciplines, which in turn, deepened his curiosity about interdisciplinary collaboration. He said that some of his most enjoyable experiences have been related to meeting and socializing with faculty outside his discipline. He routinely collaborates on presentations and articles with colleagues outside his discipline and outside Exemplary University. For example, he volunteered to mentor an international visiting scholar from another discipline. “We had a visiting scholar. He wasn’t in my department. He was in accounting. But I took him under my wing, because nobody else was. And we just knocked out a [published] paper.” He says that these collaborations put him on the leading edge of emerging topics and on the forefront of knowledge, keeping him motivated and energized. Professor Opportunity also explained that his interdisciplinary work enhances his spirit of optimism. In describing his collaboration with scholars in other disciplines, Professor Opportunity indicated that “sometimes it is amazing what you can do if you don’t worry about it too much, kind of just throw it out there.” Professor Opportunity appears to have a vision of not only interdisciplinary collaborations but also global collaborations among businesses, governments, and universities. As an example, a few years ago, he collaborated with the coordinator of Asian studies at Exemplary and also with a recent graduate who held a corporate leadership role abroad. That trip helped to further Professor Opportunity’s interdisciplinary research into government, business, and academic partnerships that would include creating new types of knowledge management systems. 3.3 Community Engagement Community engagement involves collaboration between higher education institutions and the larger community for the purpose of establishing a mutually-beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources (Campus Compact, 2016). Service-learning is one form of community engagement. Service-learning is defined as academic study that is linked to community service through collaborative partnerships (Eyler & Giles, 1999). Related pedagogical activities advance student learning and serve the needs of community members.

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Several mid-career faculty in our study explained that their community-engaged research and teaching enable them to pursue topics about which they are passionate. They also noted that community engagement strengthens their feelings of optimism and energy. Professor Bali was a faculty member for ten years at two other large universities, before coming to Synergy State where she has worked for the past ten years. She now holds the rank of full professor. Her discipline is physical education, and her specialty is health and wellness. Her areas of interest are health promotion, stress reduction, and lifestyle management. Professor Bali explained that some prior work in hospitals has contributed to her success as a health and wellness instructor. Professor Bali found that at mid-career she has been able to conduct scholarly research on any topic of her choosing. “I’ve been able to go on tangents that are meaningful to me.” Professor Bali indicated that community engagement, particularly her service-learning courses, is what keeps her motivated and enthusiastic about her job. Her interest in service-learning emerged at mid-career. “I wouldn’t have even known what service learning was nine years ago,” she explained. Professor Bali learned about service-learning through a lunchtime workshop, and then she used a sabbatical to develop new service-learning courses in areas related to health and wellness. Now, she has infused service-learning into 75% of the courses that she teaches. Professor Bali’s community partners include hospitals, homeless shelters, community health centers, and K-12 schools. Taking education “out of the four walls” [of an academic building] is Professor Bali’s motto. “I think I’m very passionate about what I teach. I kind of live it and breathe it, and I’m able to take it out of the four walls of academia and bring it to real people.” Students accompany Professor Bali into the community for service-learning projects in their courses. The populations served include persons who have food and/or housing insecurity, those with obesity, anxiety disorders, mental illness, substance abuse disorders, youths and adults in recovery, those with attention deficit disorder and cognitive impairment, trauma survivors, and those living in social isolation. Professor Bali addresses wellness from a holistic perspective in her service learning work. She teaches that while health can be viewed as an absence of the bodily symptoms of disease, wellness encompasses distinct areas that impact quality of life. Her philosophy of teaching is both health promotion and training people to develop a broad range of coping skills. In her lesson plans, she addresses the physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, and environmental dimensions of people’s lives. She teaches that making changes in one of these areas melds into the other areas, which in turn can improve

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wellness. Changing at least one thing in one dimension can have an observable impact on the other spheres or dimensions of one’s life. She encourages journaling by students on topics such as gratitude, “cultivating hardiness,” and “significant life changes.” Professor Bali provides tools and strategies that people can use to reduce stress and change unhealthy habits. Her students have successfully completed many of these activities in redirecting their own lives in Professor Bali’s classes. Then students are able to model these activities for persons in the community. With her students, Professor Bali wishes to promote deep, meaningful learning and also ignite a spark that motivates students to continue to serve the community as volunteers after they graduate. “I do a lot in the community. I live here. All of my service projects happen here. I do the service projects because I want students to experience that this area is where they are going to make a difference.” 3.4 Integrated Scholarship Integrated scholarship consists of a synergy among the faculty roles of teaching, research, and service, so that faculty preparation for one role contributes to their work in one of the other roles (Colbeck, 1998). In our study, some faculty described increased energy and excitement directly related to the integration of their roles. Some faculty in our study believed that integrated scholarship, when done well, increased their enthusiasm for teaching and enhanced their students’ learning outcomes. Professor Lincoln is a psychologist who specializes in applied behavioral analysis in her work with autistic children. She has been at Synergy State University for 11 years. She views Synergy State as “a small institution that covers more breadth than most large institutions.” She took this job with the belief that she would remain for only one or two years. She explained that she felt compelled to remain because of the quality of her colleagues and the positive workplace climate within her department. Professor Lincoln described the strong connections among her teaching, research, and professional practice as a psychologist, and explained why those connections have been important to her and how her roles complement each other. I’m very good at practice, but it takes too much away from me if I do it full-time, and I learned that very early on. And I love the science piece of my discipline, but if I only do science, I lose my ability to share it with people. And so it was like, I’m really good at this too, but only in certain amounts, and I think teaching is the same. I very much enjoy teaching

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and helping students to make them grow in a direction that I think is very important and learn about things that their eyes weren’t open to before. Help them make choices. But again, if I only taught, I think I would feel like, wow, does this work in the real world or is the science still supporting what the textbook says …. I have to do a little bit of everything. And a university career was my path to that. She went on to describe how she operationalizes integrated scholarship. So my practice generates a research question that I take into the lab and then I get to teach about how you would figure that out in class. And then I involve students from my class back in my research and then some of them go out on applied placements with me. So that really is so—it makes it so easy to do my job. Professor Lincoln spends much time with community clients and their families. She provides educational consultation for children with autism and other learning challenges. She designs a learning program, trains teachers, sets up measurement systems to evaluate client performance, and monitors implementation of the program along with client changes. Most of her work is in school settings, but she also does parent training through home-based programming. Although children are her specialty, over time, she has worked with many populations and age groups. She also works with clients who live in residential placements, because of the severity of their behavioral challenges. “It is tough work,” she explains, but she finds great fulfillment in it. I love it because it allows you to make a change for someone that has such a big impact on their life …. I can teach a college student a strategy to use and they can be happier and more successful because of it, but when I teach a young child to speak for the first time, it’s really profound the impact it has on them. The integration of faculty professional roles appeared to be an important benchmark of vitality for Professor Lincoln. Integrated scholarship led to many of the accomplishments that motivate and sustain Professor Lincoln’s work. She explained that she does her best work when the project simultaneously connects to research, teaching, and professional practice. This joint production of research, teaching, and public service appears to affect Professor Lincoln’s vitality by influencing her level of energy. She spoke about putting in long hours, but not being exhausted at the end of the day. Furthermore, integrated

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scholarship served as a venue for Professor Lincoln to explore her curiosity. Issues in professional practice sparked her curiosity, and she then went to the lab to conduct research, where she involved students in the exploration of the question. Finally, connections to research and public service led to more creative teaching for Professor Lincoln. Given the new research questions that she continually brought into her classes, teaching was a creative experience each semester. She reported that her teaching never felt repetitive, even though she frequently taught many of the same courses.

4

Vitality-Enhancing Practices of Institutions

4.1 Vitality-Enhancing Institutions While the previous section illustrates how faculty can take steps to enhance their own vitality, colleges and universities, we believe, have an obligation to enhance the vitality of faculty. As Beach, Sorcinelli, Austin, and Rivard (2016) note, sustaining faculty vitality “constitutes a compelling and critically important contextual challenge facing faculty developers” (p. 9). Given the importance of mid-career faculty to overall organizational effectiveness, college and university leaders should invest resources in programs and practices that seek to enhance mid-career vitality. While most colleges and universities offer faculty development programs that target the needs of early-career faculty, initiatives to support mid-career faculty development are much less common. Next, we return to our study of mid-career faculty to discuss three organizational practices that contributed to enhancing faculty vitality. At the three institutions in our study, administrators supported mid-career faculty vitality by (1) providing resources for faculty learning communities, specifically designed for mid-career faculty, (2) offering mini-grants to fund innovative projects in any area of faculty interest, and (3) creating venues for communication among faculty and between faculty and administrators. 4.2 Faculty Learning Communities Study participants noted that one of the most effective vitality-enhancing techniques provided under the auspices of their institution was the establishment of faculty learning communities (FLCs). Cox (2004) defines an FLC as a group of faculty “who engage in an active, collaborative program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning and with frequent seminars and activities that provide learning, development, the scholarship of teaching, and community building” (p. 8). The FLC process typically includes frequent seminar-style meetings where faculty discuss readings and research that pertain

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to teaching and learning. Faculty participants may also experiment with new teaching practices in their classrooms or engage in self-designed teaching projects, while obtaining advice and support from their faculty colleagues in the FLC. While FLCs are typically organized and supported by faculty development offices, the faculty participants themselves implement and determine the focus for each FLC meeting. In this way, FLCs provide a decentralized form of faculty development, where faculty members themselves set the agenda. Decentralized forms of faculty development may be more likely to address the identified needs of faculty, because the content emerges through interactions among faculty themselves (Dee & Daly, 2009). While FLCs are typically offered for novice faculty, at the three institutions in this study, an FLC was provided specifically for mid-career faculty. Study participants explained that their interactions with colleagues in FLCs not only improved their teaching, but also contributed to higher levels of motivation to pursue new pedagogical approaches. They noted that their participation in FLCs renewed their energy for teaching, and gave them creative ideas to try in their own courses. The FLCs included mid-career faculty from a range of disciplines, and participants noted that these interdisciplinary discussions enhanced their creativity for teaching. A faculty member described a typical meeting of her FLC: We meet once a month or so, and I feel so charged up after those meetings. There are about five or six of us, and it can vary. Sometimes a person brings a problem they’re encountering in their teaching, and sometimes we use a protocol to discuss that and get feedback to that person. Sometimes we’ve chosen to focus on a common issue. For example, we’ve focused a lot on why students aren’t doing the reading [for class]. We’ve had some really good conversations. And these are colleagues from all different disciplines. So it’s really interesting to have that. FLCs also served as a venue for faculty to explore their curiosity about different approaches to teaching. FLC members had the ability to raise and discuss any issue about which they were interested; the FLC meetings were not guided by a structured curriculum. Conversations in FLCs were curiosity driven. 4.3 Supporting Innovation At the three institutions in our study, mid-career faculty indicated that resources were available to support innovative proposals for teaching and research. Even if the amount of funding was relatively small, usually in the range of $1000 to $2000, the resources provided an opportunity to pursue or

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deepen their involvement in an area of scholarly interest. Importantly, the grants that these universities provided were not restricted to certain administrative priorities. Oftentimes, institutional leaders create internal grant programs that encourage faculty to engage in activities that advance strategic priorities, such as teaching with technology or internationalization. But at the institutions in this study, administrators issued open calls for proposals in any area that would advance faculty scholarship. This open invitation allowed faculty to pursue projects about which they are passionate. With modest financial support from their institutions, mid-career faculty enhanced their vitality by carving out new niches of scholarly interest. According to the literature, a faculty niche is an area of considerable interest and a high priority that often evolves at mid-career (Baldwin, 1990; Bland & Bergquist, 1997). By moving into new areas of research or by developing interests beyond a particular discipline, faculty are attempting to establish and achieve personally meaningful and intrinsically motivating professional goals (DeFelippo & Giles, 2015). Faculty in this study offered numerous examples of developing new niches of expertise at mid-career. For example, a sociologist began working with human service agencies to improve living conditions for poor and elderly citizens. Another faculty member began working with at-risk teenagers to promote high school success. A professor worked with local farmers on sustainability, another organized annual health education conferences, and another worked internationally on global literacy. These intellectual interests emerged at mid-career and were supported by funding from their institutions. In addition to mini-grants, faculty indicated that they frequently receive encouragement from deans and department chairs to explore new niches in their scholarly work. Faculty described deans and chairs who would ask about their work and encourage them to pursue new lines of inquiry. Study participants noted that their chairs would sometimes provide opportunities to teach courses in their new line of inquiry, while deans would provide assistance with acquiring space or funds to carry out the project. In summary, the mini-grants reinforced a sense of grit among mid-career faculty. The funds allowed faculty to pursue projects about which they are passionate, and encouragement from administrators reinforced their desire to persevere and invest the time needed to become an expert in a new area. 4.4 Creating Venues for Communication Our study findings suggest that one of the most important actions that administrators can take to support faculty vitality is to create venues for communication and relationship building. Having positive relationships with colleagues can provide an energizing context for work. Some faculty said that they could

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do some of their work at home on days when they do not teach classes, but they come to campus on those days anyway, primarily to see their colleagues. Study participants frequently expressed admiration for colleagues in their department. One faculty member described his colleagues as “inspirational.” Another affectionately described her colleagues as “a bunch of work horses.” According to study participants, these positive relationships were cultivated by thoughtful administrators who created formal and informal venues for communication and interaction. Regarding formal communication venues, faculty in this study credited administrators with developing participatory structures for decision making. Mid-career faculty believed that it was important for them to get involved in these decision-making committees, and they believed that their contributions would be valued by administrators. Bland and Bergquist (1997) suggest that these types of participatory decision-making structures can promote faculty vitality. Study participants noted that informal venues for communication were equally important to their vitality. At one site, two deans regularly met with faculty to enhance their classroom teaching. Study participants described how these meetings fostered interdisciplinary collaboration and more supportive relationships among colleagues. At another campus, administrators convened a brown bag lunch and invited all mid-career faculty members to attend. The theme of the event was “now that you have been tenured, where do you go from here?” This institutional practice fostered networking and relationship building among mid-career faculty. These supportive relationships appeared to enhance feelings of energy and optimism. Energy was enhanced through relationships that yielded new collaborations in teaching and research. Optimism was promoted through a supportive workplace climate where colleagues offered help to each other and where administrators worked to remove barriers to progress.

5

Conclusion and Implications

Understanding how to foster vitality among mid-career faculty can ensure the well-being of both faculty and the institution, and promote consistent educational quality through current and future challenges. In this chapter, we explained the importance of vitality for mid-career faculty. The chapter offered a definition of vitality that identifies its multifaceted components. We also provided a conceptual framework for faculty vitality; this framework identifies both organizational and individual antecedents of vitality, as well as specifies the behaviors and outcomes associated with faculty vitality. Through

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vignettes of three vital faculty, the chapter identified ways in which faculty can enhance their vitality through interdisciplinary collaboration, community engagement, and integrated scholarship. Finally, we focused on three organizational practices that colleges and universities can implement to support mid-career faculty vitality: faculty learning communities, funding programs for innovative projects, and communication venues for relationship building. Mid-career faculty who feel burned out, disengaged, or stagnant in their work can draw upon our conceptualization of vitality to reinvigorate their professional lives. Interdisciplinary collaboration, community engagement, and integrated scholarship each demonstrate the potential to rekindle faculty vitality. But the journey to vitality is likely to be unique to each individual; any standard set of scholarly practices is unlikely to foster vitality for all mid-career faculty. Therefore, in addition to the scholarly practices associated with interdisciplinary, community-engaged, and integrated scholarship, this chapter offers some general strategies that any faculty member can use to assess and enhance vitality. These general strategies are based on the practices and daily work habits that our study participants described. Table 2.3 indicates how these general strategies are linked to the various components of vitality. While faculty members can structure many segments of their work, they still need administrators to design vitality-enhancing work environments. Based on the findings of our study, administrators can strengthen faculty vitality by taking the following steps: – Ensuring flexibility and balance in faculty workloads – Supporting professional development for mid-career faculty – Providing incentives for innovative practices – Building supportive relationships with faculty Implications for retaining vital faculty and sustaining their vitality include providing sufficient flexibility for faculty to develop research initiatives and teach courses that are professionally fulfilling. Chairs and deans can ensure that all faculty have an opportunity to teach seminars on topics of professional interest beyond the scope of the department’s required offerings. Rotation of required and elective courses among the faculty can generate more enthusiasm and creativity in teaching, and help some faculty avoid the burnout that can come from teaching the same courses each semester. While making sure that all faculty have an opportunity to teach in new areas of professional interest, chairs and deans can also monitor overall teaching workloads. Chairs and deans can assess teaching overloads carefully and see that any teaching overloads are spread widely among faculty for as short a time as possible. Extensive course overload often reduces the faculty member’s opportunity to conduct

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table 2.3  Strategies to enhance faculty vitality

Strategy

Vitality construct

Make time each day to work on projects about which you are passionate. Set aside some unstructured time each day to pursue your curiosity. Enhance your potential for creativity by pursuing new opportunities for collaboration. Be mindful of your energy levels throughout the day, and periodically engage in activities that recharge your energy levels. Identify the components of your work that you fijind intrinsically motivating, where the work itself is rewarding. To the extent possible, build those components into your work day. Reflect on when you have had moments of flow, where you were so engrossed in an activity that you lost all track of time. What were you doing? How can you engage in that type of work more frequently? Reduce the frequency with which you engage in negative self-talk (that is, criticizing yourself, focusing on your setbacks). Instead, reflect on your accomplishments and visualize the processes that you used to be successful. Reflect on instances when you have overcome obstacles and persevered to achieve a goal. What practices and conditions contributed to your success? Can you engage in those practices and create those conditions again?

Grit Curiosity Creativity Energy Motivation

Energy

Optimism

Grit

or complete scholarly work or pursue innovative topics for the classroom and could also lead to emotional exhaustion and burnout. Among faculty development programs, FLCs appear to have significant potential to enhance mid-career faculty vitality. The FLCs in our study were comprised of mid-career faculty from multiple departments. This careerstage-specific, interdisciplinary approach may have contributed to the creativity and energy that emerged from these FLCs. These FLCs also adhered to a decentralized structure, which allowed faculty participants to determine the content and priorities of the FLC. Mid-career faculty are experienced professionals who would likely prefer to set their own agendas and priorities for faculty development. Participating in an FLC, however, does require a significant

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amount of time, and it could become an added burden if administrators do not adjust workloads for FLC participants. Course releases, stipends for summer seminars, or other forms of workload adjustment may be necessary for faculty to derive vitality from their FLC experiences. Administrators can also provide incentives for faculty to engage in innovative practices, such as interdisciplinary work, community engagement, or integrated scholarship. Some mid-career faculty in our study described reshaping and reinventing themselves in a manner that could sustain their vitality and provide deep meaning and satisfaction. Their energy and optimism levels often rose as they evolved into new roles. In our study, administrators provided grant funds to support any type of scholarly activity that advanced the faculty member’s goals. Rather than provide funding only to support strategic initiatives, administrators can offer some open-ended grants that support curiosity and creativity. Many faculty in our study were engaged in civic activities that sought to address societal problems and advance the public good. Provosts and deans could encourage faculty to use their voice and knowledge within the geographic region, work for change outside the university, facilitate university-community partnerships, and provide service learning opportunities for students. Administrators could also sustain faculty vitality by promoting integrated scholarship. Administrators could hold facilitated workshops where faculty with extensive experience in integrated scholarship can describe and then mentor others in the process. Finally, administrators can strengthen faculty vitality by focusing on communication and relationships. Formal and informal communication venues can foster mentoring and networking across organizational and disciplinary boundaries. The resulting relationships and networks can then become vehicles for knowledge sharing, collaboration, and innovation. Incremental improvements in communication can yield substantial dividends by producing more favorable work environments that enhance vitality and that acknowledge and support the significant contributions of faculty at mid-career.

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Kidd, C., & Hayden, B. (2015). The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity. Neuron, 88(3), 449–460. Kirschling, W. (1978). Editor’s notes: Enhancing faculty performance and vitality. In W. Kirschling (Ed.), Evaluating faculty performance and vitality. New directions for institutional research, 20 (pp. vii–x). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Latham, G. (2007). Work motivation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Lattuca, L. (2003). Creating interdisciplinarity: Grounded definitions from college and university faculty. History of Intellectual Culture, 3(1), 1–20. Lindholm, J. (2003). Perceived organizational fit: Nurturing the minds, hearts, and personal ambitions of university faculty. Review of Higher Education, 27(1), 125–149. Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W., & Leiter, M. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 397–422. McLaughlin, P. (1999). Vitality of mid-career faculty: The case of public comprehensive universities (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA. Misra, J., Lundquist, J., Holmes, E., & Agiomavritis, S. (2011). The ivory ceiling of service work. Academe, 97(1), 22–26. Neumann, A. (2009). Professing to learn: Creating tenured lives and careers in the American research university. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Nicolson, I. (1988). The concept of faculty vitality (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Alberta: Edmonton, AB. Patton, C., & Palmer, D. (1985). Maintaining faculty vitality through mid-career change options. In S. Clark & D. Lewis (Eds.), Faculty vitality and institutional productivity: Critical perspectives for higher education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Peterson, C. (2003). Is the thrill gone: An investigation of faculty vitality within the context of the community college (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. Rice, R. E. (1985). Faculty lives: Vitality and change. A study of the foundation’s grants in faculty development, 1979–1984. St. Paul, MN: A Northwest Area Foundation Higher Education Report. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 54–67. Schuster, J., & Bowen, H. (1985). The faculty at risk. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 17(5), 13–21. Seligman, M. (2006). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. New York, NY: Vantage Books. Weimer, M. (2010). Inspired college teaching: A career-long resource for professional growth. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

CHAPTER 3

The Academic Mother at Mid-Career Amanda J. Rockinson-Szapkiw

Abstract Women, especially those in mid-career, who identify as mothers and academics make complex choices limited by a unique set of external and internal constraints and challenges that shape their families and academic career trajectories. This chapter seeks to examine the current decisions and behaviors of Academic Mothers, highlighting ways in which these decisions and actions are constrained by institutional, familial, and societal factors. The author makes the invisible struggles of mid-career Academic Mothers more transparent and offers practical strategies for addressing challenges Academic Mothers face.

Keywords mid-career – motherhood – mothers – academics – career choices – career advancement

1

Introduction

Institutions of higher education were originally established to train young men; however, the women now outnumber men representing a majority of the students in American colleges and universities (Allum & Okahana, 2015). Unfortunately, women, specifically mothers, have not made similar progress when it comes to the professorship (Mason, Wolfinger, & Goulden, 2013). While more equity is being seen between women and men in early career and junior faculty positions, considerable inequity across disciplines arises as the academic trajectory progresses and women enter their middle careers. There are perennial and persistent gender gaps in higher education with regard to men and women in tenure-track positions, scholarly productivity, salary, job satisfaction, midcareer promotion to full professorships, and the move to senior-level administration positions (Baker, 2016; Comer & Stites-Doe, 2006; Mason & Goulden, 2004a, 2004b). Women are less likely than men to be tenured by the time they © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_004

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reach the middle of their academic careers (Mason et al., 2013). Analysis of the literature reveals that the gaps are associated with not only with being a woman but being a woman with children (Comer & Stites-Doe, 2006; Tausig & Fenwick, 2001; Wolfinger, Mason, & Goulden, 2008). Solomon and Barden (2015) reported that “men are 38% more likely than women to achieve tenure” (p. 137) among academics with a child under the age of six. Researchers examining faculty with children in tenure-track and tenured positions further report disparity between hardships faced by mothers and fathers (McCutcheon & Morrison, 2016; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015), especially in traditional heterosexual relationships with little research existing on this topic in same sex couples. This issue, colloquially referenced to as the mommy track, leaky pipeline, or pyramid problem (McCutheon & Morrison, 2016), has received much attention in recent decades. Many institutions have begun to develop equity and family-friendly policies and practices to ameliorate the disparity. Adding policies and procedures is necessary to level the playing field between men and women but not sufficient for creating change in representation and the experiences of women (Sallee, 2012). Decisions women make about their families, careers, and integration of the two within the context of societal, familial, and institutional structures, norms, and values are foundational to the academic trajectories of academic mothers and the gender inequality issues within higher education. Women, especially those in mid-career, who identify as mothers and academics make complex choices limited by a unique set of external and internal constraints and challenges that shape their families and academic career trajectories. Wolf-Wendel and Ward (2006) argued “there is an increasing need to understand the personal and institutional barriers, challenges and triumphs that women faculty who opt to have children face as they attempt to balance the often conflicting demands of academic and family life” (p. 487) and shape both domains. Thus, this chapter seeks to examine the current decisions—the hard decisions—and behaviors of Academic mothers. The author discusses ways in which these decisions and actions are constrained by institutional, familial, and societal factors (Baker, 2016; Lapayese, 2012; Matias, 2011). Within this chapter, the author seeks to make invisible struggles of mid-career academic mothers, women faculty with children “in their late 30s to mid- or late 50s who are consciously or unconsciously confronting midlife tasks” (Cytynbaum & Crites, 1982, p. 15), more transparent.

2

The Decisions Academic Mothers’ Have Made about Their Families and Careers

Researchers have documented the decisions and actions of academic mothers (Isgro & Castañeda, 2015; Mason & Goulden, 2002; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015).

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Women who have children often find it challenging to navigate the traditional academic trajectory and often make difficult choices about their family and academic career (Mason, Goulden, & Frasch, 2009). Academic mothers make decisions about pursuing tenure or non-tenure track positions, seeking positions at prestigious research institutions or teaching-oriented institutions, taking positions that require moving a family, family planning (e.g., if and when to have children, how many children to have), and integrating family and work domains (Hirakata & Daniluk, 2009). These decisions are made within social, familial, and institutional contexts, including but not limited to gender norms, familial values, and institutional norms and expectations (Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015). They are constrained by biological issues (e.g. a women’s biological clock), familial constraints (e.g., dual career decisions, considering what is least disruptive for the family, family structure), and institutional structure (Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015). For example, women who choose to delay marriage or children, by mid-career, struggle with the decisions about marriage and family. When deciding whether or not to have children in mid-career, women have to weigh the medical risks with later in life pregnancy. Women who choose to have children before or during an early career, by mid-career, may struggle to integrate their academic life with family life in a society riddled with social and gender norms that make the two domains appear in conflict with one another (Erikson, 2005; Hochschild & Machung, 2012). Early academic career choices such as employing “slow the clock” policy, choosing a less prestigious instructor position, or selecting a job “for the good of the family” may limit career success and options in mid-career. Academic mothers make difficult decisions about positions, promotions, having children, and integrating the family and academic domains. 2.1 Position, Location, and Promotion Some women decide to pursue prestigious academic positions and motherhood. However, many women self-select to remove themselves from positions and forgo opportunities due to perceived concerns about the incompatibility of motherhood with an academic career or potential perceived future conflict between the two (O’Meara, Lounder, & Campbell, 2014; Sandberg, 2013). Women who want to be mothers or who are academic mothers often see research institutions as inhospitable to the integration of family and work; whereas, teaching institutions seem as more family friendly (Mason, Goulden, & Frasch, 2009). Academic mothers and women who desire to be mothers often take less prestigious and less secure positions (e.g., adjunct, lecturer, clinical faculty, community college positions, comprehensive institution positions). Women often select jobs that pay less in order to stay close to family and manage childcare (Baker, 2016), and they take non-tenured teaching positions and

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part-time positions. For, these positions, with less pressure to publish, help women minimize stress and accommodate the care of children, especially young children (Baker, 2012; Bassett, 2005). In fact, highly-qualified academic mothers often never place themselves in candidate pools for prestigious positions, thus limiting institutions access to possibly the best and most diverse faculty available. The choices made early in a career to take less prestigious or secure positions can shape an academic mothers’ career opportunities and upward mobility. Thus, by mid-career, options for tenure, senior level administration positions, and other academic successes are often limited (Isgro & Castañeda, 2015; Mason & Goulden, 2002; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2006). Even when women make decisions that set them on a trajectory toward tenure, senior level administration positions, and other academic advancements, they often make choices in mid-career to forego tenure, promotion, and seniorlevel administration positions (O’Meara, Lounder, & Campbell, 2014; Mason et al., 2013). Approximately 53% of women opt out of tenure positions prior to achieving tenure (Marchke, Laurensen, McCarl, & Raankin, 2007). 2.2 When to Have a Child or Children An academic career requires a significant time commitment, including but not limited to an undergraduate degree, graduate degrees, and often, postdoctoral fellowships. The median age of women earning PhDs is 34.1 years (American Association of University Professors, 2016). Thus, by the time women are getting ready to begin academic positions and often the tenure clock, their biological clocks are ticking (Hoff, Hess, Welch, & Williams, 2012). Many women hide their family planning, delay starting a family, or give up having children altogether (Seher & Iverson, 2015). Research has consistently demonstrated that women in professional careers, such as faculty positions, tend to wait until later in life to have children (Armenti, 2004b; Finkel, Olswang, & She, 1994). Armenti (2004a) discovered the existence of the hidden pregnancy phenomenon. That is, many women play the biologically risky game of waiting to have children post tenure or mid-career, which can result in fertility issues. Thinking about the timing of a child is rarely a concern for men in academia (Sallee, 2012). Related to this decision about when to have a child is the decision of how many children to have. In a longitudinal study, Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2017) found women felt having two or less children were acceptable. They noted, “… women felt ‘safe’ having one or two children but felt any more than that would be highly problematic in terms of people’s perceptions of their commitment to work” (p. 236), and they went on to acknowledge that institutional policy and norms both confine and reinforce this perception as “many institutions

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that have tenure stop clock policies limit their use to once or twice during the tenure probation period” (p. 236). Moreover, despite the development of family friendly policies and equity polices, gender gaps persist. While policies are in place, academic mothers have reported reluctance to use policies such as FMLA leave and stop the clock. Reasons for this range from fear of retribution to avoiding biases (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015). 2.3 How to Prioritize and Integrate Family and Academic Work Academic mothers also make difficult decisions about how to integrate family and academic work. Work-family (WF) literature serves as a framework that brings together the academic and familydomains and their interactions. For decades, researchers have recognized that work and family are not “separate spheres” with “permeable” boundaries (Comer & Stites-Doe, 2006; Kanter, 1977). While some advocate integration of these domains for optimal wellbeing and balance (Bailyn, Drago, & Kochan, 2001), others document negative consequences of blurring boundaries and the conflict between work and family, especially in occupations (e.g., a faculty position) that require web based and mobile technologies that give constant accessibility (Chesley, Moen, & Shore, 2001; Galinsky & Kim, 2000). Clark (2000) noted that optimal integration is a personal choice academic mothers make. The work-family border theory (Clark, 2000) and boundary theory (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000; Nippert-Eng, 1996), although distinct, both assume that academic mothers make personal decisions about how to construct and negotiate boundaries (e.g., “lines of demarcation”) or borders (e.g., “mental fences”) with academic work and family. The degree of interaction between family and academic work depends upon the borders or boundaries a woman sets to create a desired work-family balance, “satisfaction and good functioning at home and work, with a minimum role conflict” (Clark, 2000, p. 751) and life priorities. Academic mothers may prefer to be integrators (e.g., remove boundaries between work and family) or segmentors (e.g., rarely allow interaction between work and family) (Clark, 2000; Nippert-Eng, 1996). Theorists have purported that the degree of segmentation or integration, and the benefits or drawbacks, is complex, dependent, and limited by a variety of factors (Clark, 2000; Nippert-Eng, 1996). Academic mothers have suggested that the concept of balance between these two domains, “having it all,” and being satisfied with family integration needs to be redefined (Rockinson-Szapkiw, Spaulding, & Lunde, 2017; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015). For example, for some, “having it all” means choosing to take a long term perspective as being “ideal” as attempting to “be all” in one stage of life is impossible. Some academic mothers decide to delay

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their child bearing and rearing to mid-career, after obtaining tenure and promotion. Other academic mothers decide to put aside their career pursuits until after they have raised their children. Decisions about how to integrate work and family domains is personal; however, it is a decision influenced by social and cultural contexts. In social and familial contexts, academic mothers report downplaying or hiding their academic or professional identity, demonstrating academic invisibility (Lynch, 2008). Academic mothers also perceive work-family separation as ideal and motherhood invisibility or bias avoidance (Drago et al., 2004) as necessary to compete and advance in the academic institution. Balance at work is another area in which academic mothers face challenges. Unfortunately, academic mothers do not always prioritize the work that is rewarded and typically valued in academia. Perhaps due to socialization, or simply being biologically inclined toward being nurturing, women, especially those who are mothers, tend to allocate a significant amount of time within their academic positions toward mentoring students, teaching, and serving the institution and community (Bird, Litt, & Wang, 2004). Women devote more time than men to teaching and service, two areas in which they excel. Consequently, academic mothers publish less than their male counterparts, a behavior more valued in tenure and promotion at research institutions (O’Meara, 2015; O’Meara, Kuvaeva, & Nyunt, 2017; Misra et al., 2011; Monroe et al., 2008). Women are also less likely than men to pursue grant funding for research (Waisbren et al., 2008) and more likely to investigate deeply a phenomenon and human experiences via qualitative methods (Mohrman, Ma, & Baker, 2008). In general, academic mothers report that a “ balanced-life” trumps academic success (Baker, 2012). Women also tend to assign greater priority to completing household tasks and providing for family well-being (Baxter, Hewitt, & Haynes, 2008).

3

Barriers: The Contexts and Constraints That Influence Academic Mothers’ Decisions and Behaviors Related to Work, Family and the Integration of the Two

The decisions and behaviors of academic mothers are often influenced and constrained by institutional, social, and familial statures, norms, and values. The concessions women often make to prioritize family often limit advancement in mid-career (Zhang, 2009). Attempts to integrate work and family sometime result in personal sacrifice and grim consequences, emotional, social, and psychological.

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3.1 Structural Constraints within the Academic Institution Numerous university initiatives have been geared toward assisting women and academic mothers, including employment equality programs, sexual harassment policy, paid parental leave, and child care services. However, Herr and Wolfram (2009) noted while higher education institutions have made strides to create paid family leave and family friendly policies, the structure of the academic environment does not support women as parents or align with what academic mothers value and prioritize. For, universities have and continue, especially in the landscape of cost cutting and decreased federal funding, to reward and esteem academics who publish proficiently in prestigious academic journals, maintain high levels of scholarly productivity, obtain grant funding, and engage in entrepreneurial research (Monroe et al., 2008). Largescale, quantitative projects are often funded and seem as superior to the qualitative research that women often engage (Mohrman, Ma, & Baker, 2008). The priorities within higher education institutions often discourage Academic mothers, in mid-career, to seek tenure and hinder their promotion into seniorlevel positions and other advancement opportunities. Moreover, gender discrimination persists in higher education institutions. For example, when women, especially mothers, demonstrate assertive behavior and actions consistent with what is required for promotion in higher education, they are labeled as scheming, ruthless, and other less than desirable descriptors (Baker, 2012, 2016). They are negatively assessed and evaluated differently than their male counterparts who are praised for assertive behaviors (Kelan, 2009). Within numerous research studies, academic mothers report lack of respect for the “female voice,” bullying, segregation from male-dominated collegial activities and networks, and barriers to academic career advancement due to lack on institutional support for maternity issues and child-rearing (e.g., Baker, 2012). 3.2 Institutional Norms and Expectations: The “Ideal Professor” Women are also acutely aware that having a child challenges the norm of the ideal worker or good professor in higher education (Seher & Iverson, 2015; Wolf-Wendal & Ward, 2015). The gendered culture of higher education perpetuates the norm of the ideal worker as an individual who works full time, and often overtime, and who is unencumbered by familial responsibilities. This is “someone who takes no time off for childbearing or childrearing …; someone with the body and traditional life patterns of a [heterosexual] male” (Williams, 2002, p. 828). Academic success and reward are often reserved for faculty who “devote long hours to the profession, to publish widely, and to remain fully employed throughout their careers,” from early to mid to end

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(Hallstien & O’Reilly, 2012, p. 66). The “unboundedness” (Hallstien & O’Reilly, 2012, p. 21) of academic work adds an additional layer of difficulty for academic mothers. Academic work can be done anytime and anywhere, it is unending, and criteria for achievement is often ambiguous, which Hallstien and O’Reilly (2012) noted is “particularly incompatible with motherhood because of the lack of clear boundaries between work and family makes it difficult for academic mothers to manage ‘it all’” (p. 21). Decisions related to motherhood invisibility and separation of academic work and family are seen as necessary to compete and advance (Drago et al., 2004). Academic mothers feel the “need to prove themselves up to the task” and “have internalized a stronger need to follow the rules” (Armenti, 2004a, p. 20). They thus devote more time and energy to service and teaching activities that are not esteemed and valued for promotion. They tend to “verbally downplay the value of their scholarly work … and show more modesty on websites and curriculum vitas” (Baker, 2016, p. 894). The double bind of the ideal mother and ideal worker is a reality for academic mothers (Gordon, Iverson, & Allan, 2010) as academic roles and responsibilities compete in a manner in which success in either seems elusive and no confluence between the two exists. Thus, the decision to opt out or leave positions in mid-career ensues. 3.3 Structural Constraints within the Family While more women than ever before are choosing to marry later in life, can support themselves and children, and do less household work than women have done in the past, traditional structures in the home make it difficult for women improve their representation in tenured and senior-level positions across higher education institutions by mid-career. Dual-career couples are becoming more and more common, with women often taking on the role of the “trailing spouse” and secondary breadwinner (Karamessini & Rubery, 2013). Even when women in academia make more money than their partners, they behave as the “trailing spouse,” making career decisions in deference to their spouse, and thus, reinforcing gendered roles in the family (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2017). Women limit themselves by taking positions in geographical locations where their spouses or partners are employed. Academic mothers also tend to make decisions that in the best interest of the family. They forgo positions that require mobility, not wanting to uproot children to move for a better career option. They opt out of positions and promotions because they see the cost of time and energy as detrimental to their children. Gendered division of labor within the home and related to childcare also influence women’s decisions about career; thus, making them less competitive

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for positions in mid-career. Many, although not all, academic mothers shoulder what has been labeled the “second shift” in the family (Hochschild, 1997). Family demands (i.e., childcare and household tasks) are greater for academic mothers than for academic fathers (Sallee, Ward, & Wolf-Wendel, 2016). For instance, among mothers and fathers who spend equal amounts of time at work, mothers spent 66% more time on child-related activities and care than fathers—the equivalent of 10 additional hours per week (Solomon & Barden, 2015). Given normative gender roles and neo-traditional family values that tend to associate men more strongly with academics and women with the family, women often do and are expected to carry the majority of the material (Hochschild & Machung, 2012) and emotional work (Erikson, 2005) in the family in addition to meeting the demands of the academy. Hallstien and O’Reilly (2012) explained: The primary responsibility of household labor and caregiving on [women] even as they maintain their full-time employment within academia. In new and complex ways, then, while contemporary women’s lives have been freed from a domestic destiny as mothers, academic women’s lives have not been freed from domestic responsibility in their homes (p. 9). Moreover, because more academic mothers than academic Fathers are divorced, separated, or single, more women than men shoulder the sole responsibility for household and childcare responsibilities (Baker, 2012). They are also less likely to have the support of another adult in the home to assist them with the integration of work and family, rejoice in academic achievements, and assist with scholarly activity, such as providing feedback on and proof reading papers (Acker & Armenti, 2004). This reduces time and energy needed for research, writing, and other activities related to career advancement in mid-career. 3.4 Gender Norms and Family Values: “Ideal Mother” Hallstien and O’Reilly (2012) also purported: Equally important, neo-traditional families are the new norm for many academic women, and this ‘new’ norm also creates complexity and tension for academic women, because it demands that women simultaneously meet the intensive demands of the new momism while also meeting the intensive and exacting norms and expectations of academia. (p. 9) Neo-traditional family values and social norms dictate what it means to be an ideal or good mother. Many social and familial cultures esteem momism, a mother who sacrifices personal achievement and “opts out” of career opportunities (e.g., does not pursue tenure, leaves a position) for the good of the

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family (Springer, Parker, & Leviten-Reid, 2009). For example, the decision to “opt out” of a tenure or administration position is often seen as a “good choice” and what is best for the woman and her children (Stone, 2008). Moreover, the social and familial circles in academic mother’s lives devalue these women’s scholarly achievements; academic mothers, in contrast to academic fathers who are encouraged to aspire toward career advancement, are encouraged to focus on their family and children (Baker, 2012). Academic mothers are socialized, and thus believe, it is their responsibility to “be there” emotionally and physically present for children to be a “good mother,” whereas “good fathering” allows for delegation of such responsibilities to the mother so the father can gain academic promotion and increase salary (Craig, 2006; Wall, 2009).

4

Often “Invisible” Challenges of the Academic Motherhood as She Integrates Academic Work and Family

Attempts to integrate work and family and the decisions related to career and family within these constraints and contexts often come at a cost to academic mothers. Researchers have documented these emotional, social, and psychological costs. Time is never sufficient to meet the demands of both the academy and family given the finite hours of the day, and self (e.g., mental health, sleep, etc.) is often sacrificed (Acker & Armenti, 2004). The choice to hide identities in different contexts can result in a fragmented sense of self, disequilibrium, the separation of identities, or the perception that one identity must be chosen over the other (e.g., mother or professor) rather than honoring and intersecting multiple identities (Lapayese, 2012). Invisible motherhood (Stitt & Powell, 2010) results in “wandering in the wilderness,” and suffering in silence as “realities of a social system that systematically isolates … from potential sources of support and validation” (Fisher, 1988, p. 238). Academic mothers, also known as “mothers in the academy,” experience the “tension between what is constructed as the independent, aggressive nature of academic work and the dependent, caring nature of mothering” (Raddon, 2002, p. 387). Academic mothers, more likely than academic fathers, often experience poor well-being, relationship strain, and burnout from work-family conflict (McCutcheon & Morrison, 2016). Women with children, even those established in their middle careers, recognize a price for motherhood (Zemon & Bahr, 2005) and wonder regularly if being an effective mother and academic is even possible (Rowe-Finkbeiner, 2004). Anxiety, confusion, guilt, shame, and feelings of incompetence ensue as they attempt to negotiate the integration of work and family (Acker & Dillabough, 2007).

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Implications

While joy exists in being an academic mother, this discussion illuminated the challenges women face. Personal, social, familial, and institutional changes need to occur if women in mid-career are going to obtain equity and representation in higher education positions and be more satisfied with how they balance their family and academic work domains. Numerous implications exist for women and the higher education institutions for which they work; a few are outlined here, which primarily focus on actions for academic mothers. 5.1 Self-Select Advancement The chapter began noting the inequity between men and women, especially mothers, that exist in academic positions in middle careers (Mason, Wolfinger, & Goulden, 2013). Men outnumber women who hold positions as tenured faculty, deans, provosts, and presidents (Hammond, 2015). Closing the gender gap requires not only institutional–level changes, but women making the decision to navigate the academic system as mothers (Sallee, 2012). Ward and Wolf-Wendel (2017) suggested that academic mothers need to self-select positions and take advantage of opportunities that lead to academic career advancement. Until women begin self-selecting advancement opportunities, academic mothers, by mid-to-late-career, will not be present in tenured faculty and senior administration positions. However, this trajectory toward I not an easy path. Women need support and guidance in navigating the “messiness” of being mothers and academics (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2017). Seasoned academic mothers, thus, have the opportunity pay it forward (Matias, 2011) by modeling motherhood visibility in higher education, demonstrating ways that the family and academic work domains may be integrated. Exposure to these counterstereotypical academic mother role models can minimize the effects of stereotypical thinking in the academy (Leicht et al., 2014), counter implicit biases women may hold, and improve academic mothers’ confidence to pursue advancement (Carlone & Johnson, 2007; Hill et al., 2010). However, exposure is not enough, and superficial interactions with role models can diminish an academic mother’s confidence and ambition. Women in mid-career, need regular, quality interactions with seasoned women role models, for Asgari et al. (2012) demonstrated that quality interactions with role models improves women’s confidence, career ambitions, and accomplishments. High-quality connections with other academic mothers navigating similar trajectories can also be beneficial. Rather than suffering in silence, academic mothers can share sacrifices, struggles, and accomplishments, which can be sources of inspiration and support for one another (Marso, 2006).

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Sharing stories may also be a way to shed light on choices that are perpetuating gendered norms (e.g., second and third shifts) (Hochschild, 1997) and a means to talk about changing and redefining what is “enough.” As some academic mothers may not have the support of another adult in the home to rejoice in achievements and assist with scholarly activity (Acker & Armenti, 2004), academic mothers can support one another, providing praise, giving feedback on work, and proof reading manuscripts. 5.2 Self-Promotion, Doing Work that Counts, and a System Overhaul If academic mothers are to have opportunities that lead to their advancement, they need to practice self-promotion and prioritized academic work that is valued. Discussed in this chapter, a self-confidence gap exists between women and men (Schuh et al., 2014). Men are socialized to be assertive and selfpromoting, whereas women are socialized to be modest (Enloe, 2004). Assertive behavior from women is considered undesirable. Moreover, normative gender roles and neo-traditional family values associate men with work and academics (Baker, 2012). Women often do and are expected to carry the responsibility for child-rearing (Hochschild & Machung, 2012) and emotional work (Erikson, 2005). Consequently, academic mothers diminish their academic achievements and underestimate their competence (Pajares & Schunk, 2001). They are expected to and often, by nature of their nurturing tendencies and for other reasons (Armenti, 2004a), engage in more service and teaching work in the academy, which counts little toward tenure and advancement (O’Meara, 2015; O’Meara, Kuvaeva, & Nyunt, 2017; Misra et al., 2011). These heavy service loads for associate professors in mid-career are associated with longer time to full professor promotion (Misra et al., 2011). An academic mother’s underestimate of her competence, failure to self-promote, and over commitment to service work can have grave consequences, including lost opportunities for advancement. Therefore, academic mothers need to verbally promote their academic accomplishments, drawing attention to scholarship and awards. Women, especially those who are mothers, need to be mindful of how their time within their academic positions is spent. While O’Meara, Kuvaeva, and Nyunt (2017) noted that “[r]esearch has shown women faculty are expected to be engaged in campus service via gender stereotypes (Hart, 2016), are asked more often (Mitchell & Hesli, 2013), and may receive backlash if they do not conform to expectations (Rudman & Phelan, 2008), thereby creating a constrained choice” (p. 692), academic mothers still make choices and may need to choose, despite potential backlash, to prioritize and engage in research and scholarship activities, beneficial to their career goals and recognized as valuable for advancement in research universities (Britton, 2000). They need to say, “no,” when asked to do

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some service activities that are not in alignment with their goals. Time mentoring students, teaching, and serving the institution and community needs to be limited (Bird, Litt, & Wang, 2004). Academic mothers also need to advocate for the overhaul of tenure and promotion systems, which undervalue the work they do (Britton, 2000). The systems need evaluated and revised to consider the values and priorities of women and mothers—teaching, service, mentorship, and applied research— in a manner congruent with research and funding. 5.3 Awareness, Critical Conversations, and Action to Reconstruct With an understanding of the norms, values, and structural challenges within the home and academic institutions (Hill, 2016), academic mothers can begin to critically evaluate what optimal integration of family and work, “having it all,” being an ideal mother and professor means for them within their midcareers. This knowledge can also provide an understanding of the anxiety, confusion, guilt, shame, and feelings of incompetence they feel when integrating their academic work and family (Acker & Dillabough, 2007). Taking time to read and to reflect on academic motherhood books (e.g., Wolf-Wendel & Ward’s (2012) Academic Motherhood: How Faculty Manage Work and Family; Ghodsee’s (2014) Professor Mommy; Castaneda and Isgro’s (2013) Mother’s in Academia) is one step to becoming more aware and knowledgeable. Equipped with understanding, academic mothers can engage in critical conversations within their familial, social, and academic networks, and ultimately, develop and implement action plans to deconstruct and then reconstruct systems that are constraining. Within the academic institutions, critical thinking and discussion with academic colleagues and administrators about gender norms and policies can ensue. Within familial systems, academic mothers can identify traditional family values that may be present and at odds with a desirable integration between the family and academic domains. Gendered division of labor within the home and related to childcare, which influences an academic mother’s competitiveness for advancement in mid-career, may also be evaluated. With spouses, plans can be made to deconstruct traditional structures within the home that privilege women as caretakers and privilege men as academics/workers (Erikson, 2005; Hochschild & Machung, 2012), whereby a more equal division of labor is negotiated and put in place. Even within sexsex couple relationships, one partner may take on the caretaking role while the other takes on the worker role. If not occurring, same-sex couples need to have ongoing conversations about familial structures and values. If academic mothers are to have more time to focus on research and scholarship, associated with promotion that takes place in mid-career, they will need assistance from their

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partners and open communication about actions and behaviors that reinforce traditional gendered norms within the family (e.g. “trailing spouse”) (Karamessini & Rubery, 2013; Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2017). 5.4 Flexible, Family-Friendly Employment Opportunities Established in this chapter is some women decide to pursue prestigious academic positions and motherhood; many women forgo opportunities in early and mid-career for family and geographic reasons (O’Meara, Lounder, & Campbell, 2014; Mason et al., 2013). Some fail to persist in higher education because of institutional norms and culture that devalue women as mothers (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015). Consequently, universities lose access to and fail to retain highly-qualified academic mothers, limiting opportunities to employ the best and most diverse faculty available across all career stages (early, mid, and late). To counteract this challenge, universities need to consider putting policies in place that create flexible employment opportunities and follow the example of industry. For example, industry reports suggest that most Fortune 500 companies employ remote workers (Fell, 2015). Providing the opportunity to work remotely enables these companies to employ diverse highly qualified employees who are not local. Researchers have found numerous benefits of remote employment, including increased productivity, reduced costs associated with office space, and higher employee satisfaction (Breaugh & Farabee, 2012). Working remotely may also enable academic mothers to have flexibility for balancing work and family demands (Lautsch, Kossek, & Eaton, 2009). Policy for flexibility and remote employment as well as other family friendly policies need to continue to be developed if academic mothers are going to be gained and retained. However, policy changes are not sufficient when not accompanied by shifts in cultural norms. It is not within the scope of this chapter to engage in an in-depth discussion on this topic, however it is important to note that as long as women do not use policies due to fear of retribution and biases (Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2004; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015), academic mothers, in mid-career, are not going to be represented in tenured positions, be scholarly productive, be satisfied in their jobs, and move to senior-level administration positions.

6

Conclusion

If academic-mothers in mid-career are going to obtain equity and representation and be more satisfied with academic work-family interactions, continued discussion, research, policy changes, and action are needed. More research

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needs to focus on the differentiation of experiences, triumphs, and challenges of mid-career academic mothers among classes, races, genders, and sexual orientations. Work needs to be more inclusive of not only life stages but career stages. Moreover, the participants involved in the conversation and the scope of it needs expanding. As conversation has been focused upon middle-class white women perspective, women of color need to enter this conversation. Both men and women are essential to developing and sustaining the family, therefore, the discourse on academic work-family integration and the associated gender gap needs to include both sexes. So, while strides have been made to assist women, especially those with children, in integrating family and work and becoming more represented across higher education positions in mid-career, there is still a lot of work that need to be done.

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Chapter 4

Career Advancement Experiences of Mid-Career Women Faculty and Those across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas Carrie Graham and Jennifer McGarry

Abstract Scholars have reported the intersectional identity of women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas has impacted their career advancement experiences and job satisfaction, or a positive response as a result of a job being fulfilling, and in step with one’s values (Callister, 2006). However, little is known about the career advancement experiences of women faculty across ethnic groups in mid-to-later career stages. This chapter explores how faculty with intersectional identities experience workplace barriers, engage in career decision-making and persist in the professoriate. Also discussed are the limitations of mentoring and strain of workplace experiences on women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas.

Keywords intersectionality – invalidation – tenure and promotion – marginalization

1

Introduction

Mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas (ALANAD) have additional challenging experiences with career advancement and job satisfaction compared to their Caucasian, particularly male, colleagues. Researchers found these additional challenges were due to the women’s intersectional identities. The 2016 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty Statistics showed that women faculty across African American/ Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Bi-/Multi-ethnicities held the highest percentage of assistant professor positions and the lowest percentage at the full professor level in the United States © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_005

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(National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). These findings remained disproportionate despite the changes in U.S. demographic statistics, the increased rate of ALANAD women earning terminal degrees and entering faculty positions, and an eight-year Obama era that supported the advancement of women and all underrepresented individuals (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 2016). The 2016 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty Statistics (NCES, 2017) provided a comprehensive snapshot of faculty rates across different post-secondary institutions. In 2016, there were 815,760 reported faculty nationwide, consistent with demographic reporting in research, faculty across various ethnic groups were disproportionately underrepresented as seen in Table 4.1. The differences in percentage rates show that women across African American/Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Bi-/Multi-ethnicities are not progressing through promotion and tenure at rates comparable to their Caucasian colleagues. Scholars contend that barriers grounded in racial discrimination have a significant impact on faculty across ethnic groups being granted tenure (Abdul-Raheem, 2016; Arnold, Crawford, & Khalifa, 2016). Our discussion rests on scholarship across disciplines that explored retention, career advancement, and job satisfaction of women faculty across ALANAD in higher education. The term diaspora describes individuals whose current residence reflects historic, modern, political, or personal relocation from their homeland. In this chapter diaspora is used to reflect the movement of ethnic groups to the United States. Scholars across cultural and national identities discussed diasporic identity to provide context for describing experiences (Castaneda, Mambutu, & Rios, 2006; Duany, 2000; Hall, 2014; Takenaka, 2019). Haig-Brown (2009) provided a strong case for the use of diaspora as a descriptor. Duany (2000) challenges scholars to “consider not only people’s movement or dispersal and the homeland from which they have come, but of the lands and histories of the people in the places where they arrive” (p. 6). For purposes of this chapter, we as authors, like others (Bonilla-Silva, 2017), acknowledge these diasporic groups have been marginalized in American society and we embrace the use of Diaspora as a descriptor to elicit a social justice perspective among readers. In this chapter, we discuss the experiences of mid-career women faculty across ALANAD identities as they seek promotion and tenure toward full professor and explore factors that contribute to the disproportionate rate of mid-career women across ethnic groups at the tenured level. Women enter the professoriate at different times during their working lives (Coate, KandikoHowson, & de St Croix, 2015); some enter academia after completing their

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table 4.1  Number (percentage) of faculty demographics across all ranks

Ethnic identity

Total faculty

Full professor

Associate professor

Assistant professor

African American/ Black women African American/ Black men American Indian/ American native women American Indian/ American native men Asian women

25,425 3.12% 19,128 2.34% 1,826 0.22% 1,722 0.21% 32,906 4.03% 46,591 5.71% 591 0.072% 3,812 0.47% 3,386 0.41% 18,427 2.26% 19,086 2.34% 264,968 32.48% 310,326 38.04%

2,817 0.34% 4,054 0.50% 236 0.029% 376 0.046% 4,426 0.54% 13,166 1.61% 131 0.016% 372 0.046% 649 0.080% 2,263 0.28% 3,966 0.49% 47,552 5.83% 98,497 12.07%

4,775 0.58% 4,316 0.53% 310 0.038% 288 0.035% 6,994 0.86% 10,514 1.29% 111 0.014% 621 0.076% 611 0.075% 3,242 0.40% 3,866 0.47% 52,653 6.45% 63,068 7.73%

6,932 0.85% 4,211 0.52% 349 0.043% 275 0.034% 9,498 1.16% 10,491 1.29% 148 0.018% 1,081 0.13% 811 0.099% 4,178 0.51% 3,960 0.48% 60,572 7.42% 54,980 6.74%

Asian men Pacifijic Islander men Bi-/multi-ethnic women Bi-/multi-ethnic men Latinx women Latinx men Caucasian women Caucasian men

post-secondary education, while others work within their selected industry (i.e., nursing, politics) and then enter higher education as faculty. Given the differences of when women enter the professoriate, we define mid-career as someone who is over 40. This definition includes tenure-track assistant professors who may have come to academia later or delayed their tenure clock for family/medical leave but are seeking promotion and tenure; as well as tenured associate professors

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seeking full professor positions. We give attention to barriers that impede career advancement and job satisfaction for mid-career ALANAD women faculty. The chapter focuses on the centrality of their intersectional identities to their mid-career experiences and career decision-making.

2

Review of Intersectional Identities

Crenshaw (1989) established intersectionality as a framework to describe the marginalized experiences of women and Blacks who have a history of being subject to discrimination. She identified individuals who hold one marginalized identity as also holding partial privilege. Crenshaw argued that Black men have privilege associated with gendered maleness, while White women’s privilege is associated with their white identity; but this is not the case for women across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporic identities. For these women, efforts to challenge racial and sexist discrimination are often met with compounded resistance (Nyugen, 2016; Wolfe & Dilworth, 2015). Unfortunately, there remains a misconception that the experiences of African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporic women share the same experiences as Caucasian women, this misconception ignores the influence of ethnicity on life experiences (Turner, 2002). There is also a disregard for dissimilarity of experiences between ethnic groups. For three decades scholars argued that the intersection of gender and ethnicity creates challenging experiences for women across ALANAD. Due to growing interest in diversity and inclusion some scholars have expanded Crenshaw’s (1989) original intersectionality theory across other ethnic and social identities to include age (Calasanti & King, 2015), sexual orientation (Taylor, Hines, & Casey, 2010), or ability (Hernández-Saca, Gutmann Kahn, & Cannon, 2018; Shaw, Chan, & McMahon, 2012) as part of their use of intersectional identity theory. Researchers have suggested that more studies should include a focus on subgroups of faculty (Blackwell, Snyder, & Mavriplis, 2009). Particularly, scholars have pushed for intersectional work that examines how race and gender affects female faculty across the ALANAD; “… individuals do not experience their environment from the perspective of one identity at a time; in fact, these identities combine and interact” (Griffin, Bennett, & Harris, 2011, p. 58). Studies should disaggregate findings both by race, gender, and their intersection. It is only then that we can approach an understanding of how social identities affect faculty members. Discussing mid-career women faculty with ALANAD identities requires acknowledgement of the differences between their experiences. For mid-career

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women in general, personal and professional life decisions are guided by age and position in their career lifespan. For women across ALANAD, ethnic identities have different histories of discrimination and are often at the center of their present marginalized experiences (Bonilla-Silva, 2015). To challenge existing inequalities within the professoriate and support social justice, we present that mid-career faculty women who hold intersectional identities experience more significant barriers.

3

Barriers to Promotion and Tenure

Scholars have investigated the experiences of mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas across science, technology, engineering, and math (Hurtado & Figueroa, 2013), medical (Hassouneh, Lutz, Beckett, Junkins, & Horton, 2014; Pololi, Cooper, & Carr, 2010), education (Carey, Carman, Clayton, Horiuchi, Htun, & Ortiz, 2018), and social science (McCall, 2005) disciplines. A consistent theme throughout empirical research is that ALANAD women are marginalized and experience significant microaggressions due to their intersectional identities, contributing to workplace barriers throughout their careers. Some scholars (Armstrong & Jovanovic, 2015; Carey et al., 2018) reported these barriers negatively influenced ethnic women’s promotion and tenure, job satisfaction, and retention. Cox (2008) presents evidence for the revolving door and poor promotion and tenure rates of ALANAD women faculty at the University of Michigan. Twenty-eight women who self-identified as African American, Black (non-American), Latina, Asian, and Asian American and left the university shared experiences of devaluation of scholarship and intellect, being over represented in service roles, lack of transparency in tenure processes, lack of social support, and hostile classrooms. Cox highlights narrative examples of microaggressions as a contributing factor to the women’s experiences and reasons for departure. As stated, scholars across disciplines shared similar empirical findings, providing a valid argument that these barriers exist (Armstrong & Jovanovic, 2015; Carey et al., 2018). Although research has been presented in outlets accessible to higher education administrators, marginalization continues to be an issue for mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas in various disciplines. Research has also highlighted the nuanced experiences of different ethnic groups, yet the central theme across all groups is that women faculty are marginalized based on intersectional identity stereotypes held by Caucasian, often male, colleagues. For example, Asian women struggled with stereotypes

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of being model minorities (Nyugen, 2016), while Pacific Islander (Kaʻōpua, 2013), and Native American (Fox, 2005) women wrestled with the disconnection between reflecting their ethnic culture in their work and the homogeneity of higher education. Studies about women faculty from African (Arnold, Crawford, & Khalifa, 2016) and Latinx (Oliva, Rodríguez, Alanís, & Cerecer, 2013) Diasporas showed that negative stereotypes and biases about scholarship, teaching abilities, and service commitments were manifested by colleagues through marginalizing behaviors such as invalidation. For instance, Carey et al. (2018) argued that Caucasian colleagues’ implicit and institutional biases about diversity had a significant impact on ALANAD women’s tenure and career decision-making. Prior to Carey et al. (2018), scholars found that behaviors of, and institutional practices associated with, intersectional discrimination created barriers to the career advancement of mid-career women faculty across ethnic identities. A review of literature focused on mid-career women faculty across ethnic groups revealed three consistent barriers to promotion and tenure: (1) unequal service expectations, (2) invalidation of one’s identity, and (3) the changing needs of faculty over time. 3.1 Barrier 1: Unequal Service Expectations For faculty, meeting service expectations is critical for promotion and tenure, and ultimately career advancement. However, while seeking promotion and tenure, there are disproportionate service expectations and responsibilities for mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas compared to their male and Caucasian colleagues (Elliott, Dorscher, Wirta, & Hill, 2010; Kaʻōpua, 2013; Kosobuski & Rebecca, 2013). Quantitative studies and qualitative investigations on gendered faculty service reported women and ALANAD faculty engaged in more service than men and Caucasians. Guarino and Borden (2017) compared service commitments of female and male faculty and using a multiple regression analysis found women had one more on-campus service obligation than men. It was also identified that women engaged in more off-campus professional and community service obligations than men. A quantitative analysis of service among faculty in Arizona public universities found faculty across ethnic groups spent more time than Caucasians engaging in campus and community service (Wood, Hilton, & Nevarez, 2015). The researchers used proportional stratified sampling and thorough reliability testing to reveal faculty across African, Latinx, and Asian Diasporas (N.B. no Native American faculty were included) spent twice as much time engaged in service on institutional committees and professional organizations than Caucasian faculty.

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Qualitative investigations of faculty service experiences give voice to the burdens of unequal service expectations of women faculty across ALANAD. These narratives highlighted experiences of tokenism (Lopez & Johnson, 2014; Settles, Buchanan, & Dotson, 2018), unequal work overload (Baez, 2000; Martinez Alemán, 2014; O’Meara, 2016), and invalidation of contributions to the department and discipline (Fox, 2005). As described in an empirical study on the experiences of women faculty across African, Latinx and Asian Diasporas in athletic training education (Graham, 2018) one mid-career tenured Mexican American woman shared “the expectations for department faculty were different, most women were non-tenure track, and all men were tenured” (p. 107). She went on to describe being overwhelmed by her numerous required and recommended committee service obligations. Similarly, in a study of invisibility of Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and American Indian faculty, Settles, Buchanan, and Dotson (2018) reported one participant’s perception: Now if I were vain, I would think, “Oh they want me to do all these things because I’m so good and I’m so valuable,” (pause) but on the other hand, I know in some parts, it has to do with the perception of representation, “This committee would look better if we had a [racial minority group] professor on it ….” Given their intersectional identity, these women faculty are often sought to represent both gender and ethnic seats on committees at institutions with low rates of ethnic faculty (O’Meara, Kuvaeva, Nyunt, Waugaman, & Jackson, 2017). Scholars identified cultural identity taxation (Hirshfield & Joseph, 2012; Padilla, 1994; Shaver, Butler, & Moore, 2015) and tokenism (Lopez & Johnson, 2014) as additional burdens for ALANAD women faculty. Padilla (1994) described cultural taxation as: The obligation to show good citizenship toward the institution by serving its needs for ethnic representation on committees, or to demonstrate knowledge and commitment to a cultural group, which may even bring accolades to the institution but which is not usually rewarded by the institution on whose behalf the service was performed. (p. 26) Hirshfield and Joseph (2012) expanded Padilla’s (1994) concept of cultural taxation to account for the intersection of gender and ethnicity and address the burdens of intersectionality. They provided qualitative evidence that ethnic women are asked more often to serve and to spend more time serving in various roles. Matthews (2014) reaffirmed that the “toll is heavier on women and

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faculty of color,” not to mention the intersection of gender and ethnicity, due to underrepresentation and being over-asked at the department, institution, and discipline levels (p. 1). The concept of tokenism has been studied across disciplines for over 20 decades and serves to underpin the burden of intersectionality on service expectations. Tokenism has been described as the hypervisibility of faculty due to their underrepresented identity and coincides with a sense of invisibility as their contributions are devalued and invalidated (O’Meara, Kuvaeva, Nyunt, Waugaman, & Jackson, 2017; Settles et al., 2018). Settles et al. (2018) described devaluation was demonstrated as the insight and advice of the faculty member was not acknowledged, utilized or provided credit reinforcing the message that one’s presence was only figurative. Cultural identity taxation and tokenism obligate women faculty with ALANAD identities to unequal service expectations such as the burdensome expectation to “provide the minority perspective … educate whites about minority culture” (Lopez & Johnson, 2014, p. 392), or represent all who share their ethnic identity (Murakami & Núñez, 2014). Mid-career women faculty across ALANAD are often asked to serve as mentors to underrepresented students and junior faculty, regardless of differences in ethnic identity (Johnson-Bailey & Cervero, 2004) or despite the incongruence between student academic interests and faculty expertise. These increased mentoring responsibilities were described as time consuming and detracted from research and teaching, both of which are salient to promotion and tenure. Nevertheless, these women felt compelled to serve underrepresented students (Bridgeforth, 2014; Smooth, 2016). 3.2 Barrier 2: Identity Invalidation Invalidation of intersectional identity was another challenge to mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas. The assertion that all women experience the same challenges, regardless of ethnicity has served to invalidate the unique challenges of being women and members of underrepresented ethnic groups (Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013; Crenshaw, 1989). In disciplines such as science, technology, engineering, and math faculty are often invalidated because of their ethnic identity and their gender. Women from various ethnic groups have experienced ethnic invalidations consistent with Sue et al.’s (2007) taxonomy of racial microaggressions, specifically microinvalidations as frequent “communications that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of a person of Color” (p. 274). The phrases glass ceiling and gender achievement gap evolved from decades of research on women’s inability to progress

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professionally because of perceptions that women are unequipped and lack access to influential networks (Bishu, Guy, & Heckler, 2019). Although women across ethnic identity groups have been invalidated, there is research to support that the focus of invalidation is distinct per ethnic group. The invalidation of Hawaiian and Native American women faculty has centered on their connection to culture, as some have sought to weave their culture into their research and community service. Kaʻōpua (2013) found Caucasian faculty and administrators devalued and disrespected native Hawaiian culture, such that tenured Hawaiian women faculty were instructed not to incorporate cultural traditions into their work. Mid-career Native American women faculty, across five different tribes, reported job-related challenges as they valued their cultural focus on connectedness to family, community, nature, and creator (Elliott et al., 2010). Kosobuski (2013) pointed out that Native American medical faculty were connected to their communities by providing public health education and researching community health issues. Yet, Pololi, Cooper, and Carr (2010) argued the focus on Native American health was not considered valuable research by Caucasian colleagues. One Native American medical faculty shared that she had an administrator tell her she “… could pass for white and my life would be much easier, why did I not?” (Kosobuski, 2013, p. 56). Latinx women, particularly those of Mexican descent (Niemann, 1999; Oliva et al., 2013), reported similar invalidations of unspoken expectations to hide their ethnic identities, unacceptance or indifference to their cultures, and a spoken and an unspoken devaluation of work connected to their cultures. Overall, these women struggled to balance their cultural commitment against normative Caucasian and male beliefs. Counter stories shared by tenured women faculty in education, medicine, humanities, and STEM reveal the breadth and depth of invalidation illustrated through stereotyping. A common stereotype assigned to women of African descent is that of the angry Black woman when she attempts to defend, or advocate for herself. The epithet invalidates the historical, emotional, and intellectual struggles of discriminated African Diasporic women and used to silence her. In addition to the angry Black woman epithet, Davis and Brown (2017) cautioned against the strong Black woman label citing it also creates unique and negative consequences for women faculty with African Diaspora identities as strength is not a stereotypical communal quality associated with women (Bishu, Guy, & Heckler, 2019). Likewise, Asian faculty are often labeled model minorities, a stereotype that assumes “Asians are hard workers who quietly achieve high results” or characterizes them as passive and obedient (Nguyen, 2016, p. 130). The model minority epithet invalidates intersectional Asian voices and expectations of gender and ethnic equality. The use of these

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epithets as communications (Bonilla-Silva, 2017; Gordon & Johnson, 2003; Sue et al., 2007, 2008) that challenge a woman’s ethnic identity and behavior to fit the hegemonic culture in higher education. Stereotyping invalidates by discounting gender, ethnic identities, intersectional experiences, and professional contributions. As a result, these stereotyping invalidations help create barriers that mid-career, ALANAD women faculty must contend with as they continue to seek career advancement and job satisfaction. 3.3 Barrier 3: Changing Needs A last barrier for mid-career women across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas is changing needs over time. The mid-career stage is unique to each woman and is a time when many are exploring and resolving changes in career aspirations. Coate, Kandiko-Howson, and de St. Croix (2015) pointed out that women enter the professoriate in a variety of ways and at different times due to personal and professional circumstances. The variable of time of entry can make navigating personal and professional needs challenging and can guide job advancement decisions. These authors also echoed the current focus on the imbalance of mentoring support for women in the early-career stage compared to women in the mid-career stage. As a result, there remains a limited understanding of mid-career women’s experiences and professional needs. Given the individual differences among the backgrounds and identities of women faculty, it is not fully understood if cultural roles and expectations also change as these women age. If cultural roles change with age, ALANAD women who are strongly connected to their cultures face another complex barrier to career advancement. For example, one Native American medical faculty member described being from “a matriarchal tribe where women are supposed to be strong … are supposed to take care of those more vulnerable” (Kosobuski, 2013, p. 54). It is plausible that as this woman incorporates her culture with her work role, she would assume additional mentoring roles resulting in increased service. As mid-career aspirations evolve, so do the mentoring needs of women faculty. Early research explained that organizational socialization is a challenge for women, those transitioning into different roles during their career progression (Nelson, 1987), and faculty across ethnic groups (Parker & Ogilvie, 1996). Ferris, Daniels, and Sexton (2014) presented a strong case for a different type of mentoring for individuals across ALANAD given discrimination linked to their historical pasts. The authors argued that access to information escapes these individuals because of their limited social networks, a context consistent with historical marginalization. This lack of access stifles organizational navigation and socialization skill development.

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Mid-career women faculty with African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diaspora identities experience a perpetual need for mentoring in order to navigate complex higher education institutions. Their roles within their personal cultures and positionality within the institutional culture may change throughout their careers. Barriers such as identity invalidation and unequal service expectations can alter their mentoring needs as they seek to advance their careers. Efforts to navigate these long-term barriers for mid-career faculty contribute to experiences of racial battle fatigue, stress, and depression (Arnold, Crawford, & Khalifa, 2016; Ferris, Daniels, & Sexton, 2014; Hudson, Neighbors, Geronimus, & Jackson, 2015). In particular, it must be noted that fatigue, stress, and depression, or racial battle fatigue, “can become lethal when the accumulation of physiological symptoms … are untreated, unnoticed, or personally dismissed” (Smith, Yosso, & Solórzano, 2006, p. 301). These intense psychosocial experiences are not experienced by Caucasian colleagues and necessitate mentoring support related to discriminatory stereotypes, nuanced socialization (Sulé, 2013), and advocacy for professional growth (Pfund, Byars-Winston, Branchaw, Hurtado, & Eagan, 2016). Due to the lack of mentors who can relate, or may share these psychosocial experiences, these women’s mentoring needs often remain unmet, further challenging their continued career advancement (Graham, 2018; Johnson-Bailey & Cervero, 2004; Murakami & Núñez, 2014). Marginalization based on intersectionality is the center of the barriers that impede career advancement for mid-career women faculty women across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas. Marginalization contributes to the incurred unequal service expectations. Next, the cultural pride women have is typically not valued in higher education and its validity in promotion and tenure is frequently disregarded (Elliott et al., 2010; Kosobuski, 2013). And finally, mid-career women’s personal and professional aspirations and expectations change over time. Research has shown that associate professors, particularly those in rank for longer, are among the least satisfied faculty, with the impact being felt more acutely by members of the ALANAD (Matthews, 2014). Given that intersectionality and dissatisfaction align here, scholars need to work to understand and address marginalization in higher education and the experiences of mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas.

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Tenure and Career Decision Making

The following section is an exploration of how perceptions of marginalization, promotion, and tenure processes influence career decision making for

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mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas. We know that mid-career faculty in general compose the largest segment of the academic workforce, yet there is little research on their experiences, and particularly for those who are minoritized. Developmental theories and applications also demonstrate that mid-career poses distinctive challenges for faculty—complete with life transitions, reflection on life and career, and reassessment of priorities (Baldwin, DeZure, Shaw, & Moretto, 2008; Matthews, 2014). Mid-career faculty can stagnate or stall in the pursuit of promotion, or they receive promotion only to stagnate or stall in pursuit of next steps (Nottis, 2005). They are also immersed in a time of increasingly varied faculty appointments due to growing enrollments and shrinking budgets. Colleges and universities are hiring larger numbers of fixed term faculty, often without research or service expectations. As a result, some mid-career faculty find themselves being asked to assume additional service, administrative, and leadership roles that were once shared across a larger number of faculty (Mamiseishvili, Miller, & Lee, 2016). In some cases, the added responsibilities can jump start the stagnated or stalled faculty member, but in others they can overburden faculty who still need to commit significant time to their scholarship. Overall, the absence of research on mid-career faculty can lead, and has led, to a lack of attention to them, their work, and their job advancement (Canale, Herdklotz, & Wild, 2013). In addition, life as a mid-career faculty member “… can be even more isolating and overwhelming than being an assistant professor on the tenure track … associate professors are often left to figure out how to manage the varying demands of the job …” (Wilson, 2012). As Rockquemore (2011) found, once faculty reach mid-career they face different challenges about their work, positions, and leadership. As result, they continue to need mentoring, or even increased mentoring from what they needed in the early career stage. While the pressure of promotion and tenure has been relieved, increased work responsibilities and less formal support mechanisms follow. Mid-career faculty struggle with goals and how they want to shape the next stage of their careers (Canale, Herdklotz, & Wild, 2013). In a large-scale survey of mid-career faculty supported by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE), Matthews (2014) found that how success is defined in mid-career was the key to identifying faculty dissatisfaction. The lack of clarity on how teaching and service are valued can define mid-career success. And, a focus on research excellence as the primary measure has led to the undervaluing of the critical work of mid-career faculty. It should not come as a surprise that, “anyone who is not mainstream has higher stresses” (Baldwin et al., 2008). Faculty and administrators across

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gender and ethnic identities have noted that African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas faculty continue to have additional challenges during mid-career. ALANAD women at the associate level spend more time teaching and engaging in service than on scholarship (Gardner & Blackstone, 2013; Link, Swann, & Bozeman, 2008; Misra, Lundquist, Holmes, & Agiomavritis, 2011) as well as have more responsibilities outside of work (Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2015). In a large-scale study of law professors, Mertz and her colleagues found that ALANAD male scholars and women are significantly more likely to experience low job satisfaction in academia. Women across ALANAD were the least satisfied of all demographic groups. Both survey-based and interview data highlighted ethnic and gender differences related to job satisfaction (Mertz et al., 2011). Mid-career female faculty also report being less satisfied in their positions than their male counterparts (Buch, Huet, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011; Trower, 2011). The lack of satisfaction is directly related to ALANAD faculty being more likely to indicate intent to leave their positions (O’Meara & Campbell, 2011). Higher service demands and more teaching are two common factors. Additionally, ALANAD women faculty also reported negative experiences with diversity and fair treatment. They believe they must continue to point out the value of having a diverse faculty to their colleagues. Other examples of negative occurrences include being marginalized through less access to information, limited opportunities to provide input on decision-making, and fewer leadership opportunities (O’Meara & Campbell, 2011). In a recent study of midto-late career women across African, Latinx, and Asian Diasporas in a health education program, Graham (2018) found the faculty used their interpretations of their own marginalization to make career decisions. One later-career woman reflected on her decades of being marginalized, overworked, and nearing retirement shared, It’s just too much. Something is going to happen, and I hope that it works out that it can be a little transition [to a non-academic job], and then I can make a jump, but I would leave it in a minute, and not because of the teaching. Because of the climate. I think I’ve had enough. Baldwin and Chang (2006) examined the systemic challenges that influence mid-career faculty development. Simply put, mid-career faculty tend to lack support for career reflection, assessment, planning, and action. While there are institutions who effectively engage in some aspects of mid-career faculty development, few institutions communicate across schools, colleges, and departments to coordinate efforts, and even fewer are including assessment to inform which practices are most effective for faculty (e.g., mentoring, networking,

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teaching support, research support, awards and recognition, connections to mid-career faculty development opportunities at conferences and workshops). In a study that spanned 22 research-intensive institutions, Zambrana and her colleagues (2015) interviewed 58 faculty across the ALANAD to find that the major barriers related to mentoring and associated support. Effective mentoring can assist ALANAD faculty in accruing social capital and connecting with others who understand the specific challenges for underrepresented faculty. Additionally, strong mentoring can aid ALANAD faculty in positioning the importance of their scholarship in cases where their focus areas and research methods (e.g. community engaged) are not understood and/or valued by those who are evaluating them. In order to increase the likelihood of women faculty across the African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas being satisfied in their position, the study recommended that institutions train mentors about ALANAD-specific needs, institutional leaders work to identify mentors who have experience and skills in working with ALANAD women even if that means looking outside their own institution, and, as a result, develop and sustain a culture of strong mentoring for ALANAD women (Zambrana et al., 2015). Additional studies in educational research illustrate how women faculty made meaning of, and responded to, being marginalized. Given the disproportionate amount of time the majority of women faculty spend on the less recognized and rewarded responsibilities (i.e., teaching and service), they are often viewed as less “productive” than their male colleagues and gain fewer leadership experiences as well (Misra et al., 2011; Trower, 2012; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2013). Mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas have been more likely than their Caucasian colleagues to state they must work harder to be perceived as a legitimate scholar. And, they are far less likely to be asked to serve, or to apply for, leadership roles during mid-career and beyond (O’Meara & Campbell, 2011). ALANAD women faculty were also less likely to agree that opportunities for them were at least equal to their peers. Expectations continue to be influenced by ethnicity and gender, and the promotion and tenure system reflects these biases (Cress & Hart, 2009). Picking up on leadership role marginalization, a study by Jackson and O’Callaghan (2011) applied the glass ceiling framework (Cotter, Hermsen, Ovadia, & Vanneman, 2001; Maume, 2004), typically used to examine the lack of advancement of women in the workforce, to examine the effects of ethnicity on the advancement of faculty. The glass ceiling represents the perspective that marginalized individuals identify positions above theirs but struggle to reach them. Systemic barriers, both explicit and implicit, including job requirements, workplace culture, and individual and collective biases, limit

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advancement (Jackson & O’Callaghan, 2011). By utilizing The National Center for Educational Statistics designed and conducted National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, researchers found that entry to the professoriate presented a significant barrier to ALANAD faculty. However, if these faculty persist, the study revealed some increasingly positive outcomes. While gender and ethnicity had a significant impact on the access of women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas to associate professor positions, these identities were not as significant a barrier for access to full professor positions. The reverse was true of academic leadership positions where women across the ALANAD had access to enter and hold mid-level positions, but their intersecting identities significantly impacted their access to upper level leadership positions (O’Meara & Campbell, 2011). O’Meara and Campbell outlined four possible paths that faculty in their study could have experienced over their careers to explain the results: (a) voluntary removal from the system (e.g., leave the academy) for more “impactful” work in other sectors; (b) mandatory removal from the system (e.g., denied promotion and tenure); (c) became disenchanted with career choice and institution (e.g., low morale and job performance); and (d) maintained a high level of job satisfaction during this phase which permits one to persevere—or what the racial battle fatigue framework calls “surviving and thriving” (Arnold et al., 2016, p. 92). Strong mentors and supportive environments are typically associated with one another and tend to lead to higher job satisfaction. Higher job satisfaction leads to decreased work-related stress, and ultimately faculty longevity (Zambrana et al., 2015). The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources released a report providing further support for the representation and experience of women professionals across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas (McChesney, 2018). The report demonstrated an inequity in median pay because of women being over-represented in entry level positions (i.e., 45% of the population and 50% of entry level higher education positions). Next, women across the diasporas have lower-paid jobs overall (i.e., $.67 on the dollar to white men with men across the diaspora at $.72 and white women $.81) and are underrepresented in senior level positions. While ALANAD men are also underrepresented in these positions, they are paid more in senior level positions than the few women across the diasporas who make it to upper administration. The findings demonstrated both the impact of the intersection of gender and ethnicity, as well as the intersection of representation and pay (McChesney, 2018). It should not, then, be surprising that ALANAD faculty experience at least some, if not extensive, stress as a result of the discrimination they face. Eagan

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and Garvey (2015) reported that faculty from underrepresented groups experienced stress as a result of subtle, even implicit, bias between 13–18% more often than their Caucasian peers. In fact, for women of the ALANAD, stress is an inherent part of work (Turner, Gonzalez, & Wong, 2011). And, it has also been shown that as stress increases, academic productivity for ALANAD faculty decreases (Eagan & Garvey, 2015). When academic productivity decreases in an environment where that productivity is prioritized, ALANAD may be more apt to intend to leave. Despite the negative climate of representation and pay, several institutions have reported the positive impact of professional development and mentoring programs for women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas on their campuses. San Jose State University developed a professional renewal retreat program for all faculty and found that women faculty and ALANAD faculty composed more than half of the participants despite the program being framed as for the general faculty. Strage and Merdinger (2015) found that mid-career faculty most sought to develop positive relationships with colleagues through the program, something historically lacking and identified as critical to job satisfaction and retention. Secondly, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst developed an innovative program—the Mutual Mentoring Initiative. Again, women and faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas in general were overrepresented as participants although the program was open to all faculty in tenure-earning positions. Yun, Baldi, and Sorcinelli (2016) discovered the program’s structure was focused on reciprocal relationship building. Previous research demonstrated that women faculty, particularly Diasporic individuals appreciate more fluid mentoring programs that are grounded in collegiality and preface collaboration and a balance of professional and personal interactions (see also, Trower, 2011). Women across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas experience negative differential treatment as faculty and higher education professionals. This differential treatment is particularly challenging during the mid-career stage, assuming these women have remained in the academy to that stage. Arnold and her colleagues (2016) stated the “pipeline for faculty of color is still fragile” (p. 913) in highlighting the narrative of Nina, a recently tenured Black woman faculty member at a research-intensive institution. The researchers reference other scholars who have also researched the psychosocial impacts of the racialized culture of higher education (Hudson, Neighbors, Geronimus, & Jackson, 2015; Shavers, Butler, & Moore, 2014). The collective message is that even for mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas who survive the tenure and promotion

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process, and are perceived as thriving, there can be a tremendous toll on their physical and mental health. Mentoring programs are not going to address that toll in and of themselves, while they can make an impact and should be a part of each institution’s plan to place more focus on the progression of mid-career women faculty across ethnic identities. Institutions must engage with the faculty members themselves, and on their terms, in constructing structures and policies that can dismantle the racism of academia (Arnold et al., 2016) and lead to more ALANAD women experiencing the level of job satisfaction necessary to remain in academia.

5

Conclusion

As scholars continue to explore the career advancement experiences of faculty who have gender and ethnic intersectional identities, there remains conclusive evidence that women faculty across singular and multi-African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas, particularly at mid-career, are underrepresented (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017). Although these women share some similar marginalizing experiences, they also have dissimilar experiences unique to their ethnic group’s cultural, regional, and historical identity. The impact of being marginalized is compounded as ALANAD women move into the mid-career stage because of their intersectional identities, duration in the professoriate, and evolved career aspirations. Similarly, Diasporic women who are tenured may find long-term marginalization in higher education inhibits their promotion to full professor or other leadership roles. And, for many mid-career ALANAD women faculty the experience of long-term marginalization has implications for their overall career decision-making. There is emerging evidence (e.g. Arnold et al., 2016) that these experiences affect women’s health and wellness, and likelihood of persevering into the later-career stage. The goal of leaders and advocates in higher education should be to establish policies, practices, and resources based on current research that adequately support the recruitment, retention, and satisfaction of mid-career women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas. Future research should expand investigations of mid-career women faculty across diasporas experiences and explore their progress into later stages of their careers. The exploration of racial battle fatigue across mid- and late-career is also a critical component worthy of further investigation. These findings will provide a clear understanding of the career advancement experiences of women faculty across African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas throughout their professional life span.

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PART 2 Strategies to Support Mid-Career Faculty

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Chapter 5

Making Time: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty through Mentoring Michael Bernard-Donals

Abstract The provost’s office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created a pilot “mid-career mentoring program” which creates opportunities for mid-career faculty to work with a more senior faculty member, creating a kind of time that punctuates the academic rhythms of teaching, research, and service. This essay describes the program and its outcomes, and its creation of mentoring spaces that create not only the longitudinal temporality required for research and planning (chronos), but also those moments of opportunity (kairos) that are sometimes lost amidst the chaotic swirl of the academic work-place.

Keywords mentoring – time – chronos – kairos – mid-career – faculty

1

Introduction

A series of surveys and focus groups with mid-career faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was designed to understand what prevents them from advancing in their careers. In those surveys and focus groups, associate professors said what they wanted most was time—more than financial support, or awards recognizing their accomplishments—to do their work and create the networks necessary to do it. This isn’t surprising; after ‘protecting’ assistant professors from service and governance while they’re trying to earn tenure, once they’ve crossed that threshold most of the support they received (in the form of, say, review committees or formal mentoring) disappears and associate professors are asked to fully participate in the governance of the university through service on departmental, college, and university committees. This change is happening at a time when many mid-career faculty have growing © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_006

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obligations to their families and their research programs are finally taking on new momentum. It’s no wonder that associate professors, even those whose research and teaching programs are on track, worry about whether this phase of their work will prove to be a career graveyard. Studies written over the last several years make clear that the situation for mid-career faculty, while it doesn’t have to be dire, often is, largely because of greater demands on the faculty members’ time. A study of mid-career faculty members published by the Modern Language Association (2009) noted that women languished behind men in their time to promotion to full professor because of the time women spend on childcare in addition to academic work, and with time spent on teaching rather than research (MLA, 2009). A survey conducted by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (Mathews, 2014) frames the problem of mid-career “let-down” in terms of “increased teaching load, greater expectations for service and advising, a more competitive market for grants,” and being asked to “serve more, advise more, show up more” (p. 1). Respondents noted that in a twenty-four hour day, there was only so much time to accomplish what was necessary to achieve promotion to full professor. During the 2014–2015 academic year, the provost’s office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison charged a working group to better understand both the impingements upon the time of associate professors and to investigate what kinds of support would best help them make the transition from tenure to fully-productive teacher-scholars at the rank of full professor. The working group found that while associate professors wanted more time to do their work in order to be promoted, they wanted a different kind of time from what we typically think of as most valuable in academic work, the long stretches of uninterrupted time in which one can write and conduct scientific and archival work. Among several recommendations made to the provost was the creation of a pilot “mid-career mentoring program” which—consistent with a great deal of research on best practices for the support of mid-career faculty (Beauboeuf, Erickson, & Thomas, 2017; Mathews, 2013; MLA, 2009)—involves shorter moments of engaged work with a more senior faculty member that punctuate the academic rhythms of teaching, research, and service. This essay will describe the process undertaken by the mid-career working group to assess the research on mid-career efficacy, understand the obstacles and challenges of mid-career faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and survey programs available to support mid-career faculty and other research-intensive universities. The essay describes the design of a mentoring program, which directly addresses the needs of mid-career faculty as disclosed in that research, particularly through its process for identifying

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mentors and prospective program participants, the criteria for making mentormentee pair matches, the principles of mentorship that underwrite the program, and the architecture of its two-year curriculum. The conclusion of the essay notes some of the outcomes of the program during its two-year pilot phase through surveys and focus discussions, explores the ways in which the mid-career mentoring program met (and failed to meet) its objectives, and describes what lessons were learned about the value of time for mid-career faculty. The point of the essay, aside from describing the program and its outcomes, is to map the relation between the creation of mentoring spaces—the forging of a relation between faculty at mid-career and more senior faculty in which work-life integration is at its center—and the way that relation seeks to create time, not just the longitudinal temporality required for research and planning (chronos), but also those moments of opportunity (kairos) that are sometimes lost amidst the chaotic swirl of the academic work-place. Smith (2002) writes of these two concepts that in chronos, we have the fundamental conception of time as a measure, the quantity of duration, the length of periodicity, the age of an object. … By contrast, the term kairos points to as qualitative character of time … to a season when something appropriately happens that cannot happen just at “any time,” but only at “that time.” (p. 47) Kairos is not only a ‘rightness’ of time—a moment of opportunity that emerges from the larger stretch of chronological, directional time—but also as an opening, described by the ancient Greeks as that through which the shuttle of a loom moves, the drawing together of opportunity into a space that is creative, discerning, and that may well involve a change of direction rather than the continuation of as process (Hawhee, 2014; Rickert, 2013). As will become more clear through the remainder of this essay, kairotic or opportunistic time is as crucial as longer stretches of research time to the support of mid-career faculty. Specifically, it was through the relationships established by means of the scaffolded meetings between the mentor-mentee pairs that made possible that more opportunistic time for work and created a structure allowing for priority-setting and the mid-career faculty member’s assessment of self-efficacy. While this insight will take some time to bear out with further iterations of the program over multiple years, we believe the establishment of trust and engagement early in the mentorship relation—its creation of opportunity—is a key to whatever success this program may have in supporting mid-career faculty.

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Adrift in Time

Like most large research-oriented universities, the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides a great deal of support to assistant professors while they are making their way toward tenure. University policy (Faculty Policies and Procedures [FP&P], p. 7) requires that all assistant professors, regardless of department, are supported by a review committee, made up of senior colleagues in or adjacent to their area of teaching and research, whose purpose is two-fold: to serve as a small group of mentors to support the assistant professor as they develop their trajectory toward tenure and to evaluate the assistant professor’s work each year while documenting their progress for their colleagues (FP&P, p. 7). By the same policy, each assistant professor is to receive a document in their first semester of work which contains both the criteria for promotion and tenure in their department and the process by which tenure is achieved. In practice, assistant professors are most often assigned to departmental committees whose labor is not particularly onerous, or—if they find themselves on a committee that does significant work, such as a graduate-admissions committee—they may be assigned to a smaller number of other committees than their more senior colleagues. All of this changes, however, once tenure and promotion have been achieved. As is the case at most if not all large research universities, associate professors are no longer required to have review committees (or mentors, for that matter), the benchmarks for the achievement for promotion to full professor are less clear, and with the ‘protection’ from service removed, associate professors are assigned greater governance responsibilities. This sometimes-jarring culture shift leads to a kind of mid-career drift whose results have been catalogued for years, at least since Boice wrote about his experience with building programs for mid-career faculty in the early 1990s. In “Primal Origins and Later Correctives for Midcareer Disillusionment,” Boice (1993) wrote that mid-career faculty members often experience social isolation from their colleagues, are inactive as researchers and scholars, and are—perhaps counterintuitively—particularly protective of their time and proprietary about their teaching. Mid-career faculty, or at least those who are ‘stuck’ there, are frequently described as “deadwood,” but as Beauboeuf, Thomas and Erickson (2017) found, the vast majority of mid-career faculty are active, engaged, and willing to work hard for the benefit of their students and their fields. The authors expressed surprise that more than money or time, mid-career faculty wanted recognition and a sense of belonging most of all (see Beauboeuf et al., 2017). The Modern Language Association (MLA) study of women at mid-career notes that while women take longer to earn promotion to full professor, all associate professors regardless of gender feel the

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obstacles to promotion include more professional demands including not only service but also participation in the national conversations in their fields, lack of clarity in the criteria for promotion to full professor, and because greater demands are placed on them for mentoring, committee work, and other forms of service, governance, and outreach, a lack of time for research (MLA, 2009). What’s common across all of these studies and others like them has been the consistent use of the metaphor of “adriftness” or “standing still,” a sense that the temporal trajectory from assistant to associate to full professor has become arrested, and that what’s needed to restart the trajectory is more resources and, more than anything, more time for their work (mainly research). While this sense of drift was also found in our surveys of and focus groups with mid-career faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the notion of the time necessary to regain research momentum was more complicated. The working group formed under the auspices of the office of the Provost examined the concerns of mid-career faculty at the rank of associate professor at UW-Madison, analyzed the obstacles that associate professors confronted in their trajectory toward promotion to full professor, and surveyed the kinds of programming that could benefit and support those faculty, including programs in place at peer institutions that could be adapted for use at our university. The group, which included over half a dozen faculty at the rank of associate and full professor, examined the literature on mid-career status in higher education, and surveyed a range of programs offered by other major public research universities. The group convened a series of focus groups to which associate professors across the disciplines at the university were invited. The attendees were encouraged to discuss how they experienced associate professor status (and the work such status entailed) in their units, and the structures and resources available (or unavailable) at the university that supported and stood in the way of their progress toward full participation in the profession reflected in the rank of full professor. The obstacles reported by this group included those noted in the published studies of mid-career “malaise” or “adriftness”: a lack of clarity in the criteria and processes used in the promotion of full professors; a significant growth in the expectations by departments that mid-career faculty, now tenured, take on service and governance obligations both in their departments and campus-wide; significant obligations balancing partner relationships, childcare and elder-care with an ongoing and increased pace of professional work; difficulty, particularly in the quantitative social sciences and the biological and physical sciences, in finding research funding beyond that which is offered to early-career faculty; and salary compression. When asked specifically what they needed to make a successful transition from associate to full professor more feasible, over and over again the respondents used one

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word: time. And when specifically asked whether they would prefer more resources—that is, higher salaries, more availability of federal research funding, more internal funding, or professional development opportunities in their fields for teaching and research—over more time, invariably we heard that “resources buy time.” But as associate professors described their paths (or meanderings) toward the kind of careers they associated with full professor status, another theme emerged as well: because associate professors with tenure now have the freedom, granted by tenure, to explore new aspects of their fields or to determine a path through the profession that may involve more teaching or administrative or outreach roles, they needed points of contact in the form of other more experienced colleagues, who had themselves navigated the often chaotic space between tenure and promotion to full professor, and who could serve as sounding boards, nodes in a network, and sponsors for their work. In short, they wanted mentors: not the kinds of mentors who served as members of their review committees as assistant professors, who had both an evaluative and a formative role in helping them develop a dossier of tenurable work, but those whose aim was to support, provide advice, serve as part of an intellectual community, and in some cases to serve as a lifeline in an otherwise tumultuous and non-unidirectional progression through an academic and institutional landscape that often enough doesn’t come with a map. Among the associate professors who noted mentoring would be especially valuable resource, we were told that they wanted the opportunity to talk with someone who’s been through the process, to find people who can help them “stretch” in new ways intellectually, who could help rekindle the urgency of a research project, provide advice on writing research grants, and share experiences with the complexities of work-life integration (including caring for aging parents, supporting households with school-age children, and navigating divorce or separation, all while managing an academic career). While a number of these associate professors said that they were perfectly happy without the more formal mentoring that came with the rank of assistant professor—a sense borne out in a study at the University of Michigan (n.d.) (“avoid talk of formalizing ‘mentoring’ because associate professors stated loud and clear: ‘Don’t infantilize us and return us back to a junior status’”; Monaghan, 2017)—they nonetheless agreed that interrupting the rhythms of the academic and institutional workplace was necessary, a workplace that demands rapidity, intense involvement, and significant research activity at mid-career. In short, mentoring seemed, in the eyes of many of these associate professors, to hold out the promise of a fuller engagement with other more-experienced colleagues at a time and in a space that appeared to function differently than the time those same associate

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professors seemed to want more of (those wide-open and unbroken stretches of “time for research,” which may mean different things to different people). What we’ve missed in our attempts to create supportive environments for associate professors is the distinction between two kinds of time, chronos and kairos, both of which are crucial to the development of a research program and a productive academic career. The remainder of this essay describes the creation of a mid-career mentoring program for associate professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that attempted to address this second notion of time, kairos. In practical terms, the program was built as a scaffold to move individuals from understanding a clear temporal dimension, a path forward or a trajectory of work at mid-career to a far less clear one, in which the path forward is relatively uncharted, a path that requires other ways of thinking about time as punctuation rather than extension. On this kind of path, what matters are engagements and moments of understanding one’s self-efficacy rather than only the long march of forward-moving research and teaching projects toward some end (namely promotion to full professor). In short, the program was meant to create time and space for learning and opportunity, which would cut across and support the work (and time) required for teaching and research.

3

Mid-Career Mentoring Program: A Pilot

The working group spent several months exploring what peer universities put in place for their mid-career faculty. The committee found the programming available typically fell into two distinct categories. The first was a release-time model, in which funds were set aside, usually in the office of the provost, to provide either flexible research funding or time to buy out teaching of associate professors, and were intended to extend research begun in early career. These programs were not available to all associate professors; one had to apply to receive funding. Two good examples of this kind of program are found at the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois. At the University of Michigan, the “Associate Professor Support Fund” provides up to $30,000 in flexible research funding during one’s time as an associate professor to begin or complete a project; the associate professor must be nominated by someone at the institution, and the nominations are vetted in the office of the Provost (University of Michigan, n.d.). At the University of Illinois, there is a “Mid-Career Faculty Release Time Program,” which provides one semester free of teaching during the associate professorship term for those who are nominated and then selected by the Provost’s office (University of Illinois, n.d.b).

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The second category of support program was the workshop model: here, associate professors have the option to sign up for workshops offered by either the Provost’s office or the Office of Human Resources designed to help associate professors gain skills that are useful for building an academic career. The University of Illinois includes a “Mid-Career Faculty Workshop” in its programming for faculty, a one-day seminar with concurrent sessions on topics such as leadership development, grant writing, getting a second major project started and completed, and others (University of Illinois, n.d.a). The University of California at Davis runs a “Mid-Career Faculty Workshop,” which contains a menu of two-part courses offered to mid-career faculty on issues such as faculty leadership and work-life integration. Michigan State University has successfully run for a number of years a series of workshops for associate professors (Michigan State, n.d.). Time, in these models, is chronological and kairotic, respectively: release time is meant to give associate professors a defined period of time (or resources to provide it) in which to begin or complete a research project. They function like sabbaticals, where time is defined by a project, and which generally run for a semester or a year during which time the academic work is the focus of attention. Workshops are meant to punctuate chronological time by giving the faculty member time to slow down, reflect, and interrupt the frenetic pace of the academic work-day or semester. The workshop model, however, may fail to provide what the UW-Madison focus group attendees told us they wanted most: opportunities for contact during those kairotic moments. (As we heard many times, carving out time for a workshops is just as difficult as carving out time for a faculty meeting or a campus lecture.) And very few of the models we saw in other universities provided opportunities for such contact, which so much of the scholarship notes is crucial for the development of faculty work, both at mid-career as well as in other stages of an academic’s work-life. Kerka (1998) notes that the contact provided by mentoring is an important part of the learning experience: “learning is most effective when situated in a context in which new knowledge and skills will be used and individuals construct meaning for themselves but within a context of interaction with others.” Contact over time with a more experienced faculty member provides both instrumental as well as psychosocial learning, which involves “ongoing interpersonal dialogue, collaborative critical thinking, planning, reflection and feedback.” In a study by Cho, Ramana, and Feldman (2011), the researchers found that among the most important qualities of a mentor (the study was conducted among faculty in medical fields), the person’s ability to provide an overarching vision for the mentee, taking the time to understand the individual’s needs and concerns, and making a strong commitment of time with frequent, regular and engaged meetings in a way that

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balanced the personal and professional were most frequently cited, suggesting that it was the mentor’s willingness to engage and provide timely support— characterized as kairotic—would be important in any mentoring program that we designed. The working group particularly noted Sorkness et al.’s (2013) work on mentoring—with Asquith and Drezner—which was developed through the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning. The activities associated with mentorship include not only effective communication, fostering independence in the mentee and promoting professional development, but also the assessment of the mentee’s self-efficacy, which involves an ongoing discussion—outside of the context of time associated with academic work—of the levels of confidence held both by the mentor and the mentee of their research capabilities, their abilities as teachers, their support systems and their professional networks, the extent to which their personal and professional circumstances enable or prevent progress in their work, and their ability to work in different contexts or under different circumstances. It was these characteristics—the moments outside of the rush of the academic calendar and the planning of major projects and courses—that seemed most valuable in the creation of a mid-career mentoring program. As it happened, one of the institutions whose programs we examined had created a mid-career mentoring initiative that seemed to provide an especially useful model. At the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, the Provost’s office created a one-year program that was carefully structured to match associate professors with more senior faculty in pairs that would meet throughout the academic year for discussions that focused on establishing a relationship with a mentor that would give the associate professor a point of contact and support outside the academic and disciplinary silos of departments or schools and colleges. With that basic idea in mind, and also recognizing the dynamics of mentoring, our committee outlined a program that had six main goals: to establish a relationship between a mentor and a mentee that was based on mutual interests and goals, and where the expectations for the mentoring relationship would be agreed upon mutually; to enhance both the mentor’s and the mentee’s self-efficacy; to establish and discuss the culture and climate of the mid-career faculty member’s home department, classroom and research spaces; to help the mentor-mentee pair understand the associate professor’s sense of their career trajectory, as well- or poorly-defined as that might be; to understand the mid-career faculty member’s place in personal and professional networks and the relative benefits of those networks; and to begin to define the sense of professional identity held by the associate professor. The working group also made a decision early in the process to elongate the period of the

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period of mentorship. We knew the likelihood of the long march of the academic year and the projects and service demands of that period would almost certainly swamp any mentoring relationship that took place over the course of a workshop or a semester, let alone a year and, we also knew that the timetable of most academic projects, including the development of research agendas, course design, and decisions about participating in professional development in scholarly or administrative capacities, develop over time. So the working group established a program that takes place over a two-year period, giving the mentor-mentee pairs a chance to see how the dynamic of moments of engagement punctuated those longer, calendric periods of chronological time that define the academic workplace. The first step to initiate the program was to solicit mentors. To do so, we contacted deans of the university’s twelve schools and colleges, described the outline of the program to them, and asked them to work with their associate deans and department chairs to identify senior faculty who were already known in their units to be strong mentors (we left the definition of mentorship open at this point), who were active teachers and researchers, and who were well connected to disciplinary and governance networks inside and outside the university. Within a little over a month, we had collected the names of over fifty faculty from across the schools and colleges, a group that included men and women, majority and minority faculty, nearly all of them people who were recognizable to members of the working group as exceptional scholars, teachers and mentors. I contacted each person who had been identified to ask if they would be willing to participate, and just under half agreed. The ad hoc committee had designed a survey—with two very similar versions, one to be sent to mentors and one to be sent to associate professors who applied to be a part of the program—with which the matches of mentors to associate professors would be made. (The surveys requested the person’s name and unit, whether there were any demographic considerations or other factors that should be made in the match, whether the career-stage of the mentor or mentee was important in making a match, and the person’s comfort level with discussions of matters such as work-life integration, grant-writing, setting career goals, confidence-building, establishing autonomy as a scholar or teacher, issues of climate and inclusion, and others.) The surveys were sent to those who agreed to serve as mentors; at the same time, we announced the program to midcareer faculty across the university (those in tenure lines; the first iteration of the program did not include clinical faculty), and included the ‘mentee version’ of the survey along with the description of the program and directions for applying, which also asked applicants to describe why the program would be right for them at this point in their careers, any particular challenges they

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may be facing at mid-career, and what they hoped to accomplish through participating in the program that a match with a more senior faculty member could support. Once we received the applications from associate professors who wanted to participate in the program, members of the working group reviewed the applications and the surveys from both prospective mentors and mentees, and made matches based on what those in both groups said they wanted to see in a match (so, e.g., we matched a mentor who was a single parent with an associate professor who noted single-parenthood as one of the factors that was complicating their work-life balance; and we matched women who wanted to be mentored by another woman accordingly). In all, we were able to identify eleven matches. None of the pairs included faculty members from the same department, and in most cases we didn’t match people from the same school or college (though, in those cases where a participant noted that they wanted mentorship in science, we tried to make matches by field, if not by unit). Given that we saw the program as encouraging engagement about issues that were not specifically about getting promoted but rather about self-efficacy and what Kerka (1998) describes as meaning-making with others— to encourage opportunities for informal connections and timely advice—we believed that avoiding matches that would lead to transactional rather than developmental discussion would be more apt to create more useful moments of engagement. Once matches had been made, the working group developed—with the help of Christine Pfund and Earlise Ward, an associate professor who was one of the earliest participants in Pfund’s mentoring program at UW-Madison—an orientation for the program’s mentors, which was held during the first week of the fall term. The orientation involved discussions of research on mentoring, introduced the concept of self-efficacy, and outlined the curriculum for the program’s first year, though it could be better described as a series of prompts that would guide the discussions of the mentor-mentee pairs, and that would also provide the opportunities for meetings of the pairs over the course of the year (it would be up to the pairs to determine either a schedule of meetings or a way to decide when to meet outside of a fixed calendar). The curriculum included ten meetings, whose topics began with building the relationship and aligning expectations, navigating self-efficacy in order to know one’s own patterns of behavior and engagement, understanding workplace climate, defining one’s personal identity, managing people, and identifying the next big project (which could include anything from an established next book to moving into administration to developing outreach programs). The curriculum also included case studies, adapted from those in Pfund et al.’s (2014), Entering Mentoring series, that were meant to serve as optional prompts for discussion;

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the case studies were keyed to the topics of the meetings in the curriculum’s outline. As an example, here is the case study, quoted from the curriculum, which is based on actual instances for building and sustaining a network: Two colleagues in my department have broad networks that are admirable, but it’s not clear that either would work for me. The first colleague, “Mark,” seems to know everyone in his field, mainly because he’s a gossiphound. He relishes talking with his contacts at other institutions to find out who’s moved where and for what reasons, who’s causing trouble in this or that corner of the field, whose books or articles were reviewed well or poorly, whose marriage is failing. I could never do this, but he’s incredibly plugged in. The second colleague, “Carol,” has a broad scholarly network she gathered together by working on a large-scale, multi-PI project that’s also scattered around the country (and internationally), and it’s very highly focused on the project or projects she is working on; so she uses the network to read drafts and check her numbers, but it seems terribly bloodless and mercenary. When I was in graduate school, I felt like I had a wonderful cohort of fellow students: it wasn’t competitive, we helped each other out, we socialized and talked work, and we’ve stayed in touch over the decade since we graduated. We sustained each other. I’m looking for something more like that, but can’t seem to piece it together. While only a few of the pairs used the case studies, those that did found them to function the way we’d hoped they would, and as we’d hoped the broader program would function. The participants found, in spite of some weaknesses I’ll describe in the next, concluding section of the essay, that the program’s meetings provided time outside of the long-term planning involved in large research and teaching projects. It also slowed the frenetic balancing act that requires faculty members in mid-career to prioritize time in the lab or in the archive with the deliberative space necessary for governance or the care required to attend to family members or other loved ones. It served as a respite from the rush of the academic calendar, and that afforded moments of connection to another person that went beyond the transactional.

4

Outcomes: Mentoring and Time

At the conclusion of the mid-career mentoring program’s first year, we developed a qualitative questionnaire which was sent to mentors and program participants. Like the instrument we used to make matches, it asked for the same

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kind of information, but was phrased differently depending upon which part of the pair it was sent to. Along with questions about the logistics, structure, and oversight of the program, we asked participants about their experiences with various aspects of the year’s activities, including the program’s curriculum and case studies, the frequency and usefulness of meetings with their mentors, and the quality of that relationship. In addition to the surveys, we also had a de-brief meeting with a number of the program’s participants, in which we asked a version of the survey questions as prompts for a wider-ranging discussion. In short, along with generating information on how to improve the program for its next iteration, through the surveys and the larger discussion we wanted to know whether we’d met expectations. Had the program provided a different kind of resource, opportunities for reflection and engagement, for mid-career faculty? Had it given the program participants a better sense of themselves as mature and independent scholar-teachers? In large measure, based upon the discursive responses from participants gathered through the survey, we found that the program had met the expectations of both mentors and participants. More than three-quarters of participants believed that their expectations of the program had been met; when asked about particular aspects of the program (the curriculum, its case studies, the individual one-on-one meetings with the mentor, and the program’s timing as part of the participants’ career advancement) the vast majority saw them as at least moderately useful, and more than half believed them to be very useful. The open-ended questions, along with the follow-up discussion, noted that the opportunity for a connection with a more senior scholar was the program’s highlight. A sampling of survey comments included the following: “I felt like I had somewhere/someone I could turn to if I ran into any major issues”; “making connections with a senior scholar/mentor that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible” was the program’s greatest strength; “… we mostly focused on how to address the crises I was facing”; the mentee was “able to think/reflect and see the big picture from a different perspective.” The broader discussion that followed up on the surveys supported the information gathered earlier: participants understood that the most significant feature of the program was the connection between two individuals, one with greater experience navigating the institutional landscape than the other, and the time to learn together how to navigate it better. Consistent with the curriculum, the one-on-one meetings didn’t focus on work—drafts of a grant proposal, or of a paper, for example—so much as they focused on the participants’ experiences balancing the demands of academic work (research with teaching, departmental service with new obligations at the university level such as program administration; focusing on “the crises I was facing”), and the

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balance between academic work and other labor (learning how to be a single parent, contending with travel to attend to aging parents, or just learning how to say no). As one of the participants put it, “I thought I was alone on campus with the things I was frustrated with; it was so liberating to get a listening ear and advice from someone” else. Another said that while there were some gaps between times when they met with their mentor, “the program was helpful in bursts.” Cho et al.’s (2011) study suggested that successful mentoring involves taking the time for the mentor and mentee to get to know one another and their expectations and needs, and to provide timely support on matters that emerge rather than the more relentless, goal-driven support more common in the annual review process in the run-up to tenure. Participants told us they needed to combat a sense of isolation created by the onslaught of new work in service and research, and the matches with their mentors were successful insofar as they were paired with individuals with whom they could learn and engage when needed. In response to whether the program met their expectations, one participant wrote: Based on my participation in [several professional development events for mid-career faculty] and ongoing meetings with my mentor, I generally believe that it has been really helpful to simply hear established, senior colleagues humbly struggling with similar issues around ways to manage multiple, competing demands. It sounds trivial, but it was reassuring to know that it’s something we have to negotiate individually. The fact that mentor-mentee pairs were purposely made outside of departments and in many cases schools and colleges reinforced the sense that the program was not meant to provide professional expertise, but instead to allow members of the pair to experience the struggle together, and to do so humbly, outside the particularity of field or methodology or departmental culture and climate. The winter of the program’s second year was designed to move the pairs to a more focused discussion of a project that would represent the next phase in the associate professor’s career and would support their bid for promotion to full professor. That year, we had a mid-year check-in lunch in which we asked the associate professors in the program to tell us about the relative success of the ‘pivot’ from a program founded on the establishment of self-efficacy and expectations and the exploration of work-life integration more generally to a year that was more associated with a project (whether a scientific one involving the design of a study and a proposal to a federal granting agency, or an

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administrative one involving participation in university-wide governance or taking on a directorship). In many cases, the discussions during that second year involved the associate professor’s interest in and negotiations concerning moves into administrative work and about rearticulating their academic appointments with a greater focus on teaching, the scholarship of teaching, or changing the proportion of work between basic research and clinical work (in cases of faculty in schools and colleges on the medical campus). In other cases, the discussions in the mentor-mentee pairs that proved most valuable had to do with the associate professor’s becoming more comfortable with changing the direction of their research: moving from basic to applied science, for instance, shifting from the data set that had formed the basis of a first major project to a second project that involved gathering a new data set, or new experiments. Because the matches were not discipline specific, the relationship of mentor and mentee was most often an impetus for seeking out additional mentors or growing the support network within the associate professor’s academic discipline. We also heard that because the second year of the program dispensed with a structured curriculum, some of the pairs met with less frequency, leading some mentors to be concerned that they should have taken greater initiative to reach out to their mentees. Still, most of the associate professors reported when they needed to initiate a meeting, they did so (“the program was helpful in bursts”), and in some cases associate professors expressed an interest in “swapping” mentors within the program to get a fresh perspective on their scholarly trajectory. In short, the second year of the program seemed on the surface to be more “meandering” that the program’s first year; nonetheless, even with these less-frequent “bursts” of activity and engagement, the support provided to mentees was founded on an already-established relationship of understanding and self-efficacy and provided needed openings for the pairs to engage with one another on their own terms. Taken together, through the design of the Mid-Career Mentoring Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we learned some valuable lessons about the obstacles associate professors face in maintaining and growing their research, teaching, and outreach agendas to solidify their academic careers and help them become fully-invested academic and intellectual citizens of their institutions. At least as importantly, we learned about how time figured as the crucial factor in how best to support mid-career faculty. It was clear through our research that most peer universities believed released-time was important to associate professors: beyond the sabbatical, which—because it’s placed immediately between the last year of the assistant professorship and the first year of the associate professorship—may be far less productive for

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career advancement than we’d like to think, most of the faculty members at mid-career we talked to said they wanted a semester or a year of temporal space in which to begin or complete projects. But because we also learned faculty wanted opportunities for connection, less wide-open swaths of chronological time than moments in which they could learn together with more-senior peers, we designed the program to punctuate that chronological time with more opportunistic time, which in the words of one of the program participants took place in “bursts.” The Mid-Career Mentoring Program served to support relationships between mentor and mentee, relationships that made it possible for the mentee to trust the mentor as someone familiar with the academic and work-life landscape because they had also experienced that landscape in a slightly different iteration, and because they were familiar with the institutional (both local and national) context necessary to navigate it. The outcomes of the program were positive if one thinks of the results: two of the participants were able to successfully and productively move into administrative roles; two shifted the trajectory of their research projects in a significant way; and two began a shift away from a sole focus on research to emphases in teaching and outreach. At least one of the participants (at the time of this writing) was promoted to full professor. Particularly in the program’s first year the program was not focused, as are so many of the mentoring relationships established during the assistant professor years of scrutiny and evaluation, on the mid-career faculty member’s productivity (or on productivity alone) but on establishing the habits of mind, the curiosity, the practical wisdom necessary to lay the ground on which productivity could be built and later measured. As Smith (2002) noted about the relationship of chronos to kairos, the meetings and the curriculum they were based on in the Mid-Career Mentoring Program’s first year were attempts to build a time whose character was “qualitative” rather than quantitative, and to create opportunities in which the participants and their mentors could discuss the uncertain trajectories of academic careers without deadlines, peer reviews, or the other kinds of scrutiny associated with academic work. It was time that interrupted what Smith calls “the quantity of duration” or “the length of periodicity” (p. 47), the long march toward promotion and the hours in the laboratory or archive. Of course, what makes opportunistic time so difficult to find, let alone create—insofar as it can be created at all—is the intransigence of chronological time and ways in which it is woven through the fabric of the academic workplace, which defines academic rank by means of periodicity (the six-year tenure clock, the five-year post-tenure review) and which requires extended temporal sequences for academic research, whether it’s the extended review

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of grant proposals, the repetitiveness of running gels in the lab, or the hours and days and weeks spent poring through boxes in the archive, let alone those days spent in committee meetings one never gets back. We saw this play out in the Mid-Career Mentoring Program: in surveys and periodic get-togethers with the pairs, we heard repeatedly the one thing that impeded the program was finding time to meet, to break away from chronological time (from teaching and office hours, time in the lab, meetings) by the mentors and mid-career participants. Even with the gravity of chronological time, though, the associate professors in the pairs reported reaching out to their mentors, or to others in the program (mentors, but also their mid-career peers in the program cohort) to make time to further the relationships so crucial to an academic career. In fact, the periodicity of the relationship, such as the work of finding time, or interrupting the long stretches of the academic calendar, is far more typical of the way mentoring relationships work “in the wild,” outside of programs like ours. That the program encouraged the habit of breaking through the noise of the academic workplace to find moments of connection and reciprocal learning marks it as a success. The outcomes of the program appear to have been positive if one thinks of criteria one can measure: as was mentioned earlier, two of the participants were able to successfully and productively move into administrative roles; two shifted the trajectory of their research projects in a significant way; and two began to shift away from a sole focus on research to emphases in teaching and outreach. At least one of the participants (at the time of this writing) was promoted to full professor. (Future studies of the program, over the long term, could also measure research productivity and retention data.) Perhaps the most positive outcome of the program was that mid-career faculty, a group of scholar-teachers who report the highest levels of dissatisfaction with their work and equally significant feelings of isolation, forged relationships and networks of engagement with one another (both inside the program cohort and outside of it), relationships that were based not on common disciplinary knowledge or departmental or college affiliation, but rather on a set of shared experiences and learning about their strengths as members of the academic workplace, habits of mind, and identities as individuals and community members, not just as academics. It provided a situated context for learning (Kerka, 1998) in which there was a commitment to engagement, in the pairs and across the cohort, and care. In short, it interrupted the logic and reason that pervades the academic institution with commonplaces of work, value, and rank and provided spaces for exceptionally smart faculty members to imagine other ways to successfully do their work, live their lives, and grow as people. Providing time to faculty in midcareer is incredibly important; providing the right time is more important still.

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References Beauboeuf, T., Thomas, J. E., & Erickson, K. A. (2017, April 7). Our fixation on midcareer malaise. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Our-Fixation-on-Midcareer/239476 on 2018-5-2 Boice, R. (1993). Primal origins and later correctives for midcareer disillusionment. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 55, 33–41. Cho, C. S., Ramanan, R., & Feldman, M. D. (2011). Defining the ideal qualities of mentorship: A qualitative analysis of the characteristics of outstanding mentors. American Journal of Medicine, 124(5), 453–458. Faculty Policies and Procedures, University of Wisconsin-Madison. (n.d.). Retrieved August 2, 2018, from https://secfac.wisc.edu/governance/faculty-legislation/fpp_ch_7/ Hawhee, D. (2004). Bodily arts: Rhetoric and athletics in ancient Greece. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Kerka, S. (1998). New perspectives on mentoring. ERIC/OERI. Retrieved May 3, 2018, from http://www.peer.ca/Perspectives.html Mathews, K. (2014). Perspectives on mid-career faculty and advice for supporting them. Cambridge, MA: Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education, Harvard College. Retrieved from http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kmathews/files/coache_ mathews_midcareerfaculty 20140721.pdf Michigan State University. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://aan.msu.edu/academiccareer-paths/from-associate-professor-to-professor/ Modern Language Association Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession. (2009). Standing still: The associate professor survey. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from https://apps.mla.org/pdf/cswp_final042909.pdf Monaghan, P. (2017, May 7). Helping professors overcome midcareer malaise. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved May 3, 2018, from https://www-chronicle-com.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/article/ Helping-Professors-Overcome/240009 Pfund, C., Branchaw, J., & Handelsman, J (20134). Entering mentoring. New York, NY: W. H. Freeman. Rickert, T. (2013). Ambient rhetoric: The attunements of rhetorical being. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Smith, J. E. (2002). Time and qualitative time. In J.S. Baumlin & P. Sipiora (Eds.), Rhetoric and Kairos: Essays in history, theory, and praxis. Albany, NY: State Univeristy of New York Press. Sorkness, C. A., Pfund, C., Asquith, P., & Drezner, M. K. (2013). Research mentor training initiatives of the University of Wisconsin Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. Clinical and Translational Science, 6(4), 256–258. Retrieved May 3, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3979849/

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University of Illinois. (n.d.a). Pre-tenure and midcareer faculty workshops announced. Retrieved August 3, 2018, from https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/352982 University of Illinois. (n.d.b). Office of the Provost. Retrieved August 3, 2018, from http://provost.illinois.edu/midcareer/release.html University of Michigan. (n.d.). News Spotlight. Retrieved August 3, 2018, from http://www.research.umich.edu/bridging-support-research-faculty

CHAPTER 6

A Comprehensive Approach to Supporting and Promoting Mid-Career Faculty Kimberly Buch, Andrea Dulin and Yvette Huet

Abstract This chapter describes a mid-career mentoring program at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. The comprehensive program is centered on a versatile 6-step career planning process. Program details are reported so that they may be adapted by other institutions. We also report longitudinal data on program impact, showing a 150% increase in the percent of STEM full professors who are female and a decline in the gender gap between male and female associates’ perceptions of barriers to promotion. Finally, we share lessons learned throughout the 10 years of our efforts to engage mid-career faculty in intentional, ongoing career development.

Keywords career planning – mentoring – training

1

Introduction

It is well documented that numerous faculty feel unsupported on their professional journeys as they navigate their post-tenure years. In 2014, Mathews published Perspectives on Midcareer Faculty and Advice for Supporting Them, which was informed by data obtained from COACHE survey responses from full-time, tenure-track faculty at public research universities (Mathews, 2014). Nearly 45% of associate professors disagreed when asked if there was a culture of equitable promotion practices within their departments, and nearly 2 out of 3 had never received formal feedback to assist in their progress toward promotion. Nationwide, mid-career faculty who fail to receive appropriate feedback on promotion are more than twice as likely than recently-tenured associates to have no plans to submit their dossier for promotion, and nearly 20% reported © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi: 10.1163/9789004408180_007

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they intend never to seek promotion to full professor. Even after 6 years at rank, 40% of associate professors have no plans to submit their dossiers for promotion. In response to these statistics and the professional development challenges they signify, the past decade has seen a surge in institutional attention and resources focused on mid-career faculty. At UNC Charlotte, our focus on mid-career faculty began in the context of our ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which we received in 2006 to increase the representation and advancement of women and under-represented minority (URM) faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines. This broad mandate included a portfolio of policy and programmatic efforts to move more women in and up through the ranks in these disciplines, while also building a culture of inclusion and support for all faculty. Two years into the award, we conducted a needs assessment to better understand the particular challenges of mid-career faculty. This effort included a series of focus groups with female associate professors in STEM and was followed by a survey of men and women associates in all disciplines to identify their perceptions of the processes and expectations surrounding promotion to full professor. Our results—remarkably similar to the national trends stated previously—signaled a need to expand our focus on mid-career faculty, and guided the development of a comprehensive program to support their success and satisfaction. Launched in 2008, our program was cited as a “promising practice in mid-career development” five years later (Canale, Herdklotz, & Wild, 2013). Since then, we have attempted to adapt our efforts to meet the changing demographics and needs of our mid-career faculty. In this chapter, we will share highlights of our program’s development, evaluation and evolution. First, we briefly present the needs assessment that informed our work and then describe the major elements of our program. Next, we report assessment results of our program’s impact and lessons learned through our efforts to engage mid-career faculty in intentional, ongoing career development and build institutional capacity to support them.

2

Institutional Context

UNC Charlotte is a young institution located in a fast growing metro area and has situated itself as North Carolina’s urban research university. It maintains a particular commitment to addressing the diverse needs of the greater Charlotte region and has a student body that includes large numbers of Pell-eligible and first generation students. One half of incoming students transfer from

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other institutions. Following six years of NSF ADVANCE funding, the ADVANCE Faculty Affairs and Diversity Office (FADO) was institutionalized in 2013 to carry forward and expand its mission through continuing efforts to recruit, retain, and promote women and under-represented minority (URM) faculty in STEM, while also enhancing the climate for equity, diversity and inclusion for all faculty, and development opportunities across all disciplines and ranks. Because this book defines mid-career faculty as those with 12–20 years of teaching experience in higher education, our program defined mid-career as faculty with the rank of associate professor. We chose this classification because it was easier to identify program participants, to market programming to them, and to define program success as associate professors who are promoted to the rank of full professor. However, we know that this approach fails to recognize the age- and stage-related differences in faculty who have just been tenured and those who have been in rank for many more years. We also know, because ours is such a young institution, our average time-in-rank for associate professors is relatively low—approximately 8 years on average, when our program began 10 years ago and today. Another implication of how we defined our mid-career target population was that we omitted all faculty serving between 12 and 20 years who had already been promoted to the rank of full professor, as well as those faculty in non-tenure track roles, such as lecturer or clinical faculty. Finally, it should be noted that while our ADVANCE award was focused on women and URM faculty in STEM, because our needs assessment indicated all associate professors might benefit from career development opportunities, most of our initiatives were offered to all associate professors regardless of gender or discipline. However, when we track and report our program’s impact, our emphasis is on the advancement of women and URM faculty.

3

Needs Assessment Identifies Perceived Barriers to Promotion

Our initial goal was to design a faculty development program to foster career engagement and ultimately facilitate the promotion of associate professors to the rank of full professor. To ensure alignment between our program and its targeted participants, we undertook a comprehensive needs assessment that included focus groups with women associate professors in STEM units, and a follow-up survey of all faculty holding the rank of associate professor. Both methods were designed to elicit faculty perceptions of the processes and expectations surrounding promotion to full professor, as well as their ideas

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table 6.1  Perceived barriers to full professor promotion

Institutional policy/practice barriers Lack of transparency in and clarity of promotion criteria Disproportionate service demands/ administrative duties that interfere with progress toward full professor Need for more flexible and inclusive “pathways to professor” that recognize a broader range of contributions

Individual development barriers Lack of individual attention to career planning by associate professors Lack of departmental attention to career development of associate professors Lack of career development/mentoring for associate professors

about what they would find helpful in overcoming perceived barriers. There were two open-ended questions that asked faculty to write-in responses: “Are there specific barriers you perceive as preventing or delaying your promotion to full professor?” and “Are there policy changes that you see as needed to help remove barriers to promotion to full professor?” We content analyzed responses and found two major factors, as shown in Table 6.1. These barriers were consistent with findings from previous research (e.g. Elghanayan, 2010; Laursen & Rocque, 2009; Misra, Lundquist, Holmes, & Agiomavritis, 2011) and informed the development of a comprehensive midcareer development program to address both institutional and individual barriers to promotion. The program included a range of initiatives, each designed for a particular target group of associates, and each has evolved over time to meet their changing needs.

4

The Mid-Career Planning Process

To facilitate and guide faculty engagement in all program initiatives, we developed a 6-step “mid-career planning process,” as shown in Figure 6.1. The tool is designed to provide structure, guidance, and shared language to faculty and administrators. The planning process is versatile and can easily be incorporated into the formal faculty evaluation and feedback process. All program participants are encouraged to use the mid-career planning process (MCPP) and the tool is also available on the ADVANCE FADO website (advance.uncc.edu) for use by non-program participants.

figure 6.1 Mid-career planning process

Step 1: Arculate Your Career Goals • Promoon to Full Professor - In what area of disncon? - In what me frame? - Shorter-term goals to take you there? - How are goals aligned with department needs and expectaons?

Step 2: Seek Understanding of Promoon Criteria • Examine department and college criteria; seek needed clarity. • Aend ADVANCEsponsored Faculty Forum “Pathways to Professor.” • Discuss criteria and promoon guidelines with chair, dean, mentor, etc. • Ask to see samples of previous and recent promoted candidates in your area.

Step 3: Conduct a Self-Assessment • Consider career trajectory thus far. - How has its course changed and why? - How has it departed from your original plan, direcon? - Were departures intenonal? Aligned with changing interests, department needs? - Do service administrave dues interfere with scholarship? • Assess strengths development areas. - What resources, mentoring do you need? - Seek input from peers, mentors. - Examine previous performance feedback.

Step 4: Write a Mid-Career Plan • Plan should map out general path and help match skills, strengths, performance expectaons to your career choices and work. • Should be dynamic and connuously examined, updated. • Should include Steps 1 -2 and include: - Lists of strengths and skills you can build on. - Specific short- and longterm career goals and meframes. - List of acvies, resources, strategies to achieve plan.

Step 6: Implement the Plan Step 5: Discuss Plan with • Put your plan into Mentor, Chair acon. • Seek input on how • Revise and modify the realisc plan and plan as needed. metable are. • Review the plan with • Gain ideas for obtaining mentor and chair resources, regularly. implementaon. • Do they see that plan is aligned with department needs? • Do they feel plan aligns with performance criteria?

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Our experience suggests that while many post-tenure faculty have a mental map that approximates steps outlined in the planning tool, most fail to translate that map into concrete, measurable steps for guiding career decisions, informing specific behavioral choices, documenting successes, and eliciting focused performance feedback from peers, mentors, or administrators. We have also learned while using this tool many faculty—especially women— disengage from intentional career planning following tenure without defining promotion to full professor as a natural next step. Or, if they do aspire to promotion, they overlook the importance of setting short-term, measurable goals toward that outcome (Buch, Huet, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011). For this group of faculty, Step 1 in the planning process is clearly the most important step to actively engage them. For other faculty, career planning efforts should focus on the self-assessment process (Step 3), which requires them to consider departures from earlycareer plans (e.g., a new research direction, new service or administrative duties, work-life balance demands) and lead toward the articulation of an updated and realistic plan in Step 4. This can be a painful process for those who may feel they lost control of their career somewhere along the way, and psychosocial support from peers and mentors may be especially helpful at this juncture. The MCPP culminates (Step 6) in the creation of a career plan that may vary in its level of formality and specificity but should exist as a dynamic and permanent document for the faculty member and his or her mentor(s) and administrator(s). Most steps in the MCPP target individual rather than the institutional barriers in Table 6.1 and thus translate readily into individual-based professional development initiatives. However, the MCPP also addresses institutional barriers such as lack of clarity and transparency of promotion criteria, as well as lack of feedback regarding progress toward promotion. For example, while Step 2 in the MCPP engages faculty in a proactive effort to understand promotion criteria, it also includes provision of institutional strategies that support and enable individual strategies002E. Toward that end, ADVANCE FADO has fostered a campus-wide dialogue about “Pathways to Professor” which has culminated in an annual Faculty Forum (see Step 2 in Figure 6.1), during which senior administrators publicly share perspectives on the processes and expectations surrounding promotion to full professor. The Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the deans of all colleges serve on a panel to provide clarity regarding the promotion to full professor process, including information on alternate pathways to promotion. For example, although distinction in scholarship is the most common pathway to promotion, panelists inform faculty that distinction in teaching or service in conjunction with a strong record of scholarship can also be a pathway to full

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professor. Members of the Department Review Committees (DRC) and College Review Committees (CRC) are also encouraged to attend, so faculty involved in the review process have a common understanding of expectations and other issues. It also provides an opportunity for review committee members to hear questions associate professors are asking as they move through the process. Similarly, Step 5 in the MCPP requires a discussion between the faculty member and mentor to ensure alignment between career plan and promotion criteria as clarified in Step 2. However, this individual strategy must be supported by institutional strategies that ensure the provision of formal feedback via the RPT process that includes “progress toward promotion.” We created several institutional mechanisms to help faculty navigate the planning process, including efforts to develop more clear and inclusive promotion criteria and efforts to more effectively communicate them. Several colleges now offer workshops to associate professors on how to build and present a compelling case for promotion, and some have revised workload policies to help ensure service loads are more equitably shared by faculty across rank. In response to the data from the COACHE survey (Table 6.3), all chairs received instruction from the provost that they must include a paragraph in all annual review letters to address progress toward promotion for associate professors. In this way, our MCPP is integrated into the formal RPT process and both are supported by newly-aligned policy changes that reinforce all initiatives in our mid-career program, as described below (Huet & Buch, 2008).

5

Mid-Career Professional Development Programming

5.1 Vertical Dyad Mentoring Vertical dyad mentoring in this context matches a full professor with an associate professor for one-on-one mentoring. This flexible approach to mentoring can be adapted to meet the particular needs of faculty and institutional resources available. For instance, mentor-mentee pairs can be formed within or across departments and/or disciplines and the pairings can be informal (organic) or formally assigned. The duration of the mentoring relationship and the recommended frequency of meetings is also flexible, as is the content of mentoring meetings and types of psychosocial and/or instrumental support mentors are expected to offer mentees. Another early consideration for this strategy is the type of training and support to be provided to mentors. Thus, there are many logistical and substantive decisions to make before implementing this strategy. However, it is a flexible and versatile approach to mentoring that provides a high degree of support to mentees from role models who have already successfully navigated the path from associate to full professor.

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Our initial vertical dyad mentoring program was an ADVANCE-sponsored initiative to support women STEM faculty who were members of “the 13+ Club,” as defined by Geisler, Kaminski, and Berkley (2007) as faculty with 13 or more years since earning their highest degree who still hold the rank of associate professor. Geisler and her colleagues found that women were 2.3 times more likely than men to be members of this club. Our initial effort focused on women from three STEM departments with few or no females at full professor rank. These women were invited to participate and asked to identify a mentor with whom they would like to work (from any STEM unit, not just their own department). The ADVANCE office then invited identified mentors to serve and provided them with one session of mentor training that included best practices in mentoring, how to use the MCPP, and program guidelines and expectations. The mentor training occurred at the beginning of the academic year, and the initial commitment for the mentoring pairs was set at one year. Following training, each mentor-mentee pair was free to work out the logistics of their relationship, such as meeting frequency, types of psychosocial supports to be included in the relationship, and the details of how they would work together through the 6-step MCPP. This initial program included seven mentees who participated formally in the program for one academic year. Within three years following the program, three participants had been promoted to full professor; two had moved into new administrative roles, and two had not sought promotion or administrative roles. All but one reported satisfaction with the program and their mentor-mentee relationship. The three faculty promoted were asked via email to share the role that the mid-career mentoring program had on their success, and all agreed it was a significant factor in their decision to seek promotion. Two of the three felt their program mentor had a significant role in preparing them for promotion and all three felt having a mentor increased their confidence in readiness for promotion. The following statement from a participant illustrates the program’s impact. The mentoring program really motivated me to seek promotion. Before the ADVANCE program initiatives, I was plugging along without really considering promotion. My mentor met with me a bunch of times, dug deep into my CV and research goals, and gave me great advice about broadening my national/international professional networks. We also started doing some joint research projects and publications. Also [sic] she has moved on to another institution, we are still in touch and have written several chapters together. Because of this success and to serve a wider range of associates (non-STEM and male), this program has since evolved into an on-demand mentoring program

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for any associate professor. The associate professor requests a mentor online through ADVANCE FAO, and Advance FADO staff then finds a mentor that matches the mentee by discipline and/ or research interests. This program is less than a year old, and already 10 faculty have requested one-on-one mentoring, suggesting this is a service that associate professors seeking promotion are finding useful. 5.2 Peer Mentoring: Informal and Formal Initiatives Peer mentoring is a horizontal model through which associates engage other associates in mutual mentoring relationships. These can be dyadic relationships, but are more commonly group-based; they can also be informal or formal. With formal peer mentoring, a dedicated group of associates who meet regularly; informal peer groups allow associates to “drop-in” to monthly or quarterly meetings without making a formal commitment to the group or to the full career planning process. We started with an informal peer mentoring initiative called Focus Energy Fridays, which were monthly meetings led by ADVANCE staff; all associate professors on campus were invited. Faculty were invited to attend any or all meetings and encouraged to engage in the mid-career planning process, but no commitments were required and each month’s attendees included both “regulars” and “first-timers.” This initiative lasted two academic years, and during that time averaged about 10 attendees at each monthly meeting. While the content of the meetings was initially built around the MCPP, we found it difficult to maintain continuity across the steps as participants dropped in and out, and the “core” participants became frustrated at having to keep updating new arrivals. Thus, this approach did not produce as many associate professors creating and working through formal career plans (Step 4) as our other mentoring efforts. However, it did engage larger numbers of associate professors and we believe it helped to create awareness, support, and motivation among associates to take steps toward promotion. We also believe it helped change the culture of career planning for promotion from a solitary to a collaborative rather than a competitive pursuit. Our formal peer mentoring initiative emerged organically from Focus Energy Fridays, when a group of engineering faculty regular attendees expressed the need for a smaller, more dedicated group. We responded with our first formal peer mentoring program, led by one of the “regular” faculty members who had proposed the idea, and to which all other associates in the college of engineering were invited. At the first meeting, the mid-career planning process was introduced and attendees were asked to make a commitment to monthly meetings for the full semester and to accept the role of both “mentee” (i.e., to

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commit to actively engaging in the mid-career planning process) and mentor (i.e., to assist peers as they engage in the process). Although the plan was to hold monthly face-to-face meetings, faculty conveners failed to follow this schedule and instead met sporadically. However, committed faculty did engage in the MCPP and associate professors did assist each other in working through the steps and giving each other feedback on their plans. About one quarter of all eligible associate professors in the college joined the program initially, but fewer actually completed the program for the full year. Of these over half have been promoted. As associate professors from other disciplines learned about the engineering group, we were asked to start a peer group for associate professors in the behavioral sciences and another group for associates in the humanities. Unlike the engineering group, these groups did not identify faculty conveners, and each meeting was led by ADVANCE staff. Meetings were held monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) for one academic year, with faculty supporting each other through steps in the MCPP. Most notably, faculty attended the Faculty Forum (Step 2) as a group and discussed what they learned with each other at subsequent meetings. Faculty in these groups also assisted each other in building their records for promotion by nominating each other for internal and external faculty awards (for teaching, community engagement, and research). Fewer than half the participants in these two groups have been promoted to date, but in general participants had fewer years in rank than participants in our other mentoring initiatives. The ADVANCE FAO no longer offers formal peer mentoring, but we are aware of several groups that have emerged within departments and colleges using a similar model and with typically grassroots origins. Some of these groups continue until interest abates or others until participants complete the MCPP. 5.3 Mid-Career Professional Development Workshops Since 2011, UNC Charlotte Faculty Affairs and Diversity Office has hosted or co-hosted four statewide full-day workshops entitled: Charting Your Path--Strategies for Success for Mid-Career Women and URM Faculty and Their Administrators. Having administrators present at the workshop sends the message to mid-career faculty that they are engaged and supportive of the promotion of mid-career faculty at their institution. In total, 234 mid-career faculty and administrators have participated in Charting your Path workshops. The goal of each workshop is multi-pronged: women and under-represented minority mid-career faculty are provided with strategies to facilitate their path to promotion to full professor; administrators gain insights into approaches they can utilize to promote mid-career faculty success; and participants have

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the opportunity to network with mid-career faculty and administrators from different institutions. Faculty can learn about the promotion to full process, and how faculty perceive the climate for mid-career faculty at different institutions across the state, while administrators can discuss what strategies/ practices/policies targeted towards promotion to full professor have been successful at other institutions. The workshop program is designed specifically to accomplish the goals of preparing associates for promotion and teaching administrators how to support them. Following registration, participants are provided with breakfast and time to interact with faculty and administrators from different institutions. The programming continues with a Plenary Lecture, which is attended by both mid-career faculty and administrators. Plenary speakers are chosen because of their experience and excellence in mid-career professional development. Following the plenary address, mid-career faculty and administrators move into respective groups for breakout sessions. Given that the mid-career faculty participating in the workshop are women and under-represented minority faculty, we have chosen speakers who have experience working closely with this particular faculty cohort. Topic examples for mid-career faculty have included Professional Resiliency: Accepting and Using Setbacks as Opportunities for Growth and Change; Self-Promotion and Visibility; Creating Balance and Value in your Career Portfolio; and Moving Beyond Unconscious Bias. Typically, there are fewer administrators present at the workshops, which allows administrator sessions to follow a facilitated discussion format. Topics covered in these sessions have included Allies, Advisors and Advocates; Mentoring Faculty— Annual Review between the Chair and Mid-Level Faculty; Strategies to Support Faculty on Their Path to Promotion; and Mentoring across Differences. At the end of the day, attendees come together to participate in a roundtable discussion during which they reflect on what they have heard during the workshop, and are encouraged to ask questions to a panel composed of presenters at previous sessions. Feedback from all four workshops has been overwhelmingly positive: – “In general, it’s always a shot in the arm to spend time thinking about my career and I return somewhat invigorated to tack [sic] the challenges.” – “The encouragement to identify my personal assets, needs and goals. Success in academia is a relationship between the people within the institution and myself. Both sides have needs and expectations. Expressing and clarifying those needs and expectations is important.” – “I benefited very much from listening to the panel of professors who had just gone up for promotion for Full Professor and earned it. They were very honest about the challenges and their encouragement to go forward was motivating.”

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Supporting and Promoting Mid-Career Faculty table 6.2  Changes in perceptions of female faculty to promotion to full professor

Item

Pre-survey (2008)

Post-survey (2018)

Incentives in place to encourage promotion to full Multiple models of promotion (scholarship, teaching, leadership) available at university Multiple models of promotion (scholarship, teaching, leadership) supported by my department Criteria used by department for promotion to full professor are clear Chairperson provides explicit feedback on what I need to do to be promoted Promotion decisions by department are made fairly (not influenced by gender, race, etc.) It is important to me to be promoted to full at some time in my career

22% agree 20% agree

29% agree 29% agree

16% agree

30% agree

34% agree

36% agree

21% agree

42% agree

49% agree

54% agree

49% agree

83% agree

6

Program Evaluation: Changing Perceptions and Bottom-line Impact

We have used a multi-method approach in evaluating our mid-career development program, including in-house follow-up surveys of associate professors, the externally-conducted Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey, actual promotion data showing movement of faculty from rank of associate to full professor, and interviews with selected program participants who were promoted to full professor. Longitudinal data have been collected over the life of the program and allow us to report changes in faculty perceptions and promotions that support the impact of our program on both. Our first survey of associate professors was conducted as part of a needs assessment to identify faculty perceptions of the barriers to promotion (reported in Table 6.1). After implementing our mid-career development program, we completed two rounds of follow up surveys. The most recent was conducted this year and allowed us to track changes in perceptions over the 10-year period of our program. These data, shown in Table 6.2, show mostly positive change in perceptions of female faculty. The greatest areas of change are in perceived importance of promotion, perceived support of multiple

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table 6.3  COACHE survey data on promotion to full professor

COACHE item

Promotion expectations are reasonable Department culture encourages promotion Promotion process is clear Promotion criteria are clear Promotion standards are clear Body of evidence needed for promotion is clear Time frame for promotion is clear Clarity of whether I will be promoted

2011 Mean (5-point scale)

2015 Mean (5-point scale)

3.19 3.15 3.51 3.46 3.22 3.57 3.18 3.24

3.39 3.28 3.60 3.45 3.25 3.53 3.44 2.94

promotion models, and in the receipt of feedback from department chairpersons on progress toward full. For each of these items, the percentage of female faculty who perceive positive change has almost doubled through the life of the program. This represents strong progress among female associates toward the goals of our mid-career professional development program. However, other items show much more modest progress toward those goals, and these are areas that can guide ongoing program improvement efforts. Another metric used to track changing associate faculty perceptions is mean scores on selected items from our institution’s most recent COACHE Faculty Satisfaction Surveys, as displayed in Table 6.3. The 2015 data on the Benchmark: Promotion, which includes all the items listed in Table 6.3 on these issues, suggest all associate professors (males and females) see our institution as doing a better job in comparison to peer institutions. However, as shown in Table 6.3, positive change over time for each of these items has not been consistent or significant. Mean scores across items for both years tend toward the middle (all 3s on a 5-point scale), and most showed little or no improvements from 2011 to 2015. However, it should be noted that both measures were taken years after our mid-career program was implemented, and many associate professors who participated in our programming had already been promoted. Thus, these data should not be interpreted as program evaluation, but instead show the need for ongoing efforts as the ranks of the associate professors change yearly, and newly promoted associate professors remain in need of professional development. While changing perceptions may help to identify barriers and areas for program improvements, clearly the most pertinent data are those showing actual movement of associate professors into the rank of full professor. If we review

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table 6.4  Change in % of associate and full professors by gender and demographic category in STEM and non-STEM disciplines

STEM % of Associate professors 2017 Male 74.4 Female 25.6 URM 5.4

N

96 33 7

% of Full professors

77.1 2.8 4.2

Non-STEM N

128 38 7

% of Associate professors

40.8 59.2 15

2006 Male 74 77 90.4 104 58 Female 26 27 9.6 11 42 URM 17.3 (6.7) 18 (7) 20.9 (2.6) 24 (3) 13 (9.1)

N

82 119 30

% of Full professors

66.4 33.6 2.8

N

95 48 4

76 69.2 63 55 30.8 28 17 (12) 7.7 (6.5) 7 (6)

the total number of female faculty in STEM (and non-STEM) areas at the full professor level, we can see from data shown in Table 6.4 we have increased their numbers significantly. The data imply that the percentage of URM faculty at full professor has not similarly increased. However, this is difficult to access accurately. The demographic categories used in 2006 and 2017 are not the same. There were fewer demographic categories in 2006, when Asians and Pacific Islanders were collectively placed in one group. In 2017 these are separate groups with Pacific Islander now categorized as Native Hawaiian. The updated categories likely account for the larger number of URM in 2006. Given that nationally the population of Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians in the 2010 census comprised only 0.4% of the population, it is unlikely that the numbers pulled from our data are truly representative. It should be noted, however, that if the data are analyzed without including the demographic group Asian/Pacific Islander, the percentage of URM Full Professors still decreased from 2006 to 2017. This is related, in part, to the very small numbers of URM faculty at our institution and the fact that several of these faculty left the University to retire or to take positions elsewhere. This is something we continue to address and our goal is to develop programming that will include speaking to the issue of retention of in addition to hiring more URM faculty.

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Mid-Career Professional Development Programming Moving Forward

It is clear that the perceived barriers to promotion to full professor have shifted since the initial needs assessment survey was distributed to mid-career faculty in 2008. The more recent ADVANCE survey and COACHE data show faculty perceptions of expectations and timing are clearer and departmental cultures are more supportive of promotion. However, little or no change has occurred in perceptions of clarity of criteria and how faculty demonstrate they have met these criteria. In fact, it is troubling to see that there has been a decrease in the number of faculty who believe they can achieve promotion to full professor. Our office intends to reach out to mid-career faculty and ask more in-depth questions about this and other issues through focus groups. Anecdotally, we have heard from faculty that, while they understand provost and deans discuss alternate pathways to promotion to full, they don’t see how university-level policies will work in their departments because there has been little discussion around alternate pathways in their departments. One strategy we are already working on is to meet with departments to more clearly incorporate these alternate pathways into the culture of promotion in their specific discipline. 7.1 Newly-Tenured Faculty Orientation ADVANCE FADO has recently developed an orientation for all faculty who recently received tenure at UNC Charlotte. Evidence to support programming very early in the mid-career career path is included in the recommendations section in the 2009 MLA report “Standing Still: The Associate Professor Survey,” which speaks to the need for “focused mentor programs that begin the moment scholars are promoted to associate professor,” and Notkin (2005) suggests that ideally, mid-career mentoring should begin when faculty first achieve tenure. Accordingly, our newly-tenured orientation will take the form of an interactive roundtable discussion with the senior associate provost, deans, and chairs. The goal of the orientation is to clarify expectations for associate professors, and to provide strategies for this faculty cohort so they are equipped with the tools required to make them successful during this next phase of their academic careers. 7.2

Training Workshops for Department/Unit Review Committees and College Review Committees Our office, in conjunction with the Office of Legal Affairs, has been working on developing workshops for members of Department/Unit and College Review Committees. These workshops focus on legalities of the RPT process and discuss

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how inherent biases of committee members can influence the outcome of the review process. One theme that we have heard repeatedly from mid-career faculty during question time at Faculty Forum, and also in response to faculty climate surveys, is that although the provost and deans speak about alternate paths to promotion to full professor, this information does not trickle down to the department level, and is often not taken into consideration by department/ unit or college review committees. We intend to incorporate the concept of alternate pathways to promotion in these training workshops to address these issues.

8

Mid-Career Brown Bag Luncheons

This past year, ADVANCE FADO has revived the informal mentoring entitled Focus Energy Fridays by instituting Mid-Career Brown Bag Luncheons. The first session discussed the mid-career planning process and need for faculty to discuss their professional development plans with their chairs and other senior faculty for feedback. These continuing Brown Bags will happen at least three times a year and focus on other areas including planning a dossier or finding mentors but will also be opportunities for associate professors to network and find peer mentoring groups that can meet more often for support.

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Conclusion and Lessons Learned

Our findings at UNC Charlotte are in keeping with what has been reported in the literature, but some areas are clearly in need of more work than others. Overall, these areas include: – Clarify criteria for promotion from associate to full professor so gaining tenure does not mean moving from a job that has clear expectation for promotion to a position for which promotion is something murky and unattainable. – Ensure equitable service loads across rank and gender. – Consider alternative “pathways to professor” which recognize there are multiple models of faculty success. – Provide training and tools to review committees and administrators to ensure that best practices are implemented in the promotion decision-making process at all ranks and are not influenced by gender, race, or other non-performance factors.

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Our experience implementing and monitoring a mid-career mentoring program has yielded some “lessons learned” for others who may follow in our path: – Career development needs of faculty at ALL ranks must be addressed by institutions and supported by the highest levels of the administration – In order to design a successful career development program, it is imperative to know the specific issues at your institution. – Mid-career initiatives should be customized based on results of a thorough needs assessment. It cannot be assumed what has worked elsewhere will be directly transferrable to your institution. – Ongoing needs assessment should be conducted every few years so programming can be informed by and adapt to changes in faculty needs. Be inclusive and flexible to change as the needs of faculty change. What worked five years ago may need to be updated as new concerns move to the forefront and others become less important. – Ongoing monitoring and program evaluation are essential to measure success and to guide program changes as needed. – Individual-based approaches should actively engage faculty in a mid-career planning process. Using a step by step MCPP as diagrammed in Figure 6.1 can help structure this process and create a shared language for mid-career faculty development. This process works when mentors are peers or senior faculty and when the mentoring relationship is through a formal program or a more informal peer network. – Removing barriers to promotion is not enough. Faculty need to understand why seeking promotion is beneficial to them, their unit and the institution, and that there is value in achieving greater gender equity through advancement to the rank of full professor. Finally, it is important to stress that comprehensive faculty development and support efforts are multipronged, and it may take time to see changes for some faculty. The need to understand unique institutional challenges and strengths is vital to beginning programs that can further support some areas and make new in-roads into areas needing the most attention. Mentoring is one area that may be easier to implement, but alone will not allow for institutional changes required. Thus, review of policies and procedures and how information is delivered is absolutely required along with more individual-based programming. Indeed, we continue to view our mentoring program as a vehicle for leveraging institutional strategies (e.g., data show that attendance at our Faculty Forums has increased over time as our mid-career mentoring has grown and evolved). The ADVANCE Faculty Affairs and Diversity Office supports and promotes many faculty development and equity efforts that are synergistic and additive within the mid-career mentoring program.

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References Baldwin, R., DeZure, D., Shaw, A., & Moretto, K. (2008, September–October). Mapping the terrain of mid-career faculty at a research university. Change, 46–55. Buch, K., Huet, Y., Rorrer, A., & Roberson, L. (2011, November 14). Removing the barriers to full professor: A mentoring program for associate professors. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 43(6), 34–45. doi:10.1080/00091383.2011.618081 Canale, A. M., Herdklotz, C., & Wild, L. (2013). Mid-career faculty support: The middle years of the academic profession. Retrieved from https://www.rit.edu/academicaffairs/ facultydevelopment/sites/rit.edu.academicaffairs.facultydevelopment COACHE (The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education). (2010, June 14). 4th Annual leaders workshop meeting notes. Retrieved from http://www.coache.org Elghanayan, A. (2010, November 5). For female scientists, discrimination is in the details. Retrieved from http://biotechniques.com Geisler, C., Kaminski, D., & Berkley, R. (2007). The 13+ club: An index for understanding, documenting, and resisting patterns of non-promotion to full professor. Feminist Formations, 19(3), 145–162. Huet, Y., & Buch, K. (2008). Mid-career mentoring: Giving women what they want. Paper presentation at the NSF ADVANCE Principal Investigators Meeting, Washington, DC. Laursen, S., & Rocque, B. (2009, March–April). Faculty development for institutional change: Lessons from an ADVANCE project. Change, 41(2), 18–26. Mathews, K. R. (2014). Perspectives on midcareer faculty and advice for supporting them. Cambridge, MA: The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education. Misra, J., Lundquist, J. H., Holmes, E., & Agiomavritis, S. (2011). The ivory ceiling of service work. Academe, 97(1), 2–6. MLA (The Modern Language Association of America). (2009, April 27). Standing still: The associate professor survey. Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the profession (Web publication). Retrieved from http://www.mla.org Notkin, D. (2005). Faculty mentoring. Presented at ADVANCE National Leadership Workshop. Retrieved from https://advance.washington.edu/resources/docs/ Notkin_Natl_2005.pdf

CHAPTER 7

Faculty Writing Groups: A Tool for Providing Support, Community, and Accountability at Mid-Career Laura Plummer, Eliza Pavalko, Joyce Alexander and Jane McLeod

Abstract Indiana University began its Faculty Writing Groups to address the gendered and midcareer challenges felt by many women on research campuses. Our goal was to provide support, community, and accountability. The program has been an unmitigated success; it now is gender-inclusive and comprises 250 faculty from over 60 departments, drawing writers from all academic ranks and offering leadership positions to 15 midcareer women. Participants indicate increases in productivity, greater satisfaction with their writing agenda, and deeper affinity with colleagues and campus alike. This chapter describes the program structures while indicating its versatility and scalability for adoption at other universities.

Keywords writing groups – writing – promotion and tenure – retention – faculty learning community – mid-career faculty

1

Introduction1

Daria is an associate professor in a humanities department. Because of her skills and ability to provide an underrepresented voice to committees and administration, she has served as director of graduate studies, director of a large-scale area studies program, and fellow of the digital humanities program. She is on the select list of go-to faculty among programs related to pedagogy, instructor-training, and faculty development, having published on the scholarship of teaching and learning. She has been in the associate rank since the mid-1990s, and in that time has continued to publish, but work on her second book—a requirement for promotion to full professor—has languished. By her own assessment, Daria © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi: 10.1163/9789004408180_008

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needs time, accountability, and advice for juggling her competing professional and personal responsibilities, which include being a mother of two. Daria is not alone. As the preceding chapters indicate, mid-career faculty often face daunting challenges as they transition from being recipients of pre-tenure mentoring and protection from service to occupying the top of deans’ and their own disciplines’ service call lists. In turn, despite their job security, mid-career faculty find their positions less satisfying than other ranks do; this assertion is especially true for women (Hurtado & Deangleo, 2009). As Matthews (2014) asserts, data from a recent Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) survey at Harvard show that “with rare exceptions, … tenured associate professors, on average, rate their satisfaction and experiences lower than do assistant and full professors,” even when controlling for what they describe as “midlife malaise” (p. 1). COACHE data specific to Indiana University Bloomington reflect the same trends for post-tenure faculty. Most commentary on faculty life suggests that increased demands for service, advising, teaching assessment, good citizenship—not to mention seeing and being seen at departmental and campus events—that arise after tenure, as well as the growing economic precarity (Malesic, 2016) of academe explain this “slump.” Pressures are greater on minority faculty (June, 2015; Misra, Lundquist, Holmes, & Agiomavritis, 2011; Pyke, 2011; Rockquemore, 2008); Misra and Lundquist (2015) cite larger concerns at the heart of these pressures: implicit bias, institutional racism, and political events external to the academy. One might argue that every adult navigates these types of personal and professional challenges as life becomes more complicated and as we encounter myriad demands for which we cannot find enough time. Alternatively, one could argue that these are gendered challenges that would be lessened for women if they were simply more skilled at saying “no” to service activities that take away from their research and scholarship. But it isn’t that simple. Misra et al. (2011) found that women are less likely to be promoted than men, and when they are, the process takes 1 to 3.5 more years. Women are far more likely to take on administrative service positions earlier, and they allocate an average of 7 fewer hours each week to research as a consequence. Frankly put, there are institutionalized, gendered practices in our research universities that hinder women’s promotion chances and elongate their timeline (Pyke, 2011). The consequences are most visible at the associate to full professor transition. Regardless of whether these challenges are specific to mid-career faculty or the result of gendered practices, either requires an institutional response if there is a goal of a productive, connected faculty. Considered new territory little more than a decade ago (Baldwin, Lunceford, & Vanderlinden, 2005), faculty life at mid-career is now the center of many campus conversations.

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Indiana University Bloomington (hereafter referred to as IU) sponsors several programs aimed at improving the quality of worklife for those past tenure. The work of its Institute for Advanced Study includes establishing promotion cohorts, promotion roundtables, residential fellowships for mid-career faculty, and various other targeted funding opportunities. Among IU’s suite of interventions, one very successful program has been Faculty Writing Groups (FWG). We (Alexander, McLeod, and Plummer) established the FWG (first as women’s writing groups that eventually became the campus-wide Scholarly Writing Program’s FWG under Pavalko’s administration) to address the gendered and mid-career challenges felt by many women on research campuses. Our goal was to provide support, community, and accountability to women faculty. This chapter begins by describing IU’s FWG. Next, we address issues related to the establishment of the program, the effect the groups had on participants like Daria, how we met the challenges of expansion and institutionalization, and finally our dreams for future directions.

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The IU Scholarly Writing Program

Writing groups (as we know them in higher education) have been around since the 1970s and 1980s, arising from the student-centered pedagogies that emerged from writing studies at the time. Compositionists (Britton, 1970; Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, & Rosen, 1975; Bruffee, 1984; Elbow, 1975; Gere, 1987) advocated for collaborative learning, peer tutoring, and peer review as part of student writing instruction; institutionalized groups providing peer review as both a service and structure (with deadlines and accountability) are an outgrowth of these efforts. Consequently, many campuses have writing groups for various populations of writers (Adkins-Garcia, Eum, & Watt, 2013; Baldi, Sorcinelli, & Yun, 2013; Cox & Brunjes, 2013; Smith, Molloy, Kassens-Noor, Li, & Colunga-Garcia, 2013). Most of these groups—including those for faculty—are what Rockquemore (2010) calls “traditional writing groups”: groups in which writers call upon the “talent, perspectives, and expertise” of their peers (Elbow & Sorcinelli, 2006, p. 22) as they meet regularly to trade drafts for feedback. Our program follows a different model and has a number of unique characteristics. In our program, joining a group is voluntary, but once enrolled, faculty commit to attending their group for three hours each week for the entire semester (with exceptions for illness, travel, or family emergency). In these weekly three-hour stints, time is divided into four activities. Each session begins with a brief (20-minute) discussion, prompted by the director and a faculty cofacilitator. Discussion follows a predetermined topic, such as specific writing strategies that writers might try (like revising in stages or experimenting with

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Lamott’s “shitty first draft” [1995]) or questions related to the profession (how to judiciously accept and decline service requests, for example). Before the group settles into companionable silence, writers share a list of their goals for the session on a white board. A topic of discussion at the beginning of each semester, goal-setting not only helps writers organize their time and thoughts, but also serves as part of the accountability mechanism. The bulk of each group meeting is two and a half hours of quiet writing time in situ. Most writers report their discomfort during the first few sessions. They are surprised to discover that although they thought they wrote for long periods already, they actually have to suppress the fairly frequent urge to get up and do something else. With time, however, most become accustomed to focusing for longer stretches with only a couple of planned, brief breaks. A 5- to 10-minute wrap-up closes each session, with each writer sharing their progress with the other writers in the group. Small rewards—chocolates, stickers, a round of applause—help to publicly mark and acknowledge the writers’ incremental successes of meeting a word count, tackling a particularly sticky piece or argument or data coding, or simply keeping on task longer than they would have if left to their own devices that day. This set-up is a hybrid of what are typically referred to as accountability and “write-on-site” groups (the latter is a term coined by Rockquemore, 2010); they might also fall under what Richlin and Cox (2004) call faculty learning communities (FLCs): “cohort-based” groups that address the needs of faculty who have “been particularly affected by the isolation, fragmentation, stress, neglect, or chilly climate in the academy” (p. 8). Like FLCs, the writing groups aim to draw faculty writers out of isolation and connect them with peers and to open up a task that is considered to be tremendously private (in Cox’s case, teaching; in ours, scholarly writing). That is, they seek to make traditionally solitary acts social and institutional. Moreover, we aim to make those social connections university-wide. Since our groups do not pivot on exchanging drafts—an activity that typically requires members to share some disciplinary expertise—we are free to reach beyond the boundaries imposed by the institution, and the academy more broadly. By design, each group is likely to comprise clinical faculty with scholarship expectations or research scientists (non-tenure ranks) as well as all ranks of tenure track professors, and it is rare to have even two faculty from the same department in a single group. Putting dancer next to epidemiologist, lawyer next to linguist produces rich conversation and creates unique networks. As an example of how these groups generate interdisciplinary research questions and foster future interdisciplinary collaborations among FWG members: two faculty writers, one from criminal justice, and one in sex research, collaborated with several others to write a forthcoming article on the sexual violence and social justice conversations represented in bathroom graffiti.

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In addition to our cross-disciplinary approach, what makes our groups outside the ordinary? Precisely this notion of conversing as well as composing. Since one of our primary goals was to build not only accountability but also community among faculty, we are unapologetic about devoting some time that might be spent writing to conversation: we want faculty to know one another, and sitting in silence together does not build strong relationships. For Daria, the conversations provided a chance for her to connect with other scholars who had done field work in South America; more personally, Daria was able to help out an assistant professor who mentioned being unable to find a reliable babysitter because she was new in town: Daria’s eldest child is now that babysitter. In order to keep conversations fresh for those returning semester after semester, the list of weekly discussion topics changes each semester, and weeks are built in where groups choose their specific focus; the director also receives suggestions and references throughout the year from writers about new topics. Most recently, for example, someone posted Sword’s 2016 critique of Boice’s (1990) advice to write every day. In turn, the faculty development model at the heart of the group presupposes that faculty “learn from one another and from those with more experience and expertise about what it takes to successfully develop and sustain a scholarly agenda and a publishing career” (Geller & Eodice, 2013, p. 1). Our group members share knowledge—about the university, the academy, the writing process. Thus, the conversation itself is a place for informal mentoring (Cassese & Holman, 2018) among faculty of different ranks; for seeing the broader institution in terms of other schools, programs, and departments; and for building community and personal connections among all group members. For mid-career faculty, these conversations are both a way to inculcate new faculty members to their new service and research responsibilities and to learn from peers—including those who have been promoted to full professor—who share similar service loads. The Faculty Writing Groups are also a place to hear advice from junior, peer, or senior peers who have more experience or wisdom or formal training in the writing process. Our groups do not adhere to faculty rank hierarchies; they focus on setting and reaching goals and addressing writing-process challenges, rather than content. Consequently, the groups work well for mid-career faculty who have a good sense of their place in their field but need time and motivation to attend to their own, rather than others’, work. The interdisciplinarity of the groups builds a sense of community among faculty comfortable with wildly different disciplinary—and writing—practices (Clark-Oates & Cahill, 2013); it also enables mid-career faculty to re-envision their own epistemologies in light of the scope, assumptions, and methodologies of the writing being done by peers from across campus who are sitting next to them: An anthropologist

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and an early modern literary scholar are connected in their (wildly different) uses of affect theory. This mentoring works across ranks for practical matters as well. For example, Jess is a full professor in a professional school. When she put out an inquiry to writing group members about how to obtain an agent for her current book project, advice came from a senior lecturer in the humanities, Aubrey. Jess reported that Aubrey’s counsel included not only valuable information about the process of working with an editor but also helpful reassurances that the process took longer than Jess may have assumed. In all these ways—practical, institutional, writerly—mentoring from our perspective can happen irrespective of the rank of the advisor and advisee. We founded the groups on some important principles. We share them here: – Writing expertise: As Fraser and Little (2013) assert, faculty writing groups sit at a unique juncture of faculty development and writing studies. Leadership should include someone with faculty development experience—perhaps from a teaching center—and expertise in writing support; the work is disciplinarily informed: knowing something about the processes of writing (and how to engage others) ensures that faculty have a program rooted in and informed by research in the field. – Faculty co-facilitators: Self-governance is the bedrock of our writing groups: they are for faculty to determine their professional paths forward, not for administrators to monitor productivity or serve as a speed-up mechanism on a publication assembly line. Each group has a designated faculty co-facilitator to ensure that the group maintains its peer-to-peer sensibility. The co-facilitators and director share the work not only of leading group discussion but also of modeling for group members the importance of timeliness, engagement with and support of other writers, and consistency of practice. While she helps set the tone of the group, the faculty co-facilitator is also able to focus primarily on being a writer herself. Having two leaders was also a deliberate and principled choice based on feminist principles vis-à-vis pedagogy and leadership—distribution of power, cooperation, and the pursuit of social change. – Gentle accountability: Those who facilitate the groups set the tone of the experience for participants. Benign but firm enforcement of group norms—most importantly arriving on time and staying the duration each week—makes the difference between a group that flourishes and one that dies of attrition. – Good space: Rooms are important. As Virginia Woolf reminds us, they are an opportunity to shape a career and to have the means—space, time, coffee—to do so without judgment or impediment. At most universities, a good room is hard to find, and maintaining partnerships with those units whose faculty are served by the writing groups is crucial in the absence of a dedicated space.

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– Robust scheduling system or clerical support: The logistics of a faculty writing group program, much like classroom scheduling, are unavoidably complicated; doodle polls will not suffice. Staff must be able to patch together groups that meet writer preferences vis-à-vis day, time, and location with the myriad constraints of space availability and capacity, and that work must be scalable. At IU, we have relied heavily (and thankfully) on the university’s learning management system, Canvas, which includes a self-scheduling tool that can be designed with pre-set options (including group-size limits). – Supportive administration: The program director brings over twenty years of experience in writing studies and faculty development, both administering the university’s writing center and working as an instructional consultant with faculty interested in using writing to teach. The organizational structure she introduced was critical to the program’s early success. The support of upper administrators is also critical. From the Vice Provost to department chairs, administrators encourage their faculty to join groups, and most importantly, respect the writing group slot as sacrosanct in the writer’s schedule. Deans provide much needed space and financial support for co-facilitators, and most deans and faculty review committees recognize and acknowledge co-facilitators’ contributions as meaningful service. The Provost has responded enthusiastically to the program’s growth, expanding campus support at several key junctures. At IU, writing groups have been very successful. The program expanded rapidly and is now a key component of campus faculty development initiatives. While the writing groups are not specific to mid-career faculty, they are designed to tackle many of the issues so salient at this career stage. In addition to the significant advantages for mid-career faculty to have a program that builds community and avoids isolating mid-career faculty, our hope is that the strong participation of assistant professors in the program will preemptively increase their sources of support when they reach this career stage.

3

Establishing the Program

We were inspired to establish the groups by the spring 2013 Keeping Our Faculty of Color Symposium at the University of Minnesota (Alexander, Plummer, & McLeod, 2018). Two of us (Alexander and McLeod) attended the symposium in our capacities as university administrators (Executive Associate Dean, School of Education, and Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, respectively). Among the many strategies the symposium offered to support and retain faculty who are at risk of heavy service expectations and marginalization, writing groups seemed most easily within our grasp. We met in a bar that evening,

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reviewing our own and others’ experiences related to heavy service expectations and the implicitly gendered challenges women have saying no to new service activities (Pyke, 2011). We pledged to find a way to establish women faculty writing groups on our campus. After returning home, we solicited advice from the director of the Campus Writing Program (Plummer) and invited her to join the project. To our delight, she agreed. The involvement of the director of the Campus Writing Program was crucial to the program’s success. She was already well-known and trusted on campus. She brought expertise in teaching writing as a recursive and reflective practice, and set the tone and practice guidelines for the groups. As important, in the early stages of the program, she was willing to take the project on in her “spare time,” until we were able to secure campus support. We decided to start the groups in fall 2013 and opened them to women faculty in either of our schools. We assigned two co-facilitators to each group: the Campus Writing Program director and a faculty member. We prioritized women of color at the associate professor rank as co-facilitators to elevate their work and to signal our commitment to diversity in leadership ranks. The director of the Campus Writing Program managed program logistics (e.g., identifying writing spaces, accepting applications, forming groups). The co-facilitators helped to run weekly discussions and participated in the groups as writers. Our two academic units and the Provost provided modest start-up funds to cover compensation for the co-facilitators, social events, and copies of Boice’s Professors as Writers for each participant. Groups grew steadily over time. In fall 2013, 17 women faculty from 13 departments in our schools participated in two writing groups. By spring 2015, the number of faculty participants and groups had tripled. The director could no longer support the program while also attending to her other responsibilities. We also knew that demand for the program had not yet been met. Word of the program spread rapidly through our academic units. Women faculty from other academic units began asking to participate, as did men. We realized it was time to seek campus-level support for the full integration of the program. We approached the previous Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs—rave program reviews in hand—to request an expansion of the program to the entire campus. He was persuaded of the program’s value but, also, was moving rapidly toward retirement. Shortly after accepting the position as Vice Provost, Pavalko confirmed her support for the program to the Provost and secured funding to create the Scholarly Writing Program (SWP), moved the director to a full-time position, and integrated the program fully into her office. With our new campus-wide SWP, in spring 2016, writing groups were expanded and made available to faculty of all ranks, genders, and schools. Participation doubled again.

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How did we persuade the Vice Provost and the Provost of the program’s value? We attribute our success to a combination of good timing and strong program evaluations. The establishment of the program coincided with an intensive university and campus-wide strategic planning initiative, which yielded a goal of “robust support of professional development programming.” The goals identified in the strategic plan were taken seriously by the Provost, and she was willing to support programs that showed success in fulfilling those goals. Conversely, programs that did not coincide with a campus or university strategic goal were unlikely to be funded. The early success of the writing program, evidenced by growing enrollment and demand among faculty to be involved and by faculty evaluations of the program, suggested its value as a tool for supporting faculty development. It also helped that the writing program complemented other initiatives designed with similar goals, including the campus’s engagement with the National Center for Development and Diversity (NCFDD), which also emphasizes accountability and support, and emerging efforts to meet the unique needs of associate professors, among which the writing groups were most firmly established. Evidence from program evaluations clearly indicated writing group participants felt more productive and engaged with and committed to the campus. These indicators of success mapped onto campus goals and persuaded the campus administration of the program’s value.

4

Reception and Participant Feedback

Faculty satisfaction with the groups is extremely high—the words most often used to describe them in feedback are “supportive,” “productive,” “motivating,” “transforming,” and “amazing.” Foremost, faculty members find the groups helpful in setting aside and protecting writing time throughout the semester. Each semester, larger numbers report having restarted abandoned projects, revised and resubmitted pieces that had been rejected elsewhere, and submitted new pieces they worked on in the writing group. In the spring semester alone, 90% of faculty surveyed said the “got more writing done this semester than [they] would have without participating in a writing group” (Annual Report, 2018, p. 11). In an unsolicited letter to the IU President and high-level campus leadership, faculty facilitators asserted “the writing groups have allowed members to learn about research occurring across campus.” Thus, these groups generate interdisciplinary research questions and foster future interdisciplinary collaborations. Many commented that participating in the writing groups created a

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sense of belonging to the IU community. In response to an anonymous survey conducted by the Scholarly Writing Program at the end of spring 2016, one faculty reported that “[s]ome of my best friends in Bloomington have come from the women’s writing groups—the godmother of my child I found in the first semester of this group. These groups more than anything have helped me feel rooted and committed to this institution and town. I like being able to run into folks [from the groups] around town, and while serving on campus committees … because I immediately know that they are like-minded and willing to set aside time to be part of this community. Anyone can go and write alone in her office, but to make the commitment to share space and ideas with other women faculty is special.” Faculty perceive their productivity is enhanced by the groups—so much so that several have acknowledged the support when publishing their books. As one recently tenured writer, Margaret Foster, noted in the front matter to her new book, “Large portions of this book were written during sessions of Indiana University’s Scholarly Writing Program. I am grateful to my colleagues in these sessions and to the director … for their camaraderie and contagious productivity.” Perhaps our best indicator that the groups meet faculty needs, however, is that so many faculty continue to sign up to participate in them. While assistant professors are most likely of any rank to participate in faculty writing groups, in spring 2018, 60 associate professors (12 percent of the campus’ 496) participated in a writing group (see Table 7.1). table 7.1  Participation in Indiana University Bloomington Faculty Writing Groups

Semester

Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring 2013 2014 2014 2015 2015 2016 2016 2017 2017 2018

Participants 17 Assistant 12 Associate 4 Full 1 Lecturer Clinical faculty Researcher/ other Faculty co2 facilitators

27 16 8 1 2

2

48 21 13 4 6 0

54 32 14 3 5 0

77 40 25 3 5 2

154 66 47 5 15 4

162 66 51 10 17 3

192 77 50 14 22 6

230 99 52 19 24 5

252 94 60 18 32 5

4

0

2

17

15

23

31

43

4

6

9

11

13

13

15

18

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Challenges of Expansion

With success come new challenges. By the spring of 2018, the program offered 21 groups serving 252 faculty from 13 schools and 69 departments. This expansion of the program provided an opportunity to assess which aspects of the program are most critical to the success of the writing groups, and to test the limits of scalability. Expansion has particularly raised questions for us about the maximum number and diversity (gender, rank, and discipline) of the groups, available space for such a large number of groups, whether we would have similar buy-in and support from deans comparable to that of the two deans who supported the founding of the program within their schools, and demands on the program director. Because the program was initially designed for women-only groups, we were unsure whether opening them beyond women would alter groups enough to alienate those participants who sought women-only groups. Most (75%) current participants are women, so we define a majority of groups as for women; others are gender-inclusive. As it turns out, there is a balance between women who prefer single-sex groups and those who find scheduling a more important selection criterion; the expansion offers the latter more time slots from which to choose. Identifying space for 21 different groups is also a challenge because good meeting spaces, especially ones that can be available for a three hour block every week, are always at a premium. School deans have been generous in providing conference rooms and other dedicated space for group meetings—an invaluable in-kind gift. For founding participants, some of the boutique quality of the initial program was lost as the groups were further formalized. By design, many of these women were selected as co-facilitators, and this specific cohort of 18 meets separately and has forged its own identity alongside those of the groups they help to manage. Finally, in the fall of 2017, the program suffered from its own success: how best for the now full-time director to co-facilitate 21 weekly groups in person? The established model with two facilitators (one the director, one a faculty writer) worked well, but the schedule was tight, and made even tighter by the space for group meetings being spread across the entire campus. Our concerns about tampering with the director’s role were two-fold: protecting the esprit de corps that the director had carefully built, and avoiding an arrangement that overburdened the faculty co-facilitators, whose primary aim is to write during the group meeting time. Our solution was to appoint a faculty fellow from among those already most involved with the program to help facilitate the groups. A major concern, however, was that the faculty fellow not be burdened with yet one more service responsibility, and of course, this solution would require additional funds

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from the Provost. By this point, the success of the program in supporting faculty work, and by extension, the campus strategic plan, whether measured by the intensity of faculty enthusiasm for the program, growth in the number of faculty participating, or the boost faculty felt the program provided in their productivity was easy to document. There were also other indicators that campus efforts to support faculty were effective, and while not attributable to any single program, strengthened our case that investing in faculty support and development was worthwhile. We could document, for example, a decline in the percent of tenure cases with mixed votes as they went through the various levels of review, increases in satisfaction with the university and in the perception that the Provost cared about their success, especially among junior faculty, and some evidence from data sources such as Academic Analytics that faculty productivity was increasing. Also important was that the program director and Vice Provost made sure these successes were not invisible. The program director regularly solicits program evaluations from participants and takes the time to compile an annual report for the Vice Provost, which is then shared with the Provost. Faculty in the program send occasional unsolicited emails to the Vice Provost, Provost, and even President expressing their enthusiasm for the program. Annual budget conferences with the Provost and faculty governance body also become opportunities to show the success of the program and to connect it to campus strategic goals, which helps make the case for program expansion. While the program is easy to sell, the efforts of the director to make sure those successes are documented and visible throughout the process, not just when additional funds are requested, has been critical to our success in gaining additional funds for program expansion. However, at least for us, the most convincing argument for additional funds is that they are addressing issues generated because of the growing demand for the program. Data in hand, we thus sought and received funding from the Provost to fund one additional course release per semester for the SWP Fellow and arranged the fellow’s responsibilities to encourage facilitation and participation in multiple groups. Our hope was that the faculty fellow position might be an opportunity to intersect with another campus goal— increased support for mid-career faculty—while also meeting critical program needs. Our initial semester appointing a faculty fellow, a mid-career faculty member, accomplished all of these goals and illustrated the synergy possible between programs. The spring 2018 faculty fellow states: The time, space, and community that the fellowship offered reinforced my identity as a writer and as a faculty member with an active research

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agenda; there is nothing else like this offered on or off campus. I discovered that not only could I deepen my writing practice during the scholarly writing groups that I attended, but I could also drop into my writing … when I might have just five or ten minutes because I was consistently writing two and a half hours a day, four days a week at a minimum. I tracked my writing in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) Write Now software and was able to download my data. In fall 2017, I wrote an average of six hours a week. With the SWP Faculty Fellowship in Spring 2018, I wrote an average of eleven hours a week. I also noticed that I was a better teacher during the fellowship period and that I had better interactions with my students because my days revolved around the ideas that I was working with in my research. At a practical level, there are always questions about cost. In light of the benefits we have seen, the cost for the newly expanded Scholarly Writing Program is relatively minor, particularly given the number of faculty who participate. We estimate current program costs at around $250K (less than $1000 per faculty member per year), which includes a multi-day writing retreat in May in addition to the weekly writing groups each semester. The greatest single cost is employment of the program director, but we have found that investment in a director with significant expertise in faculty development and academic writing an essential component of program success. Research stipends ($1K per facilitator per semester), funds to support a course buy-out each semester for the faculty fellow, and about $10K to support a multi-day writing retreat and various writing workshops on campus account for the remainder of the costs. Roughly $225K of the funding comes from the Provost, with the remaining contributed by deans based on the number of faculty from their school or college participating in the program. Of course, we started the program with even less money (under $7,500 total to cover co-facilitator compensation, books on writing for participants, and a reception each semester) and a lot of heart. It took time and effort to grow it to the size it is today. In sum, despite the expansion of the program from 17 faculty and two groups to 252 faculty and 21 groups, we have been successful in retaining much of the original structure of the groups. Given the relatively modest costs, we have found the core benefits of the groups are compatible with these changes, allowing us to continue meeting faculty demand for the writing groups and to experiment with other expansions, such as a multi-day faculty writing retreat. Overall, the groups provide faculty with uninterrupted time, space, and accountability to devote to research and writing every week, while also linking them to colleagues across the campus.

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Future Directions

One area of growth for the writing program arises from collaborations with other campus programs. The SWP co-sponsors workshops with the Office of the Vice Provost for Research focused on grant-writing in the humanities and social sciences and hosted workshops by renowned writers who shape the way higher education thinks about academic writing. The SWP partnered with the College Arts and Humanities Institute (CAHI) to bring the OpEd Project to campus to lead academic writers through the process of publishing in mainstream media. In follow-up, the SWP director has held additional peer-review groups for these pieces. As a consequence, IU SWP writers have placed op-eds in The Washington Post, The Guardian, and USA Today, to name a few. We have talked about growth, and about clean, well-lighted spaces. The logical leap from there is to establish our own well-lighted space: a faculty writing house. Some of the administrative challenges of such a big program—finding meeting space, for example—would be solved by a stand-alone center. Permanent space would also enhance the other services a writing program can provide: traditional peer review groups and individual editorial support. The SWP director currently works with 20–30 faculty a semester providing feedback on scholarly drafts, op-eds for public audiences, and materials for promotion and tenure; if groups were held in one place, more time could be devoted to editorial work. Most importantly, a writing “house,” as we envision it, could have an impact on the broader faculty culture. While a house would help consolidate the sense of community established through the writing groups by connecting all SWP writers to a central place, it could also build community in its own right. Conversations on our campus have recently touched on the need for such a place—a kind of 21st-century Faculty Club. Through programming like sponsored social events, drop-in writing stints, and writing workshops led by (inter)national experts, a writing house would provide faculty a physical place to anchor the very real feelings of connection they develop with other writers. Most importantly, unlike most faculty clubs of the past, it would provide a central location for interaction with colleagues in a way that integrates community and work time.

7

Conclusion

We end where we began: with Daria. Facing the mid-career mountain, she became a founding participant of the women’s writing groups at IU Bloomington—in fact, she was invited to serve as one of the first two co-facilitators. Five years in,

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Daria has sent her two children to high school and college, applied for external grants, continued to serve in her administrative roles, and is completing her monograph. She has constructed a regular writing habit that fits with her demanding professional schedule, and even helped to start a small non-profit peace and justice organization with other faculty throughout campus. As she closes in on finishing her monograph, she is also planning to go up for promotion to full professor—a goal she had once thought unattainable. Having made new connections that cross discipline and rank, she reports being happier in her job now than she has been since before tenure, and attributes much of her well-being to the safe space, time, accountability, and community provided by the writing groups. Daria is one of many mid-career faculty members whose professional lives have changed significantly as a result belonging to this community of writers.

Note 1 The bulk of this chapter was written during a weekly summer drop-in writing group on Tuesday mornings at Indiana University.

References Adkins-Garcia, E. M., Eum, S. H., & Watt, L. (2013). Experience the benefits of difference within multidisciplinary graduate writing groups. In A. E. Geller & M. Eodice (Eds.), Working with faculty writers (pp. 260–279). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Alexander, J., Plummer, L., & McLeod, J. (2018, May–June). Addressing gendered practices through women’s writing groups. Academe, 104(3), 23–26. Annual report of the Scholarly Writing Program. (2018). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. Baldi, B., Sorcinelli, M. D., & Yun, J. H. (2013). The scholarly writing continuum: A new program model for teaching and faculty development centers. In A. E. Geller & M. Eodice (Eds.), Working with faculty writers (pp. 38–49). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Baldwin, R. G., Lunceford, C. J., & Vanderlinden, K. E. (2005, Fall). Faculty in the middle years: Illuminating an overlooked phase of academic life. Review of Higher Education, 29(1), 97–118. doi:10.1353/rhe.2005.0055 Boice, R. (1990). Professors as writers. A self-help guide to productive writing. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

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Bruffee, K. (1984). Peer tutoring and the conversation of mankind. In C. Murphy & J. Law (Eds.), Landmark essays on writing centers (pp. 87–98). Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press. Britton, J. (1970). Language and learning. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. Britton, J., Burgess, T., Martin, N., McLeod, A., & Rosen, H. (1975). The Development of writing abilities. London: Macmillan. Cassese, E. C., & Holman, M. R. (2018). Writing groups as models for peer mentorship among female faculty in political science. PS: Political Science & Politics, 51(2), 401–405. Clark-Oates, A., & Cahill, L. (2013). Faculty writing groups: Writing centers and third space collaborations. In A. E. Geller & M. Eodice (Eds.), Working with faculty writers (pp. 111–126). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Cox, M. D. (2004). Introduction to faculty learning communities. New Directions in Teaching and Learning: Building Faculty Learning Communities, 97, 5–23. Cox, M. D., & Brunjes, A. (2013). Guiding principles for supporting faculty as writers at a teaching-mission institution. In A. E. Geller & M. Eodice (Eds.), Working with faculty writers (pp. 191–209). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Elbow, P. (1975). Writing without teachers. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Elbow, P., & Sorcinelli, M. D. (2006). The faculty writing place: A room of our own. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 38(6), 17–22. doi:10.3200/CHNG.38.6.17-22 Foster, M. C. (2017). The seer and the city. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fraser, G., & Little, D. (2013). Talking about writing: Critical dialogues on supporting faculty writers. In A. E. Geller & M. Eodice (Eds.), Working with faculty writers (pp. 73–94). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Geller, A. E., & Eodice, M. (Eds.). (2013). Working with faculty writers. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Gere, A. R. (1987). Writing groups: History, theory, and implications. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Hurtado, S., & DeAngleo, L. (2009, September–October). Keeping senior women at your college. Academe, 95(5), 18–20. June, A. W. (2015). The invisible labor of minority professors. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 62, 11. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/TheInvisible-Labor-of/234098 Lamott, A. (1995). Bird by bird: Some instructions on writing and life. New York, NY: Anchor Books. Matthews, K. (2014). Perspectives on mid-career faculty and advice for supporting them. Cambridge, MA: The Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education. Malesic, J. (2016). The 40-year-old burnout: Why I gave up tenure for a yet-to-bedetermined career. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved June 12, 2018, from https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-40-Year-Old-Burnout/237979

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Misra, J., & Lundquist, J. H. (2015). Diversity and the ivory ceiling. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved June 10, 2018, from https://www.insidehighered.com/ advice/2015/06/26/essay-diversity-issues-and-mid-career-faculty-members Misra, J., Lundquist, J. H., Holmes, E., & Agiomavritis, S. (2011, January–February). The ivory ceiling of service work. Academe, 97(1), 22–26. Murray, D. M. (1991). The craft of revision. Fort Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Pyke, K. (2011). Service and gender inequity among faculty. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44(1), 85–87. doi:10.1017/S1049096510001927 Richlin, L., & Cox, M. (2004). Developing scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching and learning through faculty learning communities. New Directions in Teaching and Learning: Building Faculty Learning Communities, 97, 127–36. Rockquemore, K. A. (2008). The Black academic’s guide to winning tenure—Without losing your soul. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Rockquemore, K. A. (2010, June 14). Shut up and write. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved June 12, 2018, from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2010/06/14/shut-and-write Smith, T. G., Molloy, J. C., Kassens-Noor, E., Li, W., & Colunga-Garcia, M. (2013). Developing a heuristic for multidisciplinary faculty writing groups: A case study. In A. E. Geller & M. Eodice (Eds.), Working with faculty writers (pp. 175–190). Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. Sword, H. (2016). ‘Write every day!’: A mantra dismantled. International Journal for Academic Development, 21(4), 312–322. doi:10.1080/1360144X.2016.1210153

CHAPTER 8

Career Development Strategies for Mid-Career Faculty Pradeep Bhardwaj, Debbie L. Hahs-Vaughn, Florencio Eloy Hernandez and J. Blake Scott

Abstract Mid-career faculty are often defined as faculty who have achieved tenure and promotion but are not nearing retirement. Research on mid-career faculty has noted various challenges faced at this stage of the academic career. There is, therefore, a need for support of mid-career faculty. The University of Central Florida (UCF), one of the largest universities in the nation, has developed a multiple-pronged approach to meeting the needs of mid-career faculty. In this chapter, we describe our evolving cluster of mid-career faculty support programming and offer few specific recommendations for institutions that are beginning or enhancing mid-career faculty support.

Keywords mid-career – associate professors – career advancement – faculty development – career planning

1

Introduction: When the Right Support Knocks at Your Door

It was the tenth month of year 2014. The end of my (Hernandez) sixth year as Associate Professor of Chemistry at this large institution was approaching. I was feeling disoriented. My compass seemed upside down. I spent many hours daydreaming in front of my computer, observing the many career related questions that swam the waters of my thoughts and imagination. One day, among the many institutional emails that I would receive and delete without reading, I got one with a subject line saying “Invitation: College Faculty Mentoring Program.” I cannot explain why this message caught my attention, but I am glad it did. Admittedly, with some skepticism, I attended the first meeting. © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_009

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In her introduction of the program, the Associate Dean pointed out that other institutions have reported successful results from engaging faculty in similar career/mentoring planning efforts, and she highlighted how valuable all faculty were for the institution, and how important it was for our university to support all associate professors to become professors. This was the first time I heard this last statement from anyone in my university, and I can certainly say that I was energized. In fact, many more questions started popping-up in my mind: Was I really that important for my institution? Do others really care about me and my future? I again felt the desire to move on, grow, and succeed. However, I was not sure where I wanted to go, what I wanted to achieve, and how would I assess my success. This prelude, capturing the experience of one of us as a faculty member, highlights some of the challenges that many mid-career faculty face—including lack of direction, motivation, and support. As Kerry Ann Rockquemore (2017a) points out, faculty can fall into the trap (she calls it the “tenure trap”) of taking on new work responsibilities without the time to reflect about their goals and plan how to move forward. To borrow Bill Hart-Davidson’s (2017) distinction, associate professors and other mid-career faculty need more opportunities to focus less on milestones set by institutions and more on horizons and stepping stones they themselves set—with help and support. But as a number of researchers have pointed out, institutions have been slow to recognize and support the needs of mid-career faculty relative to their junior counterparts, prompting Baldwin and colleagues (2008) to note the “lack of attention, and even neglect, that many mid-career faculty experience” (p. 48; see also Lopatovska, O’Brien, Rorissa, Ivanović, & Julien, 2017). Yet the prelude also hints at hope—hope for confidence, growth, and success supported by others. Although mid-career faculty have been relatively under-supported compared to those in early-career, a growing number of institutions have developed professional development and support efforts for mid-career faculty, including support designed to overcome the challenges of preparing for promotion. Successful examples include retreats with pre- and post-retreat activities (Strage & Merdinger, 2014), mentoring or networking programs (Buch et al., 2011), programs for career planning and renewal (Baldwin & Chang, 2006), research renewal support (Baldwin & Chang, 2006), and others. It is our institution’s story of initiating mid-career support that we want to share here. We will return to the individual case narrative in the prelude but first want to preview what the larger chapter will cover. After inventorying the challenges faced by mid-career faculty, both through a literature review and the case narrative, we will flesh out our local context of faculty needs and

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institutional efforts. Then we will discuss some of our recent and ongoing support efforts, spotlighting our new Associate Professor Mentoring Community in particular, including their design, participants’ feedback from surveys of former participants, and our responses. We will then end by discussing lessons learned and future directions for serving this group of faculty.

2

Challenges for Mid-Career Faculty

Mid-career faculty have been defined broadly as those in the “middle years” of their careers, as defined by their ages (e.g., midlife), by total years in their careers, and/or by years of working at the same institution (Baldwin, Lunceford, & Vanderlinden, 2005). Hall (1986) perhaps provides the most comprehensive definition, as “the period during one’s work in an occupational (career) role after one feels established and has achieved perceived mastery and prior to the commencement of the disengagement process,” a definition that captures the experience of many but not all faculty (p. 127). Mid-career faculty have also been defined more specifically as those who have achieved tenure and promotion, reaching the rank of associate professor, but do not have retirement in the near future (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005). Regardless of how they are defined, mid-career faculty are the largest proportion of faculty in academics (Baldwin et al., 2008; Litt, Tucker, & Hermsen, 2009; Strage & Merdinger, 2014), estimated at over fifty percent of postsecondary faculty (Strage & Merdinger, 2014). Research conducted about mid-career faculty has noted various challenges faced at this stage of the academic career, including reaching a research plateau (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005; Baldwin et al., 2008), increased service and other obligations (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005; R. Baldwin et al., 2008), shifting institutional priorities without administrative support to keep up (i.e., increasing standards to attain promotion but a lack of support from department chairs and deans to allow for adjustments to the changes) (Strage & Merdinger, 2014), lack of career planning and feedback (Buch et al., 2011), lack of clarity about promotion criteria (Lynn, 2014), and more. These challenges can create mid-career fatigue (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005; Baldwin et al., 2008) and may be augmented for faculty who are female and/or from underrepresented groups (Gardner & Blackstone, 2013). This research makes clear that mid-career faculty, and their productivity, are shaped by their institution, a point not to take lightly given that a sizable number of faculty remain at the institution at which they were awarded tenure for the rest of their academic career (see, e.g., Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005).

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The influence of institutional context can be seen in multiple ways. For example, during difficult economic times, faculty of all ranks may be asked to assume larger teaching roles, leading to less time for scholarly endeavors that ultimately “shapes our scholarly focus” (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005, p. 7). As another example, early career faculty may be hired at a time during which their institution is considered a teaching institution but later find their institution at a research level (e.g., Carnegie classification) when they are mid-career (Caffarella & et al., 1989; Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2006). Mid-career faculty at these types of institutions have substantial academic career challenges (Wolf-Wendel & Ward, 2006). Mid-career faculty who are female and/or from underrepresented groups may experience additional challenges to promotion (Gardner & Blackstone, 2013; Litt et al., 2009; Roos & Gatta, 2009), including limited networks (Hart, 2016) and longer time to promotion (Buch et al., 2011; Roos & Gatta, 2009). Professional networks, both formal and informal, are important for all faculty, but particularly important for women to provide avenues for information, collaboration, and professional connections (Litt et al., 2009). In a study of senior women faculty, inequity is fostered through subtle discrimination by department heads, such as encouraging early promotion for male faculty but not female faculty and using language that promotes inequality—subtly or not so subtly—including using more robust language to describe scholarship of male faculty or devaluing female faculty’s work (Roos & Gatta, 2009). In what follows we further review what the research has found regarding some of the key challenges faced by associate professors and other mid-career faculty. These challenges include remaining fresh, balancing increased responsibilities and workload, and having little direction. 2.1 Remaining Fresh “Staying fresh,” in both teaching and scholarship has been recognized as a “serious challenge” for mid-career faculty (Stortz, 2005). The mid-career juncture has been described as a “turning point” (Nottis, 2005); the pressure for research productivity to achieve tenure, often a singular objective, has passed, as has the structure of pre-tenure expectations, but the need to continue to remain engaged in research continues (Petter et al., in press). Some faculty find it difficult to remain active in research once they achieve tenure simply because the incentive to do so is no longer present (Nottis, 2005). Many mid-career faculty have valleys in research productivity (Baldwin et al., 2008; Caffarella et al., 1989; Ellertson & Schuh, 2007) due to being distanced from the scholarship they once engaged in (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005), having less time for scholarship due to increased service or administrative expectations as they

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rise through the ranks (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005; Baldwin et al., 2008; Petter, Richardson, & Randolph, in press; Strage & Merdinger, 2014), and/or simply reaching a point of stagnation (Litt et al., 2009). On the instructional front, mid-career faculty face the challenge of updating course content and pedagogy, and sometimes experience a lack of stimulation in teaching the same types of courses over time (Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005; Baldwin et al., 2008; Stortz, 2005). 2.2 Increased Responsibilities and Workload In their large-scale study, Baldwin, Lunceford, and Vanderlinden (2005) found that mid-career faculty reported higher level of dissatisfaction than their earlycareer and late-career colleagues due to a number of challenges, including increased workload and expectations and more difficulty in achieving worklife balance (see also Litt et al., 2009), where work-life balance is the ability to coordinate professional and other life responsibilities without the former being overly burdensome on the latter. Baldwin, DeZure, Shaw, and Moretto (2008) found that post-tenured faculty face increased research expectations from their departments, while also facing increased teaching loads and service, leadership, and administrative responsibilities for which junior faculty are not eligible. Sometimes increased expectations are brought on or exacerbated by larger institutional changes, such as a shift toward a more research-extensive focus or a new strategic plan (see Baldwin & Chang, 2006; Pastore, 2013). Additionally, it is important to note that mid-career faculty make many institutional contributions that are not rewarded as they fall outside of traditional roles of teaching, research, and service (Lamber et al., 1993). In an effort to increase diversity in committee structures, as part of well-intentioned efforts to increase diverse opinions, female faculty have increasingly seen time and energy diverted from research productivity (Buch et al., 2011; Steidl & Sterk, 2016), and this is problematic for underrepresented faculty as well (Baldwin et al., 2008). 2.3 Lack of Direction and Support for Goal Setting and Planning Often, as illustrated by the case narrative, mid-career faculty reach a “career plateau” at which point a career direction and professional goals are less concrete and clear (Baldwin et al., 2008; Petter et al., in press). For some, this challenge can be exacerbated by “vague performance expectations, including what is required for promotion to professor” and “can lead to a loss of professional momentum or even disengagement” (Baldwin et al., 2008, p. 52; see also Buch et al., 2011).

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Women faculty in the middle of their careers can face additional challenges around career planning. In a qualitative study of associate professors, researchers noted that female faculty were more aware, and more critical, of the relevancy of the role of gender in faculty career trajectories, noting challenges in “negotiating multiple, contradictory messages about productivity” (Steidl & Sterk, 2016, pp. 600–601). In addition, the challenges of balancing family and career can be more pronounced for women (Baldwin et al., 2008; Steidl & Sterk, 2016). At the same time they face a need for direction and goals, mid-career faculty do not have adequate opportunities (e.g., mentoring, professional development programming, career planning) or resources (e.g., internal research support, research time) for continued career advancement (Petter et al., in press; Rees & Shaw, 2014). Before discussing such challenges and needs of mid-career faculty in our institutional context, we return to the case narrative in the prelude to bring some of the challenges, and possible responses, to life. This narrative will also provide examples of specific tools for career advancement planning that our larger faculty development programming utilized.

3

One Faculty Member’s Journey to Stay Motivated, Engaged, and Successful

3.1 Assistant Professor Years Going through a very rough and bumpy path during my first five years of academic career, I succeeded and earned tenure and promotion in 2008. Thinking back in time, my body recollects the stress and the queasiness it used to feel from the excess of caffeine ingested to maintain alertness through the many sleepless nights required to meet a proposal deadline, or the characteristic shivering cold sensation triggered by those unforgettable first six words “We regret to inform you that …” that I had to read in every rejection letter from a peer-reviewed journal or a federal funding agency. Going through tenure-track was a very exhausting experience, yet it was a very rewarding opportunity that taught me the value of passion and perseverance and the importance of external support. On the latter, I should acknowledge that at my university, as well as in most institutions, there are well-established coaching/advising/mentoring programs at all levels (department, college and university) for assistant professors. Most federal agencies now have specific programs for young investigators to ensure their success, departments tend to minimize service assignments to assistant professors to

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lessen the burden, and teaching tends to be simplified to reduce preparation and grading time during those arduous semesters/years. However, what about support for those faculty who are already on the other side of the pasture? Don’t they need help? 3.2 Associate Professor Years It was May 2008 when I finally received the signed letter from the Board of Trustees granting me tenure and promotion to rank of assistant professors at my university. My feeling of achievement was overwhelming; yes, I was madly cheerful. On that day I decided to take the rest of the afternoon off and do nothing. It was a very well-deserved pause. My psychological halt took a little longer to regularize, perhaps a couple of months, until I realized that the Fall semester was about to begin. My “wake up alarm” went on when my chair started asking me to become more involved in some additional committees at the college and university level. I felt so accomplished that I could not say no to any additional requests. Additionally, I was well-funded, my scientific productivity was relatively high, my teaching was functioning smoothly, and my research group was running steady. I was living in the Golden Age of my career. Of course, life is always changing and dynamic, and sooner or later it hits you with more demands. Approximately two years after my promotion, it was time for me to redefine my research, write fresh proposals to maintain external funding, recruit and train new graduate students before the senior ones completed their Ph.D. (left the lab), and maintain my scientific productivity, all of this on the top of my additional service duties. This seemed like the beginning of an unanticipated resuming stressful period when the reversed Alchemy of time transforms precious gold into toxic mercury. The commencement of the new academic Dark Age of my career was announced by the deafening silence created by the reduced number of existent funding opportunities for mid-career faculty, the striking sirens of rejections generated by the strong competition in the scientific arena, and the pressuring walls of an unsatisfied but indispensable international recognition. I was not alone in this situation. Many of my colleagues, including the most successful ones during their tenure track, were also losing their funding, struggling with the publication process, and trying to understand the meaning of achieving international prominence in my institution. During the next several years, I was able to maintain some level of stamina by keeping my research boat afloat. With exceptionally hard work I was able to land a modest grant every once in a while. I was working more than 70 hours per week with no sense of accomplishment, and during the rest of the time I

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was thinking only about my job. Work-life balance was definitely not a term in my dictionary. I felt lost in the labyrinth of my academic uncertainty. I started questioning my professional decisions. I did not have a clear vision of my future. I was certainly not satisfied with my job, and I was seriously considering not ever applying for promotion to professor. Rather, I was considering just loosening it up for the next decade or two. Giving up on my career sounded very discouraging, mainly because of the lack of sense of final accomplishment it produced in my guts. Yet, I needed to find a way to release the pressure. As I once heard from my Grandma, “when the jiggler of the pressure cooker gets clogged, the trapped steam in the cooker can develop excess pressure to the point of an unavoidable explosion.” 3.3 Arrival of the Guru At the beginning of my sixth year as an associate professors of Chemistry, I felt very disoriented in my career. I was looking for a professional change but I was not sure what I meant by a change. I did recognize a new desire flourishing in me. I wanted to serve, to serve my community at a larger scale. Around that time I considered joining administration as a potential career path. I was really desperate for answers and in great need of guidance. This is when I received that email about the college faculty mentoring program, from the Associate Dean, who became my first post-tenure guide or “Guru.”. When I arrived to the college conference room on the day of the mentoring program’s kickoff meeting, there were around 20 faculty, mostly assistant professors, waiting for the meeting to start. “Good morning everyone and thank you very much for accepting my invitation”. These were the first few words my Associate Dean voiced, with plenty of energy, to welcome all of us to the program. I was excited because for the first time in a long while I could see a flickering light appear at the end of the tunnel. She then introduced herself and asked all the participants to do similarly. Following a full round of introductions, the Associate Dean explained the dynamics of the mentoring program (peer-to-peer mentoring), stated its purpose (advance and succeed in reaching personal/professional goals), and paired up mentors and mentees based on disciplines, seniority and perhaps some other criteria. Afterward she went over a calendar with monthly meetings and a list of topics to be covered in each of them. Among the topics I recall the most are the Career Advancement Plan (CAP) and Career Road Map (CRM), the Gap analysis, and the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis. She also talked about other interesting topics such as reading and navigating the promotion and tenure criteria. Throughout the next several months I had an excellent opportunity to think thoroughly about

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my short-, medium- and long-term goals. I also had time to identify potential barriers and to design alternative paths to circumvent these obstacles and achieve my goals. During the next two semesters, I attended all the meetings on a monthly basis. No matter how disconnected I felt at any given moment, I trusted my Associate Dean and I knew that something good would come out of this effort. 3.4 My Career Advancement Plan (CAP) Once, talking with a group of colleagues about Career Advancement Plans (CAPS), a faculty member in the crowd asked a very interesting question: “Why should I become a professor”. I did not have a good answer for my colleague, and I still don’t have one. Yet, I understand that this question is very important. I am convinced that academia is a self-driven vocation that is constantly energized by a strong sense of personal fulfillment, and I trust the inner voice inhabiting in every one of us to lead us in our professional journey. Career advancement is one of the most important elements universities need to keep in mind when developing new policies and programs to increase faculty satisfaction, mainly to maintain motivation among mid-career faculty who tend to be less focused in their career goals after several years at the Associate Professor rank (Baldwin et al., 2008). Of course, it is hard to generalize the meaning of satisfaction for all faculty because needs are different for different people. For some faculty, career advancement may mean developing and teaching some new specific classes. For others, it might signify having more time to travel and develop new scientific collaborations. For some others like me, it could mean gaining experience in multiple professional fields and changing roles to become an administrator. Still other thoughts of career advancement could include writing a new novel, going on a long sabbatical, increasing the number of peer-reviewed publications, creating and leading a Center of Excellence in a specific topic, or developing a new research field, among many others. With these ideas in mind, I started working on my career advancement plan. Through a careful and long meditation, I envisioned three different likely paths for me. 1. The first avenue was the safest. It consisted of maintaining my scientific productivity and level of funding steady, limiting my teaching responsibilities to doing a good job in the classroom, and withstanding a low profile in service to keep a good balance between all three areas. Reflecting on this path, I could see a simple life as an associate professor until the age of retirement arrived. 2. The second path seemed more ambitious and more demanding, but it also appeared more rewarding. It was the professor option. Through this

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route, I had to increase the number of publications and amount of funding, enhance my international visibility, excel in teaching and mentoring, and expand my service beyond the boundaries of my institution. This second option was more attractive than the first one but was still missing something greater, something of more substance for me personally. 3. Then, a third and more attractive route came to my mind. This extraordinary pathway had the necessary substance to elevate my desire to grow as an academic administrator in higher education, reinforce my academic affairs calling, and strengthen my desire to serve the community. Additionally, the third option indirectly included option two, as shown later. After finalizing my career advancement plan, I had to start working on my Career Road Map (CRM). To do this, I first had to establish more specific career goals. Then I designed a specific career path for my professional development at my institution. This exercise involved deep self-reflection and understanding of what was required (knowledge, skills, personal characteristics, and experience) to progress in my career towards promotion and administration. During this process I had the opportunity to interact, on a regular basis, with my assigned mentor and my Associate Dean to talk about my career plans. I explained my desire to become an academic leader and join the service forces of administration. Both of them suggested that becoming a professor was recommended for anyone with administrative aspiration in academia. In a traditional and more conservative plan one would expect to move in the following trajectory: Professor → Department Chair → Associate Dean → Dean → Associate Provost → Provost. Because of some institutional constraints and opportunities, and based on my Associate Dean’s path, I decided to take an untraditional/ alternative path towards my goal of provost (see Table 8.1). A couple of points in Table 8.1 deserve special attention. My short-term goal was to become a professor in 2016. My medium-term goal was to complete my MBA at my institution to gain managerial and leadership skills that I lacked, table 8.1  10 Year goals and career road map

Achievement Professor MBA Associate Dean Dean or Associate Dean Provost

Year

Age

2016 2018 2016–2018 2019–2024 2025–2026

50 52 50–52 53–58 59–60

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before accepting an administrator position. This goal was extremely important for me because it addresses a personal criticism I always had about some administrators in academia. During my career I have noticed that in many instances excellent faculty are promoted to administrator positions based on their successful teaching and/or scholarly achievement and not so much on their administrative and leadership skills. After the MBA, my path is relatively standard. First, I would like to become an associate dean, then I expect to move to a dean or associate provost Position, and finally I aspire to become the provost at a mid-size university. It is important to highlight that career goals should always consider two set of factors that must be aligned, (1) what the field values and recognizes, and (2) the institution’s criteria and values. Additionally, the CAP and CRM are not written in stone; therefore, they should be regarded as flexible and dynamic tools that are susceptible to changes depending on present and future events/ circumstances. Having established my CAP and CRM, I was ready to start working on the development of my Gap Analysis. For this purpose, I had to precisely identify my current and future states and then establish the key factors for change. The best way to approach this goal is to perform a SWOT Analysis around achieving career goals. 3.5 My SWOT Analysis Using this tool, I was able to understand my Strengths and Weaknesses, and identify existent Opportunities for growth in my surroundings as well as some of the Threats I had to face. In Table 8.2, I show my SWOT Analysis, highlighting my personal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats—the first two being more with my control and the second two shaped more by external factors to which I can respond. Interesting to highlight is the fact that I had no administrative experience or negotiation skills. Additionally, I was not a very good listener. These last two points do not appear in Table 8.2 because, at the time, I was not aware of them. Of course, I attribute these traits to my strong scientific personality and training throughout the years. However, if I was serious about giving a new meaning to my professional life, I had to tilt the rudder and make some corrections in that direction. This is when, with a growth mindset, I decided to enroll in the Evening MBA program offered at my university. I was enthusiastic about going back to school and learning new complementary skills that would help me grow professionally and personally. Among the most useful skills I learned during my MBA were the following: Organizational Behavior, Conflict Resolution and Negotiation Skills, Strategic Management, and Law & Ethics.

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table 8.2  SWOT analysis

Strengths – International experience – Multicultural background – Academic Afffairs-Centered – Creative & imaginative – Highly efffijicient & adaptable Opportunities – College and university committees – Faculty Excellence Professional development programs (Academic Leadership Academy – ALA) – Evening MBA program – Like new challenges – Not afraid of changes

Weaknesses – No administrative experience – Lack of negotiation skills – Can take things to heart sometimes – Little tolerance for incompetence – Do not like to have things in the “To do list” Threats – Time and family responsibilities – Increase in workload – Competition in the fijield – Peer pressure—rejection – Trust intuition too much

During the College Faculty Mentoring Program and through conversations with my mentor and peers, I discovered some institutional opportunities such as the Academic Leadership Academy (ALA). ALA is a one-year program offered at my institution to develop future academic leaders. With all this information at hand, I made a plan. I would start working on my promotion dossier to apply for professor in the next round (2015), try to enroll in the MBA program in Fall 2015, and call Faculty Excellence (one of the units on campus that is devoted to faculty efforts) to find more information about the ALA. Because I had to do a more exhaustive analysis of the missing key factors to get on the road, I decided to do my Gap Analysis keeping in mind my short-, medium- and long-term goals (Table 8.1). 3.6 My Gap Analysis This is one of the most important tools one can use to determine the necessary steps to be taken to move from a present state to a desired future state. The Gap Analysis is so broad that it can be applied to our career and personal life. To complete this task, I had to do a lot of research and have many conversations with colleagues and mentors. During the first semester in the program, and through the expansion of my professional network, I found more people willing to offer mentorship in different areas. To start my Gap Analysis, I divided the activity into two separate but complementary parts: (a) becoming professor, and (b) becoming an administrator. In the first part, I developed a plan to fill the gaps for my promotion to

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table 8.3  GAP analysis

Needs

Opportunities

Resources

– Understand administration & institution – Roles & lifestyle of administrators – Responsibilities & commitments – Good, bad & ugly – Path for administrators

– Professional development – Support colleagues and students – Teamwork – Lead, innovate, transform – Inspire others

– College programs – Faculty excellence – Mentoring programs – Leadership programs – Faculty tuition waiver

professor. When I was working on this part I discovered, through my meetings and conversations with some of my colleagues and supervisors, several points of potential concern that I had to address before my promotion dossier went out for evaluation by the different P&T committees at the institution and the external reviewers. For instance, on the teaching side, I was encouraged to show, in addition to high quality of instruction, more evidence of innovation in teaching. I was also invited to include some of my important peer-topeer mentoring activities in my teaching contribution. On the research side, there were three main points that I had to address: (1) organize a symposium, (2) strengthen my professional network, and (3) create a Google Scholar Citation site for future references. Finally, on the service aspect I had to lead more efforts in local and national associations in my discipline and join the editorial board of a well-recognized scientific journal. We all have different positive and negative pieces in our corresponding P&T packages. My Associate Dean’s best advice was to focus and leverage the positive aspects and fix the negative ones. In the second part, I focused more on my administrator goals. I started by recognizing important needs, then I found sound opportunities to fill the gaps, and finally I identified available resources to achieve my goals. In Table 8.3, I show the key factors in each column. Then I translated this analysis of needs, opportunities, and resources into a series of action steps that became the basis of my CAP, as reflected reflected in Figure 8.1. The take-home message from this analysis is this: Don’t be shy. Have these and other conversations with your colleagues, chairs, and deans. You really want to go over the P&T criteria with them and hear, directly from them, what they expect from you.

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figure 8.1 Action steps to close gaps

3.7 Professor Years In July 2015 I submitted my dossier for promotion and in the Fall of the same year I enrolled in the Evening MBA program at my university. In April 2016 I received the official letter from Academic Affairs certifying my promotion to the rank of professor. Two months later, and with a kick of confidence from my promotion, I resolved to apply for an associate dean position in my institution. I was not successful. Understanding that I was not yet prepared for such a challenge, I decided to stick to my initial plan. In Fall 2016 I was accepted into the 2016–2017 Academic Leadership Academy and I was ready to start my second year in the MBA program. In Spring 2017 I applied to a Provost Faculty Fellow Program. This program is designed to help accomplished faculty develop leadership skills at the university level. I was one of the two faculty selected for the 2017–2018 program. In Spring 2018 I received my MBA, after which I extended my Provost Faculty Fellow position through the summer, became the Director of the Graduate Program in my department, and I began scanning the environment for new administrative opportunities at my university. Today, my research group is running smoothly, my research funding keeps arriving, my teaching activities are as rewarding as they can be, my service has become more meaningful, and every morning I wake up with delight to go to work. Time passed very quickly and everything did not go as anticipated all the time. Changes on the run were required in many occasions. There were periods of low energy and frustration. However, maintaining the optimism and an open mind to make adjustments to the initial plan helped me maintain focus and motivation. Building a good mentor-mentee relationship and expanding

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the network of supporters was vital for success. Having open conversation with colleagues and supervisors helped me better understand expectations. When the plan seemed a little obscure, revising the CAP, CRM, SWOT Analysis, and the Gap Analysis illuminated the path and granted me direction. During this period I discovered that there are (a) opportunities for everyone, (b) multiple career paths for each one of us, and (c) institutional resources to help faculty succeed in various ways. An important fact that I learned during these past several years is that universities truly care about all of us, and it is in their best interest to help all faculty succeed professionally and personally. Therefore, I invite everyone to believe, to find a reason, and to make a plan for success. It is up to us to do introspection, make that decision, and take charge of our lives to inspire the future generations to build a better world. And by the way, if a colleague from anywhere asks me again “Why should I become professor?” I would answer with confidence “Because you once dreamt about it.” Little did I know that in a few short years, I would be co-designing programs for and mentoring faculty who had this very question.

4

Our Institutional Context and Response

4.1 A University in Transformation The University of Central Florida (UCF) has undergone a series of transformations that have impacted faculty advancement. These include becoming a “highest research activity” doctoral institution, substantial growth and reorganization of academic units, and several recent waves of new faculty hiring. These shifts have led to new responsibilities for faculty, changing criteria for promotion and other types of advancement, and a strategic plan focused partly on faculty impact. Like at many other universities, UCF’s development efforts have focused historically on supporting the success of junior faculty, while associate professors and other mid-career faculty have had to navigate institutional transformations largely on their own. Such transformations and accompanying challenges are reflected in the years-in-rank of associate professors across the university in 2017, with 39% in rank between 0–5 years (most relatively new to UCF) and the next highest percentage, 30%, in rank for 12 or more years (UCF Institutional Knowledge Management). Both groups face similar challenges (e.g., around preparing for promotion), but they also have different needs (e.g., around creating mentoring networks, maintaining or re-starting a research program). More evidence of institutional challenges can be found in the results of the Harvard-based COACHE faculty job satisfaction survey that UCF administered in

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2015. Respondents (accessible at https://facultyexcellence.ucf.edu/files/2015/ 10/COACHE-2015_Provost_Report_University_of_Central_Florida.pdf) indicated promotion to professor as an institutional issue of concern, and they expressed more specific concerns around an institutional culture encouraging promotion, reasonable and clear expectations and standards, and clarity of timeframe and self-readiness for promotion. In response to these concerns, the office of Faculty Excellence initiated a multi-pronged approach to supporting the advancement of associate professors, including designated programs and longer-term planning for continued support. 4.2 A Comprehensive Set of Approaches Because Faculty Excellence wanted to address faculty needs in a targeted but also comprehensive way, the Faculty Excellence team developed some efforts specific to associate professors and others that addressed mid-career faculty more broadly (e.g., including newly promoted professors and nontenure-earning faculty). We were also driven by the principles to ensure that this programming was faculty-driven (i.e., driven by faculty-expressed needs and goals), responsive to faculty feedback and changing needs and opportunities, creative in thinking outside of existing structures and approaches, and sustained through administrative support. In what follows, we describe our evolving cluster of mid-career faculty support programming in terms of these principles. From our earliest planning conversations, we considered ways to both build on existing programming and develop new approaches that integrated and adapted elements of successful programs elsewhere. Faculty Excellence already offered a workshop series to help faculty prepare for the promotion process, and so we enhanced this resource based on feedback from the University Promotion & Tenure Committee and other sources. Faculty Excellence also held a similar workshop for department/unit chairs and directors; as part of overviewing strategies to better support faculty in preparing and applying for promotion, one of this session’s goals was to prompt chairs and directors to encourage associate professors to have more conversations about promotion with department leaders and senior faculty, and to engage in cumulative progress evaluations to get a better sense of their readiness. Because we know that creating a culture of support for mid-career faculty must start at the department or unit level, Faculty Excellence has continued to designate sessions in our ongoing Chairs and Directors Excellence Program (monthly meetings of department chairs and school directors) focused on equipping these leaders to more meaningfully invest in the development of their mid-career faculty, from promotion preparation to long-term career planning.

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Second, we adapted an existing series of leadership workshops (which were open to all faculty) to include sessions that would be particularly useful for mid-career advancement and align with the goals of a new Associate Professor Mentoring Community; namely, these sessions focused on expanding mentoring networks; creating, using, and sharing a career advancement plan; aligning faculty and university mission and branding; extending and measuring scholarly reach and impact, and; honing negotiation skills to advance career goals. A third way we adapted existing structures to better focus on the needs of mid-career faculty was by creating a Mid-Career Subcommittee of the Faculty Excellence Advisory Committee. From the beginning of our planning, we were cognizant that we couldn’t address, or even determine, the needs of mid-career support all at once, and therefore this subcommittee could, over several years, explore and develop structures, programs, and resources that would be sustainable and also adaptable over time. Although we were able to identify challenges facing mid-career faculty from the literature (e.g., Baldwin & Chang, 2006; Baldwin et al., 2008; Gardner & Blackstone, 2013; Huston, Norman, & Ambrose, 2007; Matthews, 2014; Neumann & Terosky, 2007), we also needed to lead a more institution-specific exploration of such challenges. This subcommittee, led by three of us, included 14 faculty who focused on needs assessment, priority setting, and longer-term resource development for mid-career faculty (most of these faculty continued to serve on the following year’s subcommittee). Over the 2017–2018 academic year, this subcommittee developed detailed recommendations for a range of support measures, particularly around the areas of research support (e.g., expanded types of bridge funding support, support for new research programs, flexible assignments), opportunities for expanded but less formal mentoring, and alternative promotion paths. Although institutionalizing most of these support measures is a longer-term process, some have already been implemented; for example, the Office of Research and Commercialization’s research mentoring program recently expanded to support newly promoted associate professors (rather than only assistant professors) seeking mentors. 4.3 Spotlight on the Associate Professor Mentoring Community Because the COACHE survey also identified targeted support for the promotion of associate professors as a priority, we developed and offered an Associate Professor Mentoring Community (APMC) program during 2017–2018. Creation of the APMC came via brainstorming sessions of a team of faculty and administrators in Faculty Excellence and the two Provost Fellows, who had also expressed an interest in supporting mid-career faculty. The idea for the APMC was partly sparked by the success of a similar concurrent program for

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non-tenure earning faculty that had recently launched. The non-tenure earning faculty program was a year-long program with career development programming and smaller goal-focused groups within the participating faculty. The components of the non-tenure earning faculty program that were particularly attractive were the commitment to a year-long structure (i.e., sustained professional development), targeted programming for the needs of the group, and smaller, peer-driven communities formed among committed program participants. While this program had very little actual direct costs the team knew it would be somewhat resource intensive to facilitate and coordinate. Additionally, the team planning the APMC was able to draw on ideas for programming from the Academic Leadership Academy, led by the Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Excellence. At the time the APMC was developed, there were multiple faculty working within Faculty Excellence in part-time roles, including a COACHE Fellow dedicated to advancing faculty success and satisfaction initiatives. This Fellow enlisted the two Provost Fellows, and these three agreed to take the lead in designing the structure of and coordinating the APMC with the larger development team’s guidance and support. The program’s three co-coordinators met regularly to develop the APMC’s structure and resources, plan and adjust programming, and craft communication to the participants. One of the co-coordinators also met regularly with the larger Faculty Excellence development team to get feedback and help connect this program to other faculty success opportunities. The APMC was marketed to faculty through multiple ways. Information was channeled to department chairs, who were encouraged to recommend faculty to apply. Information on the program was presented in Faculty Excellence newsletters that were distributed to all faculty. Direct, personalized emails were also sent to associate professors. The three co-leads also marketed the program at a number of department meetings in their three respective colleges. Interested faculty completed a brief online application that indicated their interests and concerns, and notifications were sent to faculty before the Fall term began. All faculty who applied were accepted into the program. The APMC year-long program had the goals of helping associate professors build diverse mentoring networks, extend the impact of their research, and develop a Career Advancement Plan (CAP). We modeled this latter emphasis after a mentoring program developed at UNC Charlotte (see Bush et al., 2012) and after the Post-Tenure Pathfinder program of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (see Rockquemore, 2017a) that was made more widely available through a series of Inside Higher Education articles by Kerry Ann Rockequemore (see https://www.insidehighered.com/

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users/kerry-ann-rockquemore). Based on mentoring community for non-tenure earning faculty, we structured the program around smaller groups of faculty at similar career points who would work together to set goals and coordinate meetings and activities with support and resources provided by Faculty Excellence. The substantial program support that we created for this work included the following: (a) one of the tenured faculty program coordinators assigned to facilitate each group; (b) an online course site (through the institution’s learning management system) with a suggested timeline of topics, activities, and resources around career advancement planning, mentoring, and other key topics; (c) the coordinated Leadership Series sessions already mentioned, and; (d) logistical support for scheduling and finding rooms and other resources. We were pleased that the six or so Leadership Series sessions, which we promoted heavily and suggested mentoring group activities around, were well attended by APMC participants. We learned early on that some of the 30+ faculty who signed up for the program wanted additional opportunities to meet with peers in the other small groups, and consequently we created several “all-community” meetings in which we, as faculty program coordinators, led attendees in discussions about how to apply resources from the webcourse site and Leadership Series sessions, and about additional activities and resources (e.g., analysis of unit and college promotion criteria) that were more responsive to the concerns identified by each small group. Although we structured the APMC around career advancement planning in the broadest sense, asking participants to imagine various possible pathways (see Rockquemore, 2017b) and their longer career trajectory into late-career (see Hart-Davidson, 2017), we learned from our interactions with participants that they were more immediately and primarily concerned with preparing for promotion. To respond to this larger pattern of need, then, we provided more focused resources and activities around this process, including scenarios to help in interpreting promotion criteria and a CV speed-review workshop (open to all faculty) with seasoned faculty reviewers outside of their units. The CV workshop was especially successful, as a number of APMC participants were among the approximately 50 faculty who participated in the two-way workshop, in which experienced senior faculty, most of whom had served on college and/or university P&T committees, offered advice. We were able to extend APMC activities to reach more faculty through a partnership with the Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning, which invited us to lead a presentation on career advancement planning (open to a range of faculty) and to develop a track for our university’s Summer Faculty Development

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Conference focused on the advancement of associate professors; this latter four-day conference is offered in between the Spring and Summer terms and provides faculty with small stipends to support their development work. Based on ongoing feedback from the APMC participants, we focused this track on strategies for supporting research (including coordination with life events and demands) and for preparing to apply for promotion to professor, the latter of which included practicing simulated conversations with administrators and senior faculty and developing profiles of successful promotion candidates at other universities. The track was co-sponsored by the Center for Success of Women Faculty. Over 25 faculty applied for the ten slots (prompting Faculty Excellence to plan another, similar track the following year). Two track activities that participants reported as being especially helpful were developing a profile of a successful candidate in their field (using their unit’s P&T criteria), and engaging in simulated role-play scenarios about asking senior leaders for advice about preparing for promotion. Because we were given the “green light” to continue the APMC program during the following academic year (i.e., 2018–2019), we were able to use the mid-program assessment of this program (a participant survey) to not only make on-the-fly adjustments but to plan an improved version of the program. For the most part, participants told us they wanted more structure, guided activities, opportunities to network with mentors, and time-management skills, all in addition to a stronger focus on promotion. Toward the end of the Spring term, the COACHE Fellow and Faculty Excellence development team created an adapted structure, programming focus, and resources that responded to this feedback. As a result, the next version of APMC, coordinated by two new members of the Faculty Excellence team, is oriented around (a) a sequence of nine pre-scheduled all-community workshop-style meetings with small group breakouts after each one, designed in part to guide participants through a sequenced, scaffolded process of promotion and career advancement planning; (b) a professor facilitating each small group; (c) a first-semester focus on preparing for promotion before moving to broader career planning, and; (d) more hands-on skill-building workshops (e.g., negotiating for research support and out of responsibilities that limit advancement). We enlisted several participants of the first APMC cohort to come back and share and discuss their deliverables (e.g., CAPs) and processes for creating them. In part through the word-of-mouth promotion of the program by the inaugural participants (a big majority of which indicated on the post-program survey that they would recommend the program to their colleagues), this following year’s program for 2018–2019 had over 30 applicants.

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163

APMC Lessons Learned

Other mentoring programs focused on associate professors or mid-career faculty have shown success (e.g., Romano et al., 2004; Bush et al., 2012). After we comparatively analyzed the results from the 2017–2018 APMC participant preand post-program surveys (see Table 8.4), we were encouraged by some of the faculty-reported gains but also alerted to ongoing challenges. It is important to preface this section by noting that the results are aggregated pre and post, and not all faculty who completed the pre-survey also completed the post-survey, and vice versa (i.e., these results are not matched cases). Key results for matched cases (i.e., only faculty who completed both pre- and post-surveys) will follow this section. Of faculty who completed the post-program evaluation, participants reported finding substantial value in the program, with 71% of respondents to the post-program survey indicating that they found the program to be a good use of their time, and 79% indicating that they would recommend the program to colleagues. A lower percentage of respondents, 64%, indicated that their personal goals were addressed by the program. We were also encouraged that big majorities of respondents to the post-program survey indicated that the program enabled them to expand their mentoring networks (79%), prompted them to engage in self-reflection about their career and its trajectory (86%), and prepared them for creating a career advancement plan (79%). Although we are generally pleased with participants’ reported perceptions of the program and with the career advancement planning that most respondents clearly engaged in, we would have liked these percentages to have been closer to 100%. We did not conduct follow-up interviews or otherwise collect data to explain why participants had the perceptions they did, but our more anecdotal observations and conversations with faculty suggest a few possible reasons some felt the program could have better met their needs: (i) the lack of structure for the small groups and impetus this put on participants to organize themselves and their work; (ii) the program’s emphasis on participant introspection around key questions rather than more directive advice or answers; (iii) the relative lack of focus on preparing to apply for promotion; (iv) some participants’ understandably cloudy vision of the future, due to lack of clarity about promotion criteria, and; (v) participants’ preferences for varying mentoring models and opportunities to leverage the program into new mentoring relationships. At the same time, the program’s value seems to be supported by the number of recurring faculty who applied to participate in the revised version of the program the following year, and who have publicly expressed and told others about how it benefitted them.

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From the aggregated pre-program to the post-program survey, the percentages of faculty indicating the following also increased substantially: importance of mentoring, and satisfaction with mentoring opportunities, especially outside of their departments/units; effectiveness of career goal setting, planning, and resource identification; development of strategies for extending the impact of their work, enhancing their national/international reputations, and connecting their work to the institution’s values, and; satisfaction with understanding promotion criteria and standards. We have learned several lessons during our rewarding work towards supporting mid-career and associate professor faculty. Associate professors are in different stages of their respective careers and have varying expectations from such programming. We were somewhat surprised, for example, that senior faculty wanted more direction. However, this could be due to the evolving focus of the institution towards greater excellence in research. There was a strong desire to provide greater structure and more focused guidance on specific concerns of each individual faculty member. This would require the mentoring team to have more one-on-one interactions in order to provide a very specific, directive set of solutions to the challenges faced. Ambiguity in the creation of CAP created anxiety, especially among more senior associate professors. In addition to more structure and guidance, we learned that faculty want more opportunities to interact and develop mentoring relationships with those from outside their disciplines. Although participants initially wanted to be in groups with similar research interests (for example, STEM) that were guided by a professor from that area, they later expressed how valuable they found learning with peers from other areas. For example, a mentee from visual arts provided her group with a valuable approach to designing a CAP. Relatedly, we learned (and have thus incorporated in future programming) that the needs of mid-career faculty are diverse, and that we needed a menu of opportunities with varying levels of commitment. For example, some faculty needed more help “negotiating out” of responsibilities to free up time for research, others needed more help with identifying resources to advance an emergent research project, and others needed the opportunity to expand their mentoring networks beyond their departments. At the same time, we learned to help faculty focus on “first things first” by creating more targeted help in interpreting promotion criteria and otherwise preparing for promotion. Some faculty may be better able than others to identify and plan for longer-term goals, and some faculty may already have more defined career trajectories than others. Another key takeaway is that supporting and encouraging faculty to consider and prepare for promotion is a complex, long-term process. Although 28%

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of respondents to the post-program survey felt that department’s promotion criteria are extremely clear, an increase from 10% of the pre-program survey respondents, the percentage of respondents indicating that the university’s promotion criteria are clear fell from 35% to 23% between the pre- and post-program surveys. Further, a comparison of the pre- and post-program surveys found only a modest increase in the clarity about the respondents’ sense of their preparedness for applying for promotion, and a slight decrease in sense of confidence about their ability to be ready within the timeframe they planned, with the mean level of confidence in applying for promotion on a scale of 0–100 dropping from 62 to 57. These somewhat unexpected results could be attributed, in part, to program participants gaining a more thoughtful, realistic self-perception of readiness and greater recognition of the work that would need to be done to create a compelling case. Another explanation is that, despite the program strongly encouraging participants to discuss promotion criteria with their chairs and other senior mentors, most respondents to the post-program survey reported that they had not yet done so, nor had they undergone a cumulative progress evaluation (CPE, which at our institution is designed to provide feedback about readiness from a department committee, chair, and dean). Program participants expressed some confusion regarding how best to seek guidance regarding the interpretation of the promotion criteria—an important part of building one’s dossier for promotion. In the post survey, 50% of respondents were highly satisfied with opportunities available for career goal setting and planning, as compared to 10% in the pre-program survey. In addition, 35% were satisfied with the opportunities available for identifying strategies for extending the impact of their work. The institutional resources were available but there was lack of awareness regarding these resources, prior to the mentoring program. Twenty-eight percent were extremely satisfied with the opportunities for identifying institutional resources and support for achieving their goals. In addition, 57% were extremely satisfied with opportunities for forming mentoring relationships. While, in the post survey, 28% felt that department and university level mentoring was very effective, 50% felt that mentoring from someone outside the university was extremely effective. Hence, it will be important in subsequent years to work on providing guidance on seeking external mentors. Yet another area of ongoing concern made apparent by the post-program survey is the need to create a stronger culture of support and encouragement for promotion. Although faculty responses indicated a stronger sense of institutional research support gained from the program, they did not similarly indicate substantial increases in perceiving a department and institutional culture of support. In the pre-program survey, 5% or less of respondents strongly

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agreed that university, college and the department culture encouraged associate professors to work towards promotion to professor. In the post-program survey, this rose to 21% reporting that the university and college encourages associate professors to work towards promotion to professor, and 28% reporting the same for the department. Participants in the Summer Faculty Development Conference track echoed some of these sentiments and also explained that they were fearful of undergoing a CPE until they were confident in their readiness, which defeats the purpose of the CPE as a planning tool. This perception clearly suggests the need to communicate with the senior faculty in the departments to be constructive in their CPE reports for associate professors. Clearly, creating a more supportive culture, particularly at the department level, will be a longer-term process, and one that Faculty Excellence aims to support through new and continued programming, the latter including the Chairs and Directors Excellence Program. Finally, we learned how to better recruit faculty into such programs, as they can only benefit people who decide to participate. After trying out several forms of electronic communication from Faculty Excellence, presenting at larger forums, and enlisting associate/assistant deans with mixed results, we learned that the most effective methods for recruitment were visiting department meetings and sending personal emails to individual faculty members. We also hope to share testimonials by past participants on the Faculty Excellence website. Replies to some of our recruitment efforts indicated that not everyone has the time (even if they have the interest) to participate in a two-semester long mentoring community. For them, informal and/or shorter mentoring opportunities should be made available.

6

APMC Granular Examination

The results presented previously examined aggregate pre and post results. In other words, all results from APMC members who completed either or both the pre and post. Those results provided an overall picture of APMC, however do not let us granularly make comparisons of how faculty who completed both the pre and post felt about the program and the impact the APMC had made in their professional development. Of 25 faculty who completed the Associate Professor Mentoring Community pretest, there were 13 (52%) who also completed the posttest. Thus, the next set of results pulls out a subset of faculty (n = 13, however not all faculty completed all items and sample sizes are noted) for a more granular review. We preface these results with the following caveats: We recognize that this is a small sample size in general, and thus low powered

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for detecting statistically significant findings, but actually represents a relatively good proportion of faculty who participated in the APMC (about 50%). Additionally, we recognize that these results have limited generalizability and making inferences to a larger population may be difficult. Even with these limitations, however, these results begin to help us understand our mid-career faculty and how institutional supports may be able to assist them in their career development. 6.1 Satisfaction with Opportunities Related to Career Advancement In terms of satisfaction with career advancement opportunities, there were weak pre to post relationships with the exception of moderate positive relationships in pre to post ‘forming mentoring relationships’ and ‘identifying strategies for extending the impact of my work.’ In both cases, as faculty were more satisfied prior to the program, they continued to be satisfied after the APMC program ended. 6.2 Effectiveness of Mentoring Relationships Reviewing relationships between pre- and post-effectiveness of mentoring relationships, the results suggest moderate to strong relationships between pre and post perceptions of ‘mentoring from a faculty or administrator within my department’ ( = .556, p < .05, n = 12) and ‘mentoring from someone outside UCF’ ( = .455, p < .05, n = 11). There were very little pre to post relationships between ‘mentoring from someone within UCF but outside my department.’ 6.3 Importance of Mentoring Relationships There were very small to moderate relationships between pre and post perceptions with one exception. The strongest effect, which was a positive relationship, was between pre- and post-perceptions of having a mentor external to UCF ( = .723, p < .05, n = 12). The stronger faculty felt the importance of this was prior to participation, the stronger they felt the importance was after program participation. 6.4 Satisfaction with Culture Related to Mid-Career Advancement The relationships between pre- and post-satisfaction with culture to mid-career advancement were also examined using Kendall’s tau correlations (see Table 8.4). The results suggest moderate to large effects and positive relationships between all variables. The strongest relationships were between: (a) pre-program perceptions that ‘UCF’s culture, as an institution, encourages associate professors to work towards promotion to professor’ and post-perceptions that ‘my college’s culture encourages associate professors to work

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table 8.4  Pre- to post-Kendall’s tau correlation coefffijicients for satisfaction with culture related to mid-career advancement

Pre

1. UCF’s culture, as an institution, encourages associate professors to work towards promotion to professor 2. My college’s culture encourages associate professors to work towards promotion to professor 3. My department’s culture encourages associate professors to work towards promotion to professor

Post 1

2

3

.495

.530*

.440

.384

.421

.347

.449

.487

.648*

* p < .05

towards promotion to professor’ ( = .530, p < .05, n = 12); and (b) pre- and post-program perceptions that ‘my department’s culture encourages associate professors to work towards promotion to professor’. In both cases as pre-perceptions increased, post-perceptions also increased ( = .648, p < .05, n = 12). 6.5 Clarity of Items Related to Mid-Career Advancement Kendall’s tau correlations were computed to determine relationships between pre- and post-clarity for various elements related to career advancement (see Table 8.5). Overall, all correlations were positive, and there was a large proportion of correlations that had large effects (32 of 49 coefficients; 65%). This suggests that as pre-perceptions of clarity increased, post-perceptions of clarity also increased. Interestingly, there were weak correlations between pre-perceptions of ‘my sense of whether or not I will be successful in promotion from associate to professor’ and all other variables. In other words, the extent to which faculty felt they would be successful in promotion when they began the APMC had very little association with all post-perceptions. We consider this a positive finding in that faculty’s feeling of success (or lack of success) in promotion when they started APMC has very little association with feelings of success in promotion at the conclusion of APMC. 6.6 Identification of Strategies for Career Advancement Kendall’s tau correlations were also computed to determine relationships between pre- and post-identification of strategies related to mid-career advancement. The results suggest moderate to large effects and negative

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table 8.5  Pre- to post-Kendall’s tau correlation coefffijicients for clarity of items related to mid-career advancement

Pre

Post 1

1. UCF’s promotion process 2. My department’s promotion criteria and standards 3. My college’s promotion criteria and standards 4. The university’s promotion criteria and standards 5. The dossier requirements submitted for promotion 6. The timeframe for applying for promotion (i.e., how long after promotion to associate should one apply for promotion to professor) 7. My sense of whether or not I will be successful in promotion from associate to professor

2

3

4

5

6

7

.647* .506 .500 .554* .447 .582* .424 .673* .663* .535* .608* .617* .541* .749* .537

.510* .388* .454

.465

.633* .560* .521* .568* .474

.572* .566* .506* .433

.675* .718* .707* .756* .520* .359

.520*

.691* .760* .714* .780* .592* .487* .745*

.125

.184

.149

.129

.253

.219

.147

* p < .05

relationships between all variables. The strongest relationships were between: (a) pre- and post-perceptions of having a clear sense of how to connect scholarly reputation and impact to UCF values and post-perceptions that UCF’s culture ( = -.589, p < .05, n = 12); (b) pre-perceptions of identification of strategies for extending/enhancing, measuring, and articulating the impact of work and post-perceptions of having a clear sense of how to connect scholarly reputation and impact to UCF values ( = -.491, p < .05, n = 12); and (c) pre- and post-perceptions of having a clear sense of how to connect scholarly reputation and impact to UCF values ( = -.455, p < .05, n = 12). In all cases, there was an inverse relationship (i.e., as pre increased, post decreased or vice versa). We anticipate this result may have occurred due to the logic of “I don’t know what I don’t know.” In other words, it was only after completion of the APMC

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that faculty better understood strategies for career advancement, and this may have been a dramatic difference to what they thought they understood of the appropriate strategies prior to participating in the program. 6.7 Success in Promotion Related to clarity of ‘My sense of whether or not I will be successful in promotion from associate to professor’ was computed. Although there was not a statistically significant relationship ( = 5.029, p = .283), but the results suggest that there was movement in terms of perceptions of clarity. However, there was not a clear pattern to that movement. Of five faculty who were neutral on clarity of success toward promotion at the beginning of the program, three were either extremely or somewhat clear by the end of the program. At the same time, five faculty began the program with feelings of clarity in terms of success toward promotion, but three of those faculty decreased feelings of clarity by the end of the program. 6.8 Confidence in Readiness to Apply for Promotion Participants were asked to rate, on a scale from 0 (no confidence) to 100 (complete confidence), ‘how confident do you feel about your readiness to apply for promotion to professor within the timeframe you anticipated.’ The relationship between pre- and post-confident was .743 (n = 11, p = .009), suggesting that faculty began and ended the program with similar levels of confidence in their timeframe. An exception was one faculty member that began the program with a relatively strong level of confidence but indicated much less confidence at the conclusion of the program. We anticipate this result may have occurred due to the logic of “I don’t know what I don’t know.” In other words, it was only after completion of the APMC that this faculty better understood the requirements of applying for promotion, and this may have been a dramatic difference to what they thought they understood of the process prior to participating in the program. 6.9 Timeline for Applying for Promotion Prior to and after participation in the program, faculty were asked to indicate when they planned to apply for promotion. There was a strong and statistically significant positive relationship between pre- to post-perceptions ( = .858, p < .001, n = 11). The results suggest, generally, that perceptions of the timeline for promotion did not change after participation in the program. All faculty who anticipated applying in ‘more than 5 years but less than 10 years’ when they started the program also ended the program with the same anticipated timeline. However, of faculty who began the program with an anticipation of

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promotion within 5 years or less, by the end of the program, two (29%) were planning to apply for promotion during the coming year. 6.10 Completion of a Cumulative Progress Evaluation Prior to and after participation in the program, faculty were asked to indicate if they had completed a cumulative progress evaluation while in rank as associate professor. Although 92% of participants (n = 12) had not completed a CPE prior to participation in the program (i.e., only one faculty had completed a CPE prior to beginning the program), by the conclusion of the program, three of those faculty had completed a CPE. 6.11 Identification of Post-Tenure Career Goals Prior to participation in the program, about ¾ of faculty indicated they had identified post-tenure career goals (n = 9). By the conclusion of the program, all but one faculty (92%) indicated they at least somewhat agreed that they had completed this. 6.12 Steps and Strategies for Achieving Post-Tenure Career Goals Faculty were also asked to indicate if they had identified steps and strategies for achieving post-tenure career goals. Prior to participation in the program, only five (39%) faculty indicated they had done this. At the conclusion of the program, all but one faculty (92%) had identified steps and strategies for achieving post-tenure career goals.

7

Future Directions

In addition to the ‘new’ version of the APMC, week-long workshop on preparing for promotion at our university’s Faculty Development Summer Conference, and ongoing CV speed review sessions, as well as programming offered or being considered for mid-career faculty in other areas of campus (e.g., Office of Research), we are thankful for and optimistic about the range of sustained solutions being developed by the Mid-Career Advisory Subcommittee. After gathering more data about faculty needs, the Mid-Career Advisory Subcommittee, which includes professors, associate professors, and lecturers, is currently developing specific proposals for start-up research support for associate professors, flexible assignment policies, and alternative promotion paths. More specific directions for enhancing the support of associate professors preparing for promotion include developing resources to help departments and colleges create clearer promotion criteria, encouraging faculty to seek

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cumulative progress evaluations toward promotion, making sample successful cases available for faculty or helping them identify these themselves, offering more college-specific dossier preparing workshops, and offering training to chairs and other administrators to work with faculty on preparing for promotion and achieving their career plans. Because faculty need a repertoire of programming options with different levels of commitment, there are a number of different avenues that may foster the advancement of mid-career faculty. These include, for example, continuation of the Faculty Excellence track in the week-long Summer Faculty Development Conference; creation of a hotline to discuss a pressing issue with someone who is knowledgeable; facilitating a “critical-friend” approach (which provides an empathetic person who is willing to hear faculty concerns and answer open-ended questions) at the college and university levels; and sponsoring “lightning talk” sessions in a group setting where each person could share their pressing concern with others in five to ten minutes. Finally, we have begun studying and discussing how we might extend support of mid-career faculty to late-career faculty, or faculty within 5–8 years of retirement—perhaps the least supported group of all. Faculty approaching retirement have much to offer their institutions and fields through mentoring and other forms of leadership, are often motivated to stay engaged, and have different and often under-resourced planning needs (Van Ummersen, McLaughlin, & Duranleau, 2014). All of these possibilities for sustained, multi-pronged, and responsive approaches to supporting associate professors would require Faculty Excellence to form even more robust partnerships with other faculty support units and with department and college administrators. Through the process of becoming more attuned to mid-career faculty’s needs and goals, making on-the-fly adjustments and adapted plans, and inviting faculty (through the advisory subcommittee) to help imagine extended and new forms of support, we were able to offer responsive programming that we hope will make a real difference in faculty advancement.

8

Implications

While we have learned much to assist the mid-career faculty at the University of Central Florida, we strongly feel that what has been implemented at UCF can be adapted and implemented at other institutions. Accordingly, we offer a few specific recommendations for institutions that are beginning or enhancing mid-career faculty support.

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2.

3.

4.

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Institution-specific data to support the need for directing resources toward mid-career faculty is necessary. Based on research, we know that mid-career faculty are estimated to comprise over 50% of postsecondary faculty (Strage & Merdinger, 2014), and this proportion is likely to be seen at many institutions. Knowing, more specifically, who your mid-career faculty are is helpful. We also know from research that mid-career faculty, and their productivity are shaped by their institution, and many faculty remain at the institution at which they were awarded tenure for the rest of their academic careers (see, e.g., Baker-Fletcher et al., 2005). If you are embarking on endeavors to support mid-career faculty, look into how your institutional context might be shaping possibilities and challenges of productivity and advancement. Additionally, although the literature very clearly points to the need for mid-career faculty support, institution-specific data (e.g., COACHE) may affirm the need at your institution, including the extent to which there may be subgroup differentials (see Gardner & Blackstone, 2013; Litt et al., 2009; Roos & Gatta, 2009), and steer appropriate resources toward those efforts. Institution-specific data will likely also be quite enlightening in terms of understanding where faculty are in relation to being ‘mid-career.’ At UCF, seeing the distribution of associate professors based on years in rank helped us to understand the wide range of mid-career faculty at the institution and the potential variety of services and support that may be needed. Support must come from the top. UCF is very fortunate in that the Provost, via the Vice Provost for Faculty Excellence, was extremely supportive of efforts geared toward enhancing mid-career faculty. This was a critical component that allowed resources to be devoted to serving mid-career faculty. Collect data. Although institutions tend to be data rich and information poor, the need to evaluate the efforts put forth for mid-career faculty are essential for ensuring that you are nimble in making formative changes and can speak to empirical evidence for the success, or lack of success, of your efforts. This recommendation includes collecting more than just attendance data at workshops. Pre- and post-self-reports, observation data on promotion applications and resulting decisions, and return-on-investment studies on programming are just a few examples of evaluation efforts that will be fruitful. Recognize that not all mid-career faculty, and not even those at similar career points, have the same needs. We quickly learned that UCF’s mid-career faculty have a range of needs and preferences for, and barriers to, career planning and advancement, which required us to offer flexi-

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ble, multi-pronged programming in which faculty could participate in different ways and to different degrees. For example, we recognized in the APMC that some faculty needed more structured support and direction to strategically plan and to identify resources and new mentors. This recommendation also means that there is not a one-size-fits-all program, resource, or support structure that will reach all mid-career faculty. For some faculty, participation in a mid-career mentoring program was a great fit. For other faculty, more targeted resources may be needed (e.g., mid-career “re-ignite” grant funding). For many faculty, the biggest benefit might come from indirect support through working with departments and colleges to assist in clarifying promotion guidelines. Be prepared to invest time and talents into a multi-pronged effort. Supplement faculty development efforts with structural changes and other types of support. For example, our institution found from the second, 2018 COACHE survey that clarity of promotion criteria remains an area for improvement, despite a slight gain in faculty satisfaction. A key reason for this is that college- and unit-level P&T criteria remain vague or confusing across many parts of the university. Thus, colleges and units need further prompting and guidance resources to revise these. Similarly, 21st-century institutions might revisit the traditional promotion criteria for associate professors and consider designing an alternative path for mid-career faculty based on achievements beyond research and scholarly reputation, particularly if these institutions have missions and strategic plans that emphasize other kinds of values (at UCF, such values include addressing community and societal problems through partnerships and promoting access to education and advancement for underserved populations). After all, promotion to professor is mostly about leadership and impact, and these can be achieved in multiple areas.

Acknowledgements Thanks are extended to all the participants of the Associate Professor Mentoring Community; the entire Faculty Excellence team, including Dr. Cynthia Young, Dr. Jana Jasinski, and Ms. Julie Dross; members of the Faculty Excellence Mid-Career Subcommittee; and all other UCF faculty and administrators who have supported, and are continuing to support, the development and advancement of mid-career faculty.

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References Baker-Fletcher, K., Carr, D., Menn, E., & Ramsay, N. J. (2005). Taking stock at mid-career: Challenges and opportunities for faculty. Teaching Theology & Religion, 8(1), 3–10. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9647.2005.00217.x Baldwin, R. G., & Chang, D. A. (2006). Reinforcing our “keystone” faculty: Strategies to support faculty in the middle years of academic life. Liberal Education, 92(4), 28–35. Baldwin, R. G., DeZure, D., Shaw, A., & Moretto, K. (2008). Mapping the terrain of mid-career faculty at a research university: Implications for faculty and academic leaders. Change, 40(5), 46–55. Baldwin, R. G., Lunceford, C. J., & Vanderlinden, K. E. (2005). Faculty in the middle years: Illuminating an overlooked phase of academic life. Review of Higher Education, 29(1), 97–118. Buch, K., Huet, Y., Rorrer, A., & Roberson, L. (2011). Removing the barriers to full professor: A mentoring program for associate professors. Change, 43(6), 38–45. doi:10.1080/00091383.2011.618081 Caffarella, R. S., Armour, R. A., Fuhrmann, B. S., & Wergin, J. F. (1989). Mid-career faculty: Refocusing the perspective. Review of Higher Education, 12(4), 403–410. Ellertson, S., & Schuh, J. J. (2007). Faculty development in student learning communities: Exploring the vitality of mid-career faculty participants. To Improve the Academy, 25(1), 298–314. Gardner, S. K., & Blackstone, A. (2013). “Putting in your time”: Faculty experiences in the process of promotion to professor. Innovative Higher Education, 38(5), 411–425. Hall, D. T. (1986). Breaking career routines: Midcareer choice and identity development. In D.T. Hall (Ed.), Career development in organizations (pp. 120–159). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hart, J. (2016). Dissecting a gendered organization: implications for career trajectories for mid-career faculty women in STEM. Journal of Higher Education, 5, 605. Hart-Davidson, B. (2017, August 26). Like an oak tree: Considering pathways for intellectual leadership. Medium. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@billhd/ like-an-oak-tree-considering-pathways-for-intellectual-leadership-758dbb560654 Huston, T. A., Norman, M., & Ambrose, S. (2007). Expanding the discussion of faculty vitality to including productive yet disengaged senior faculty. Journal of Higher Education, 78(5), 493–522. Lamber, J., Ardizzone, T., Dworkin, T., Guskin, S., Olsen, D., Parnell, P., & Thelen, D. (1993). A “community of scholars?”: Conversations among mid-career faculty at a public research university. To Improve the Academy, 12(1), 13. Litt, J. S., Tucker, S. A., & Hermsen, J. M. (2009). Mentoring tenured faculty: Rationales and programs. Wiley Interscience, 1–7.

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Lopatovska, I., O’Brien, H., Rorissa, A., Ivanović, M. D., & Julien, H. (2017). Seeking balance: Professional development needs of tenured information science faculty. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 54(1), 580. Lynn, R. (2014). UNC Charlotte mentor program supports mid-career faculty. Women in Higher Education, 20(6), 18. Matthews, K. (2014). Perspectives on midcareer faculty and advice for supporting them. Cambridge, MA: COACHE. Neumann, A., & Terosky, A. L. (2007). To give and to receive: Recently tenured professors’ experiences of service in major research universities. Journal of Higher Education, 28(3), 282–310. Nottis, K. (2005). Supporting the mid-career researcher. Journal of Faculty Development, 20(2), 95–98. Pastore, D. L. (2013). Faculty perspectives on Baldwin and Chang’s mid-career faculty development model. Journal of Faculty Development, 27(2), 25–32. Petter, S., Richardson, S., & Randolph, A. B. (in press). Stuck in the middle: Reflections from the AMCIS mid-career workshop. Communications of the Association for Information Systems. Rees, A., & Shaw, K. (2014). Peer mentoring communities of practice for early and mid-career faculty: Broad benefits from a research-oriented female peer mentoring group. Journal of Faculty Development, 28(2), 5–17. Rockquemore, K. A. (2017a, August 13). I got tenure: Now what? Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/08/30/introductory-advice-academics-who-have-just-become-tenured-essay Rockquemore, K. A. (2017b, October 11). Time to choose your posttenure pathway. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/10/11/ how-select-best-path-after-gaining-tenure-essay Romano, J. L., Hoesing, R., O’Donovan, K., & Weinsheimer, J. (2004). Faculty at mid-career: A program to enhance teaching and learning. Innovative Higher Education, 29(1), 21–48. Roos, P. A., & Gatta, M. L. (2009). Gender (in)equity in the academy: Subtle mechanisms and the production of inequality. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 27, 177–200. Sabharwal, M., & Sabharwal, M. (2013). Comparing research productivity across disciplines and career stages. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 15(2), 141–163. Steidl, C. R., & Sterk, C. E. (2016). Interpreting productivity: Symbolic negotiation of gendered faculty career trajectories in the United States. Symbolic Interaction, 39(4), 595–614. Stortz, M. E. (2005). The seasons of a scholar’s calling: Insights from mid-field. Teaching Theology & Religion, 8(1), 24–28. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9647.2005.00221.x

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Strage, A., & Merdinger, J. (2014). Professional growth and renewal for mid-career faculty. Journal of Faculty Development, 28(3), 41–50. Van Ummersen, C., McLaughlin, J., &Duranleau, L. (2014). Faculty retirement: Best practices for navigating the transition. London: Stylus Publishers. Wolf-Wendel, L. E., & Ward, K. (2006). Academic life and motherhood: Variations by institutional type. Higher Education, 52, 487–521.

chapter 9

Keeping the Momentum: Mid-Career Faculty Mentorship Mandy Rispoli

Abstract Among tenured faculty, mid-career faculty represent the future of university scholarship and leadership. Yet the mentorship and guidance faculty received as assistant professors often does not necessarily prepare them for their new roles as associate professors nor for their promotion to full professor. The purposes of this chapter are: (a) to review of the literature on higher education mentorship models with a specific focus on mid-career faculty mentorship, (b) to review successful mentorship models from institutions of higher education in the US and abroad, and (c) to propose a mid-career mentorship model and conceptual framework.

Keywords associate professor – mid-career – mentor – mentorship

1

Introduction

Tenured faculty comprise the largest group of full-time faculty in higher education (Huston & Weaver, 2008). Among tenured faculty, mid-career faculty represent the future of university and field leadership (Buch, Huett, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011) and form the link between new faculty and established university leaders (Baldwin & Chang, 2006). Yet, often mid-career faculty report the lowest ratings of job satisfaction of tenure-line faculty (Matthews, 2014). As compared to junior faculty, associate professors often have increased service expectations, increased teaching loads, and increased student advising (Field, Barg, & Stallings, 2011). Research shows that in addition to maintaining productive research agendas, associate professors expand their attention to leadership roles, programmatic and strategic planning, grant writing and © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi: 10.1163/9789004408180_010

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management, administrative responsibilities and leadership, and attaining national visibility (Blood et al., 2012). The mentorship and guidance faculty received as assistant professors often does not prepare them for this new landscape (Pruitt, Johnson, Catlin, & Knox, 2010). There is a need to support associate professors to develop the skills needed for these new expectations and responsibilities, to ensure faculty remain satisfied and productive faculty members, and to prepare faculty for successful promotion to full professor. The purposes of this chapter are: (a) to review of the literature on higher education mentorship models with a specific focus on mid-career faculty mentorship, (b) to review successful mentorship models from institutions of higher education in the US and internationally, and (c) to propose a mid-career mentorship model and conceptual framework.

2

The Shifting Landscape from Assistant to Associate Professor

Most tenure-track faculty have a primary goal: to obtain tenure. But following promotion to associate professor with tenure, faculty concerns and priorities may shift. Some may begin to rethink their commitments, their career choices, and their life goals, and in doing so may face uncertainty (Baldwin et al., 2008). While the pre-tenure focus is often on achievement, the focus of tenured faculty may pertain to concerns about workload, making a lasting impact on the field, and shaping programs, departments, or colleges (Field et al., 2011). To achieve these new goals, many faculty will need to “re-tool” and develop new skill sets suited for new research, leadership, or teaching roles. 2.1 Changing Research Expectations Though the specific criteria for earning promotion to full professor varies across institutions, there is consensus that national and international recognition for research/scholarship is essential at research intensive institutions (Crawford, Burns, & McNamara, 2012). Many administrators and campus leaders note that scholarship is the most important factor in considering promotion to the rank of full professor (Green, 2008). Success in scholarship may take the form of extensive peer-reviewed publications, continued success in external research funding, service on grant review panels, and serving on journal editorial boards (Mabrouk, 2007). Some institutions may also expect recognition of the impact of scholarship on the field through professional awards and honors. This increase in expectations for scholarly productivity and impact can be challenging for associate professors. Newly promoted associate professors have just completed an often frenetic push for tenure and continuing forward at an even

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steeper trajectory towards full professor can be daunting (Baldwin et al., 2008). As a result, associate professors are placed at risk for a career “plateau” (Farrell, 2014, p. 504). Associate professors may require guidance and support in keeping the momentum and navigating changes in scholarship expectations. 2.2 Changing Teaching and Service Expectations Compounding this need to increase the rate and prestige of productivity, associate professors tend to assume more time teaching (Link, Swann, & Bozeman, 2008) and in service and administration roles than junior faculty (Mamiseishvili, Miller, & Lee, 2016). Some institutions protect junior faculty from excessive committee work and may even reduce the required teaching load for junior faculty. These protections are often removed once tenure has been achieved. In a survey of assistant, associate, and full professors, Mamiseichvili et al. (2016) found that associate professors were less satisfied than both assistant and full professors with the equity of committee assignments and recognition of service activities. This increase in teaching and service responsibilities often has an inverse relation with time spent writing grants, conducting research, and pursuing national visibility (Buch, Huet, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011; Link, Swann, & Bozeman, 2008). However, without engagement in these research related activities, promotion to full professor is unlikely (Pruitt et al., 2010). 2.3 Changing Leadership Expectations Directly related to changing service expectations, is the increase in opportunities for associate professors to participate in leadership roles within and outside of the university. Leadership may refer to departmental and college leadership, or to professional organizations, serving on editorial boards or as associate editors of referred journals. Effective leadership requires professional development and support. While the opportunity to engage in leadership may become more readily available to associate professors, the supports and training for these positions are often lacking (Morris & Laipple, 2015). In other cases, associate professors may be interested but unsure of how to become involved in leadership roles (Field, Barg, & Stallings, 2011). 2.4 Career Goals and Pursuit of Full Professorship While achieving tenure is essential to maintaining employment, the incentives for promotion to senior rank may be less compelling for some associate professors. The incentives for promotion to full professor tend to involve prestige, recognition as scholars who have reached the pinnacle of their career (Crawford et al., 2011) and opportunities for leadership roles in the department, college, and university.

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The common refrain, “publish or perish” summarizes the intense motivation for promotion from assistant to associate professor with tenure. However, faculty motivation for promotion to full professor varies widely (e.g. Pruitt et al., 2010). Faculty may elect to not pursue the rank of full professor because they have unclear professional goals for themselves, are professionally fatigued, have not received career planning guidance post-tenure, or due to lack of opportunities for career development (Baldwin et al., 2008). In some cases, faculty may be highly motivated to take the next step in their career, but other barriers make promotion difficult or even unattainable. Research has shown that women faculty are woefully underrepresented at the level of full professor (Blood et al., 2012). This may be due to challenges balancing work coupled with increased roles in supporting families outside of work, difficulty locating support and mentorship, and disproportionate service expectations (Pruitt, Jonson, Catlin, & Knox, 2010). While junior faculty attend multiple workshops on tenure and promotion, the criteria and processes for promotion to full professor are often vague with the undertone that mid-career faculty will “do more and do it better” (Baldwin et al., 2008, p. 52). Faculty report receiving less attention and resources from department heads in their mid-career (Baldwin et al., 2008), which can lead to further deviation from the path of promotion to full professor. Taken together, research suggest that while faculty value having mentorship, associate professors do not feel well mentored and guided, particularly with respect to promotion (Buch, Huet, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011). Fortunately, the literature suggests promising practices for helping mid-career faculty avoid career plateaus. This chapter will focus on the role of mid-career faculty mentorship as a mechanism for tailoring supports to meet the unique challenges and situations facing mid-career faculty.

3

The Importance of Faculty Mentorship

The term mentor refers to a broad set of characteristics and behaviors that guide or support another, typically younger, individual (Ehrich, Hansford, & Tennent, 2004). Zeind et al. (2005) define mentorship as a relationship in which one individual (mentor) serves as adviser, role model, advocate, or guide to a another individual (mentee). Ragins and Cotton (1999) describe mentorship as focusing on career development and/or psychosocial development. Career development may involve increasing productivity, visibility, and ultimately, advancement and promotion (Dunbar & Kinnersley, 2011). Mentoring in psychosocial development may focus on work-life balance, self-efficacy, and support networks (Kram, 1983).

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Successful mentorship can lead to improved career and personal growth outcomes for faculty including increased job satisfaction, retention, and productivity (Blood et al., 2012; Ehrich et al., 2004; Zeind et al., 2005). The benefits for the mentee are clear, but research has also shown mentoring can bring productivity and innovation to the mentor’s career as well (Ewing et al., 2008). The organization benefits from an engaged, productive, goal-driven faculty and improved positive climate, and retention of faculty (Burke & McKeen, 1996; Thorndyke, Gusic, & Milner, 2008). Mentorship models vary widely in their structure, aims, and supports (Cariago-Lo, Dawkins, Enger, Schotter, & Spence, 2010). Studies have shown that access to and participation in mentoring varies across gender (Blood et al., 2012; Buch et al., 2011; Ewing et al., 2008; Ragins & Cotton, 1999; Richey, Gambrill, & Blythe, 1988) and racial and ethnic groups (Abdul-Raheem, 2016; Fries-Britt & Snider, 2015; Trower, 2009). Mentorship also varies across professional rank. Junior faculty are often afforded provided with a senior mentor when they enter the professoriate (Peluchette & Jeanquart, 2000) while also being released from some service and/or teaching responsibilities (Link, Swann, & Bozeman, 2008). Once faculty have been tenured and promoted to associate professor, however, these time protections and mentorship programs are often removed (Buch, Huet, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011). Without mentorship and support, faculty career trajectories can stagnate (Nottis, 2005). Those mid-career faculty who do have mentors, may find the mentorship models that were successful for them as junior faculty are no longer successful at this new stage in their careers (Peluchette & Jeanquart, 2000). As a result, developing and evaluating mid-career mentorship models is a critical area for both research and practice.

4

Mid-Career Mentorship Research Review

To better understand promising mentorship models in higher education for mid-career faculty. A systematic search of the literature was conducted using the Academic Search Premier electronic database. This search was conducted in the April 2016 and repeated in November 2018. Publication year was not restricted, but the search was limited to peer-reviewed studies published in English. The key truncated term associate professor or mid-career was paired with the truncated term mentor. This initial search led to the identification of 1057 articles. The titles and abstracts of the resulting articles were screened using predetermined inclusion criteria. To be included in the review, articles had to either (a) describe a theoretical model of mid-career faculty mentorship,

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(b) explore trends, issues, and barriers related to mid-career mentorship, or (c) implement and/or evaluate a mentorship model to improve career or psychosocial outcomes for tenured associate faculty in institutions of higher education. The field of study in which faculty worked was not restricted. Of the 1057 articles identified, 8 met criteria for inclusion in this review. These studies are summarized in Table 1 according to study purpose, program development, whether program evaluation was conducted, and summary of major points or main findings. To supplement the small number of papers focused on mid-career mentorship, themes from mentorship of junior faculty are incorporated into this review. Themes from this review of the literature related to mentorship model structure and components are presented below. Each model identified from the literature is summarized, strengths and barriers for each model are presented, and an example of the application of each model to mid-career faculty is illustrated. 4.1 Overarching Mentorship Models From the review of the literature on mentorship for associate professors, two overarching types of mentorship models emerged: formal and informal. 4.1.1 Formal Mentorship Formal mentorship is often associated with traditional mentoring models. In a formal mentorship model an institution may encourage or even require individuals to participate in the program. Typically an individual or a group of individuals provides administrative oversight to the mentorship model, assigning mentors, creating expectations for mentees and mentors, and hosing activities to help promote the mentor mentee relationship and desired outcomes (Smith, Calderwood, Dohm, & Gill Lopez, 2013). Typically, mentors are matched with mentees based on alignment of content expertise, mentee needs, or mentee interest (Bell & Treleaven, 2010). There are several benefits of a formal mentoring structure. Administrative oversight of the program allows for potential resources, such as time, training, and feedback to be allocated to the mentoring program (Henrich & Attebury, 2010). On the other hand, when mentors and mentees are paired by a third party, there can be a sense of “contrived collegiality” (Mullen, 2008) that may not provide a strong foundation upon which to build a mentoring relationship. In such situations, the individual(s) who oversees the mentoring program should check in with each dyad to gather information on the success of the partnership and to make changes as needed (Ewing et al., 2008). While formal mentoring is most often applied with new or junior faculty as the mentee (Mullen & Hutinger, 2008), the use of formal mentoring programs

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for mid-career faculty has received some attention in the research literature. Muschallik and Pull (2016) compared formal mentoring, informal mentoring, and no mentoring on faculty productivity. They surveyed researchers in economics regarding their participation each of these mentoring models. Survey results showed that researchers who had participated in formal mentorship programs had increased productivity as compared to researchers with informal mentors and researchers without mentors. Potential explanations for positive outcomes with this model include institutional support, clear expectations and program structure, resource allocation for participants in the form of time releases or stipends (Noe, 1988). 4.1.2 Informal Mentorship In contrast to formal mentorship, Informal mentorship relationships develop spontaneously between two individuals and generally last longer than formal mentorship relationships (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). The mentor and mentee develop their own informal mentor relationship based on mutual respect and enjoyment working together. Mentees tend to gravitate towards senior faculty with specific expertise, while mentors tend to select mentees with great potential for future success (Ragins & Cotton, 1999). Informal mentoring may be very beneficial but does not always lead to recognition, a clear structure, and clear expectations and may exclude faculty who have not formed a spontaneous mentor relationship (Ewing et al., 2008). Informal mentoring may provide more flexibility and psychosocial support than formal mentoring (Allen, Day, & Lentz, 2005). Informal mentorship has been shown to be particularly successful with female faculty (Richey, Gambrill, & Blythe, 1988). Unlike some formal mentorship models, expectations, roles, and responsibilities are not necessarily explicitly stated in informal mentorships (Richey et al., 1988). In such cases, the mentor and mentee should jointly develop clear expectations, timelines, and supports needed for a successful mentoring. Dunbar and Kinnersley (2011) surveyed 239 female administrators in higher education regarding their perceptions of various mentorship approaches. Participants were asked to respond to questions relating to their own mentoring experiences, the alignment between personality and experiences mentors and mentees, the importance of gender and of ethnicity in the mentoring relationship, and mentoring outcomes related to psychosocial and career development domains. Results showed most respondents had had a mentor during their career, and most of these mentorships had been informal. Respondents indicated their informal mentors provided more career development mentoring than did formal mentors. No differences were found between the impacts

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of female versus male mentors, even though some reported having a female mentor was important. However, given the informal structure of this mentorship model, mentees have the opportunity to seek out mentors of specific gender, ethnicity, or other characteristics. The challenge in this case becomes identifying a mentor with desired characteristics (Abdul-Raheem, 2016). 4.2 Mentorship Structures The review of the literature on mid-career mentorship indicates that within formal and informal mentorship, three structures of mentorship exist. These structures include vertical-dyad mentorship, peer mentorship, and multiple mentorship. Each structure has received some attention in the research literature and present different advantages and challenges. 4.2.1 Vertical-Dyad Structure The most common structure for mentorship is the vertical-dyad (Johnson, 2002). This mentorship model for mid-career faculty involves a senior rank or full professor mentoring an associate professor within the same discipline. Typically, the mentor and mentee meet in a one-on-one format. Though the mentee is provided with individualized mentorship, this model can be resource-intensive (Buch et al., 2011) and requires a good match between the mentor and mentee (Savage et al., 2004). There are several strengths of a vertical-dyad mentorship model. First, due to their advanced rank, in this model, the mentor has clear expertise with respect to career advancement. Second, the mentor typically has advanced institutional knowledge and can assist mid-career faculty in navigating the political landscape as they pursue psychosocial and career development goals. Third, the mentor has successfully been promoted to full professor and can assist in clarifying and demystifying the promotion process (Buch et al., 2011). There are challenges with this mentoring structure as well. The vertical-dyad structure has been noted to build upon the power differential between senior and junior faculty, which can result in limited trust and openness in the mentoring relationship (Savage, Karp, & Logue, 2004). To alleviate this issue, some faculty may select mentors from outside their program, department, or unit who do not sit on the promotion and tenure committee to create a mentoring environment in which mentees can be open and honest about their support needs (Sands, Parson, & Duane, 1991). Ewing et al. (2008) conducted a pilot study of a vertical-dyad mentorship model with 26 university faculty from business, economics, education and social work in Australia. Mentors were provided with a small stipend and support structure (e.g., release from service obligations) in exchange for

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participating in this two-year program. Faculty who were considered to be productive scholars and exceptional teachers were recruited to volunteer to serve as mentors. Mentees then selected a mentor from this pool of faculty. The dyads attended a half day workshop to develop a shared understanding of mentorship and to establish clear expectations for the relationship. With the help of the mentor, the mentee created goals and career plans for achieving those goals. The mentor and mentee drafted a mentorship plan for how mentorship would be structured to facilitate these goals. Focus groups were conducted with the mentors and mentees and all reported positive outcomes. Some participants felt the selection process of mentors was difficult, particularly when there was not a match in gender and cultural identity between the mentor and mentee. Others were able to easily develop strong relationships with their mentors. Flexibility of the mentorship model within a general structure was seen as a strength as were the incentives and mentor/mentee training. Participants expressed concern with lack of mentor/mentee attendance and interest in formal workshops and meetings later in the project and with the lack of recognition for participation in the project. 4.2.2 Peer Mentorship Structure Peer mentorship is a horizontal, non-evaluative model in which faculty from the same rank mentor each other. Peer mentorship can be one-on-one or group based, formal or informal (Buch et al., 2011). Central to the model is that each member serves as mentor at times and as mentee at other times (Huston & Weaver, 2008). Within peer mentorship, faculty voluntarily partner to achieve career goals. These partnerships involve problem solving, coaching, and feedback. The focus within peer mentorship is on the reciprocal nature of the relationship that focuses on equity, collaboration, and mutual benefit (Smith et al., 2013). Peer-mentoring can be seen as an alternative to vertical-dyad mentorship (Files, Blair, Mayer, & Ko, 2008). In peer-mentoring the power differential between mentor and mentee is reduced, if not eliminated. Núñez, Murakami, and Gonzales (2015) describe the potential for peer mentoring to support underrepresented or marginalized groups through a more inclusive framework built on equity rather than hierarchy. Peers may develop joint scholarship, projects, and collaborations as a result of their mentoring relationship (Bryant et al., 2015). In some cases, peer mentors may develop into friendships that extends beyond the mentoring relationship and offers a longer term network of support (Webb et al., 2009). Though more studies are needed, peer-mentoring has been shown to be associated with long term career development improvements including scholarly productivity (Mayer et al., 2014).

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There are some potential disadvantages of peer mentoring. When peer-mentoring is applied within a formal mentoring model, there is the potential for a mismatch between peers’ expertise, personalities, and support needs. Furthermore, the flexibility of this structure in which both individuals serve as mentor and mentee can cause confusion. It may be necessary to add clarity on roles and relationships among the peer mentors (Bryant et al., 2015). In other cases, peer mentors may lack the knowledge and skills needed to provide effective mentorship, particularly with respect to promotion. In such situations, bringing in a senior faculty member as a facilitator or resource for the peer mentors may be beneficial (Files, Blair, Mayer, & Ko, 2008). Huston and Weaver (2008) piloted a peer mentorship model which involved peer-coaching for improving teaching skills in mid-career faculty. Ten faculty attended three workshops on peer-coaching and mentorship, and engaged in reciprocal mentorship throughout the year. This involved setting goals, conducting observations, and providing feedback based on those observations. Program strengths included ongoing support for faculty professional development, rather than a single workshop, active engagement as both peers, and the focus on reflection of teaching practices. Participants found the confidential, non-evaluative nature of the partnership helpful for promoting reflection and seeking solutions to specific issues. Huston and Weaver provide six recommendations for adopting peer mentoring: goal setting, voluntary participation, confidentiality, assessment of the model, formative evaluation of faculty progress, and institutional support. 4.2.3 Mentorship Networks Structure Thus far, the models reviewed have focused on dyadic mentorship in which there is a single mentor and a single mentee. Mentorship networks involve multiple mentoring relationships that occur simultaneously. Through mentoring networks, a “constellation of relationships” (Peluchette & Jeanquiart, 2000, p. 551) emerges within and, in some cases, outside the organization. Within the organization, vertical-dyad and peer mentoring relationships may emerge, either formally or informally. Outside the organization, faculty may find additional mentors from friends, family, or colleagues from different institutions. Peer mentoring can also be applied in a mentorship network structure in which a group of peers forms a professional learning community (Smith et al., 2013). Mentorship networks can be comprised of both formal and informal mentorship models. While a mentee may participate in a formal mentorship model with a senior colleague, she may also form informal mentorships with other senior colleagues or even peers. Thus, the building of the mentorship network

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can often occur organically. In other cases, the mentee may intentionally seek out multiple mentors to support multiple goals and areas of development. Mentorship networks may allow for more flexible mentorship across a variety of areas. For example, one mentor may be able to support an associate professor in their pursuit of promotion to full professor, whereas another mentor may provide mentorship around a specific project goal. Connections with one mentor may also open doors to access additional mentors through social networks and connections (Warner et al., 2015). Indeed, studies have shown that satisfaction with mentoring is correlated with the number of mentors and types of mentoring received (Wasserstein, Quistberg, & Shea, 2007). Warner et al. (2015) found that associate professors connected to mentorship networks were three times more likely to be promoted to full professor as associate professors without a strong mentorship network. In many cases, mentorship networks allow for the blending of multiple mentorship models and structures to meet the unique needs of the mentee. However, some disadvantages of this structure should be noted. With multiple mentors offering guidance and advice, there is a risk that advice will not always align, and in some cases could be contradictory. If mentors and mentees meet together as a group, “collaboration and cohesion among team mentors” could be challenged (Bosch, Ramachandran, Luévano, & Wakiji, 2010, p. 65). Peluchette and Jeanquiart (2000) surveyed 430 faculty from two state universities (40% assistant, 28% associate, and 32% full professors) regarding participant perceptions of their career success, number of publications, books, and conference presentations, as well as creative activities (works of art, design, or performance), sources of mentorship, and career stage. They found that associate professors with mentors from multiple sources were more productive on both subjective and objective measures and that having mentors from outside the organization was directly related to scholarly productivity. The authors recommend universities allocate financial resources for junior and mid-career faculty to develop mentor relationships outside of the university by attending and networking at conferences, by providing faculty release time for mentorship, or by offering sabbatical leaves.

5

Model Mid-Career Mentorship Programs and Centers in Higher Education

There are likely many institutions of higher education with exemplar mentorship models for mid-career faculty. This chapter is not intended to be an exhaustive in this respect, but rather to provide an illustrative set of examples

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of mid-career faculty mentorship in higher education. This set of examples focuses on institutions across a variety of Carnegie Classifications. Michigan State University is a public R1 institution that offers comprehensive resources for faculty mentorship at mid-career level as well as targeted mentorship resources for female faculty and faculty of color. The model includes combinations of seminars, workshops, faculty communities of learners, individual consultation, and faculty mentorship. Workshops cover a variety of topics, some of which appeal to a wide audience (e.g., the work/life balance) to specific topics for mid-career faculty (e.g., From Associate Professor to Professor: Productive Decision-Making at Mid-Career). Additionally, MSU hosts the LEAD (Leadership Excellence and Development) competency-based program to develop and promote faculty leadership skills. Brandeis University is a private R1 university that leads the C-Change Mentoring and Leadership Institute. This institute is designed specifically for mid-career faculty in US medical schools. The institute involves formal one-year peer group mentoring for mid-career faculty. This program launched in 2018, and as such data for the success of the program are not yet available. University of North Carolina Charlotte is a public R2 institution with many programs and resources designed to support mid-career faculty. In partnership with their ADVANCE center, the university offers a mentoring program specifically focused on promotion to full professor. This formal mentoring program incorporates vertical-dyad mentoring as well as group peer mentoring events and opportunities for mid-career faculty. Elon University is a private M2 university and supports a mid-career faculty development program through the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. The formal mentoring program involves peer mentoring and mentor networks. Participants work to set career advancement goals and to develop action plans to achieve those goals. Participating faculty are also provided with a stipend. Additional resources include the national centers and funding opportunities to support career advancement of faculty in higher education. The National Science Foundation ADVANCE grant program supports institutions of higher education to increase participant and advancement of women in academy with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math. The National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) offers an interactive mentoring map where faculty can build out supports for internal mentors, peer mentors, and external mentors as well as additional supports for career and psychosocial development. Institutions of higher education may partner with the NCFDD allowing faculty to register and access resources, trainings, and programs. The Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences

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in Research (CIMER) is based out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. CIMER offers curricula for planning for mentorship, recruiting and training mentors and mentees, as well as tools for evaluating the success of the mentorship program. A third mentoring resource is the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN). The mission of the NRMN is to provide mentors and mentees with evidence-based mentorship programs and practices focused on career and psychosocial development for research careers. Though not specifically tailored to mid-career faculty, online programs such as MyMentor, a virtual mentoring program, connects mentors with mentees and allows participants to individualize mentoring resources to meet their specific goals.

6

Recommendations for Developing Mid-Career Mentorship Programs

It is important to note that designing and building a mentorship model for mid-career faculty does not require a complete redesign of the wheel. Indeed, research shows there are several key features of high quality mentorship programs that should be incorporated into a strong program. These key features include: (a) structuring mentorship so that the mentee, the mentor, and the organization benefit, and (b) providing administrative support and allocation of resources to participants. 6.1

Structure Mentorship so That the Mentee, Mentor, and Organization Benefit There are several mentorship models for mid-career faculty ranging from formal to informal and offering various structures and formats. As reviewed in this chapter, each mentoring model presents unique advantages and challenges. Institutions must consider their resources, administrative support and faculty needs when determining how to design a mentorship program. The good news is that several characteristics of successful mentorship span across each model. Institutions should ensure that their mentoring program involves mentorship that is a two-way, reciprocal process, which benefits the mentor, the mentee, and the organization (Ewing et al., 2008). Mentors and mentees should have clear expectations, specific career development and/or psychosocial goals, and a method to evaluate the program and experience. The benefit for both mentors and mentees should be made salient to faculty. The benefits for the mentee can involve career advancement, improved confidence, and job satisfaction (Zeind et al., 2005). Research has also shown that mentoring can

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bring productivity and innovation to the mentor’s career as well (Ewing et al., 2008). The organization benefits by facilitating the development and retention of an engaged, productive, goal-driven faculty (Wasserstein, Quistberg, & Shea, 2007) and by creating opportunities for further connections, collaborations, and productivity among faculty (Kalpazidou, Schmidt, & Faber, 2016). 6.2 Administrative Support and Allocation of Resources Establishing a mentoring program alone is not sufficient to facilitate positive mentee and mentor outcomes. Administrative support in terms of time and monetary resources is critical as is the match between the mentor and the mentee and their understanding of the mentorship process (Baldwin & Chang, 2006). While training associate professors is critical, so is professional development for department heads and administrators in providing career guidance, motivating faculty, and evaluating faculty performance (Baldwin et al., 2008). Universities, colleges, and departments must allocate resources to facilitate and support these mid-career mentorship initiatives (Baldwin, 2008). Bridge funding may be used to assist faculty in exploring new research methodologies or leadership areas while external grant submissions are pending or in development (Field et al., 2011). Mid-career faculty can apply for re-start up packages to change or refresh research areas (Baldwin et al., 2008). A common challenge is encouraging faculty to participate in mentoring programs at the mentor and mentee levels (Buch et al., 2011). Part of this issue may be lack of faculty awareness of the mentoring programs. Universities should actively and continuously advertise these programs, especially with newly promoted and tenured faculty. Information about mentoring programs should also be shared annually to faculty through the annual review process. A second issue may be an absence of incentives to participate in mentoring programs. Recognition and reinforcement for mentee and mentor are basic principles of learning and are “essential elements of a coordinated system to promote mid-career faculty development” (Baldwin & Chang, 2006, p. 34). Providing incentives for mentor and mentee participation may take the form of stipends or release time from teaching or service. Merit raises for mid-career faculty and stipends for mentors have been shown to be helpful in facilitating mid-career professional development initiatives (Ewing et al., 2008). Some universities, such as Howard University, offer salary support to faculty who serve as mentors in a vertical dyad model. For some faculty having time to allocate to mentoring may be a more valuable resource than stipends. This may be especially true for mid-career faculty, given increased teaching, service, and administrative roles coupled with work-life balance (Blood et al., 2012). Many mid-career faculty, and in particular women mid-career faculty, are at an

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age where they are caring for young children and aging parents or are part of dual-career families (Pruitt et al., 2010). As such, administrators should create flexible structures for mentoring, such as course releases or service releases (Baldwin et al., 2008).

7

Conclusion

In summary, the research literature base, mentorship models and programs adopted by institutions of higher education and national centers offer guidance for developing and implementing successful mid-career faculty mentorship programs. A mentorship model with clear yet flexible structure is essential for faculty professional growth. Institutional support, faculty recognition, and creative mentoring arrangements which involve senior mentors, peer mentors, and outside mentors may facilitate faculty engagement, productivity, and promotion to full professor. Providing clear expectations to associate professors, creating space for associate professors to set goals and create plans to achieve those goals, developing and implementing structured mentoring programs, making targeted professional development in leadership, research, or national visibility/impact accessible to faculty, recognizing the work of mentees and mentors, and providing institutional support for these activities should lead to promotion and advancement of mid-career faculty. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is a critical need to evaluate the effects of mid-career faculty mentorship through scholarly empirical research. Given the limited empirical research on faculty mentoring, particularly at the mid-career level, it is essential that institutions that implement mentoring programs evaluate those models and disseminate their findings.

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National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. Retrieved from https://www.facultydiversity.org/dashboard National Research Mentoring Network. Retrieved from https://nrmnet.net National Science Foundation ADVANCE program. Retrieved from https://www.nsf.gov/ funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5383 Noe, R. A. (1988). An investigation of the determinants of successful assigned mentoring relationships. Personnel Psychology, 41, 457–479. Nottis, K. E. (2005). Supporting mid-career reseearcher. Journal of Facutly Development, 20(2), 95–98. Núñez, A., Murakami, E. T., & Gonzales, L. D. (2015). Weaving authenticity and legitimacy: Latina faculty peer mentoring. New Directions for Higher Education, 2015(171), 87–96. Peluchette, J. V. E., & Jeanquart, S. (2000). Professionals’ use of different mentor sources at various career stages: Implications for career success. Journal of Social Psychology, 140(5), 549–564. Pruitt, N. T., Johnson, A. J., Catlin, L., & Knox, S. (2010). Influences on women counseling psychology associate professors’ decisions regarding pursuit of full professorship. The Counseling Psychologist, 38(8), 1139–1173. Ragins, B. R., & Cotton, J. L. (1999). Mentor functions and outcomes: A comparison of men and women in formal and informal mentoring relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84, 529–550. Richey, C. A., Gambrill, E. D., & Blythe, B. J. (1988). Mentor relationships among women in academe. Journal of Women & Social Work, 3(1), 34–47. Sands, R. G., Parson, L. A., & Duane, J. (1991). Faculty mentoring faculty in a public university. Journal of Higher Education, 62, 174–193. Savage, H. E., Karp, R. S., & Logue, R. (2004). Faculty mentorship at colleges and universities. College Teaching, 52(1), 21–24. Smith, E. R., Calderwood, P. E., Dohm, F. A., & Gill Casper, P. (2013). Reconceptualizing faculty mentoring within a community of practice model. Mentoring and Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 21(2), 175–194. Sorcinelli, M. D., & Jung Y. (2007). From mentor to mentoring networks: Mentoring in the new academy. Change, 39(6), 58–61. Thorndyke, L. E., Gusic, M. E., & Milner, R. J. (2008). Functional mentoring: A practical approach with multilevel outcomes. Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, 28(3), 157–164. https://doi.org/10.10020chp.178 Trower, C. A. (2009). Towards a greater understanding of the tenure track for minorities. Change, 41(5), 38–45. Warner, E. T., Carapinha, R., Weber, G. M., Hill, E. V., & Reede, J. Y. (2017). Gender differences in receipt of National Institutes of Health R01 grants among junior faculty at an academic medical center: The role of connectivity, rank, and research

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productivity. Journal of Women’s Health (15409996), 26(10), 1086–1093. https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2016.6102 Wasserstein, A. G., Quistberg, D. A., & Shea, J. A. (2007). Mentoring at the University of Pennsylvania: Results of a faculty survey. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22(2), 210–214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-006-0051-x Webb, A. K., Wangmo, T., Ewen, H. H., Teaster, P. B., & Hatch, L. R. (2009). Peer and faculty mentoring for students pursuing a PHD in gerontology. Educational Gerontology, 35(12), 1089–1106. https://doi.org/10.1080/03601270902917869 Zeind, C. S., Zdanowicz, M., MacDonald, K., Parkhurst, C., King, C., & Wizwer, P. (2005). Developing a sustainable faculty mentoring program. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 69(5), 1–13.

CHAPTER 10

Using Organizational, Functional, and Personal Development to Help Mid-Career Faculty Members Javier Cavazos-Vela, Maria L. Morales, Claudia Vela and Jeremiah Fisk

Abstract In this chapter, the authors focus on mid-career faculty members’ experiences and responsibilities with teaching, scholarship, and service. An overview of roles, responsibilities, and experiences of mid-career faculty and implications for institutions to establish programs and practices are provided. The authors use an organizational, personal, and functional development framework to provide recommendations for institutions to assist mid-career faculty through programs, practices, and policies.

Keywords mid-career faculty – Center for Teaching Excellence – faculty development

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Using Organizational, Functional, and Personal Development to Help Mid-Career Faculty Members

In the United States, mid-career faculty comprise half of postsecondary education faculty (Strage, Nelson, & Meyers, 2008) and constitute the largest component of a university’s workforce (Baldwin, DeZure, Shaw, & Moretto, 2008; Weimer, 2017). For many mid-career faculty, this time reflects a productive and influential period of their academic career with scholarly achievements as well as leadership and management roles in institutions and professional organizations (Baldwin & Chang, 2006; Baldwin, Lunceford, & Vanderlinden, 2005). Many faculty become deans, university administrators, department chairs, or presidents in national professional associations. For many mid-career faculty, this time marks experiences as inspiring educators, mentors, and scholars (Baldwin & Chang, 2006). Although some faculty continue to find professional success, other mid-career faculty experience exhaustion, doubt, © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_011

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confusion, lack of support, lack of enthusiasm, depression, or lack of meaning in work (e.g., Canale, Herdklotz, & Wild, 2013). These factors have potential to influence faculty members’ work satisfaction and decisions to leave academia (Ryan, Healy, & Sullivan, 2012). Given that most research literature and university programs focus on early or junior faculty (Buch, Huet, Rorrer, & Roberson, 2011), the purpose of this chapter is to focus on mid-career faculty members’ experiences and responsibilities to provide institutions with recommendations to support mid-career faculty with teaching, scholarship, and service. We specifically focus on mid-career faculty who seek promotion to become full professors or university leaders. In this chapter, we provide a brief overview of roles, responsibilities, and experiences of mid-career faculty as well as offer implications for institutions to establish programs and practices. Part one of this chapter focuses on mid-career faculty members’ characteristics, roles, responsibilities, opportunities, and challenges. Part two of this chapter focuses on implications for institutions to help mid-career faculty with organizational, personal, and functional development. Our hope is that this chapter will help administrators (1) become familiar with mid-career faculty members’ experiences and perspectives and (2) improve programs, practices, and policies. 1.1 Roles and Responsibilities Mid-career faculty have unique and similar roles and responsibilities when compared with early faculty. We also know that college faculty are tasked with accomplishing more with less resources and to increase results for student completion rates (Shugart, 2013). These forces have changed the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of faculty and have added more pressure on mid-career faculty to help their institutions (Baldwin & Chang, 2006). In particular, female mid-career faculty and faculty of color reported more obligations and service duties in their universities than males, which might influence job satisfaction, ability to balance teaching, research, and service responsibilities, and work life balance (Denson, Szelényi, & Bresonis, 2018). Additionally, for many faculty, the nature of their work changes at mid-career (Baldwin et al., 2005). Faculty work shifts from an emphasis on teaching and research to teaching and administration in mid-career (Baldwin et al., 2005). Also, whereas collegial collaboration in tenure-track years might have involved peer review of teaching, annual review, or committee work, roles and responsibilities in mid-career have potential to become more meaningful and collaborative. Mid-career faculty can ask their peers to review their course not only for basic teaching strategies but also course design, assessment activities, alignment between student learning objectives and assessment activities, and accessibility. These

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conversations on teaching can be deeper and extend beyond basic requirements for peer review of teaching (Baldwin et al., 2005). 1.2 Opportunities There are special opportunities relevant to the middle stretch of academic careers, including (1) student mentoring and coaching, (2) teaching improvements and taking risks, (3) collegial collaboration, and (4) long-range planning (Weimer, 2017). First, mentoring can play an important role in this career stage. With experiences, knowledge, and life lessons, mid-career faculty can develop different and enhanced relationships with students. In addition to discussing course content and helping students achieve learning outcomes, conversations about workplace skills and life lessons can be fruitful (Weimer, 2017). Second, substantive teaching improvements can occur in mid-career. Given that the pressure to achieve tenure no longer exists, faculty can take risks and try new teaching strategies. Using different research-based teaching methods, such as active learning (Freeman et al., 2014; Prince, 2004) or team-based learning (Michaelson & Sweet, 2011), might present opportunities to improve teaching. Although taking risks might result in various emotions such as anxiety, frustration, or limited success, the opportunity to make changes and attempt new teaching and learning strategies is worthwhile for teaching improvements (Weimer, 2017). Additionally, while mid-career can represent opportunities in teaching, service, and scholarship, researchers have identified numerous challenges for this special population. 1.3 Perceived Challenges Many mid-career faculty become deans, university administrators, department chairs, and leaders within professional organizations. These mid-career faculty appear to live fulfilling lives and contribute to their universities, communities, and professional organizations. However, other mid-career faculty experience exhaustion, doubt, confusion, lack of support, lack of enthusiasm, depression (e.g., Canale et al., 2013), or lack of work meaning. Some challenges for mid-career faculty include loss of interest or motivation, increased workload, role confusion, problems with work-life balance, unclear professional goals, perceived neglect, lack of administrative support, and struggle to find meaning in life. One common theme in the literature and university programs surrounding mid-career faculty is neglect. Most literature in postsecondary education focuses on early or junior career faculty. Additionally, most university programs and resources target junior career faculty to facilitate promotion to tenure. The amount of resources devoted to new faculty is important given the

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university’s investment for their professors to achieve tenure and promotion. When an instructor does not receive tenure, the financial implications are detrimental for the employee as well as the institution (Kaminsky & Geisler, 2012). However, mid-career faculty have voiced concerns about the lack of attention and resources devoted to their career-development needs. In a study involving mid-career faculty at a research university, two participants provided the following comments about feelings of neglect: “Everybody is cut loose after the assistant-professor stage” and “To sum it all up, you’re pretty much left to your own devices” (Baldwin et al., 2008, p. 50). In addition to feelings of neglect, Buch and colleagues (2011) found that mid-career faculty perceived lack of resources from administration and most resources were devoted to junior faculty. When mid-career faculty do not feel that resources or special programs are designed for their needs and advancement, the resultant impact could be feelings of neglect, loss of sense of belonging, and lower life satisfaction (Buch et al., 2011). Another major challenge for faculty in mid-career is loss of interest or motivation. Sustaining vibrancy and enthusiasm about work can prove to be difficult for many faculty after tenure and before retirement (Baldwin et al., 2008). This challenge is reinforced since tenure and promotion have been achieved and are no longer imposed. Baldwin (2005) interviewed post-tenure, midcareer faculty at research and liberal arts institutions. He asked professors to use metaphors to illustrate their experiences at mid-career. One professor stated he felt he was “treading water … I’m not sinking … I’m not six feet under and looking at the surface” (p. 2). Another professor described his mid-career situation with “coasting … moving but not as quickly or energetically as [he’d] like” (p. 2). As the result of unclear goals or criteria for promotion, mid-career faculty members might lose interest or motivation in work. Some mid-career faculty also face unclear goals. When mid-career faculty do not have clear professional and scholarly goals, they might be more likely to lose professional momentum, motivation, or interest (Baldwin et al., 2008). Although professional advancement ladder for faculty is relatively short, it may take considerable time to achieve, which creates a career plateau (Baldwin et al., 2008). In a study regarding mid-career faculty experiences at a research university, one participant provided insight into challenges they faced: “You reach a certain plateau and you’ve been aiming there for a long time, and you get there, and you look around and say, ‘what’s next?” (Baldwin et al., 2008, p. 51). Although junior faculty have clear goals to obtain tenure and promotion by engaging in scholarship, teaching, and service, mid-career faculty might face life and professional transition challenges, which creates more ambiguity for their professional goals. Buch et al. (2011) found that professors who moved

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from Associate to Full Professors experienced barriers in promotion, lack of attention to career planning, and lack of institutional support. Another challenge that mid-career faculty face is unclear guidelines regarding promotion criteria. In a study involving a mentoring program for Associate Professors, Buch et al. (2011) identified that lack of transparency and clarity regarding promotion criteria was an important barrier to promotion. One female associate professor provided the following perspective: “Unclear criteria … You only find out what you are missing when you are denied. More importantly, you find that even though you have been busy doing what they asked of you, and doing it well, it suddenly doesn’t count” (p. 40). This finding is similar to Baldwin et al.’s (2008) findings that most faculty members wanted specific criteria and expectations for promotion in order to reduce bias and subjectivity. When mid-career faculty do not have clear guidelines for advancement to become full-professor or administrators, they might invest time, energy, and commitment in activities that might not be valued by their institutions. In addition to unclear guidelines, mid-career faculty face non-flexible paths toward full professor. Most universities have the same review (although non-specific) for all mid-career professors regarding advancement. This means that scholarship, teaching, and service requirements remain the same for everybody. Several researchers who conducted surveys and interviews with mid-career faculty found that differentiated expectations and career paths were recommended. In Buch et al.’s (2011) study with associate professors, one participant offered the following perspective regarding promotion to full professor: “More varied models of ‘success … Scholarship is important, but contributions can take many forms” (p. 40). This perspective about differentiated paths is similar to a department chair’s comment: “… people’s careers and interests in research and publishing might change over a life span … not penalizing someone who says ‘I don’t want to do research anymore’ … I don’t see why people shouldn’t have broader options” (p. 54). The aforementioned findings and perspectives reveal that mid-career faculty want flexible paths toward full professor, thereby providing institutions with potential recommendations for policies. Part one of this chapter focused on mid-career faculty members’ characteristics, roles, responsibilities, opportunities, and challenges. Mid-career could be marked by exhaustion, doubt, loss of meaning, loss of motivation, and depression (Canale et al., 2013). If mid-career faculty members lose meaning in work or become disengaged, it is important to not only look at faculty but also institutions for possible solutions. Beauboeuf, Thomas, and Erickson (2017) offered the following perspective: “Faculty disengagement is often the result of institutional practices that leave professors feeling expendable or

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invisible” (p. 3). As such, providing institutions with recommendations to help mid-career faculty with organizational, personal, and functional development is paramount for improving practices.

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Implications for Institutions

In order to provide institutions with recommendations to improve programs for mid-career faculty, we use Bataille and Brown’s (2006) approach that includes organizational, personal, and functional development. First, organizational development focuses on leadership opportunities, involvement in governance, fellowship opportunities, and mentoring opportunities (Canale et al., 2013). Because mid-career faculty might prepare for administrative or organizational leadership positions, providing training and professional development in leadership is important. Second, functional development includes teaching strategies, peer review, curriculum design, instructional skills, and interdisciplinary opportunities (Canale et al., 2013). A university’s center for teaching excellence or learning (Zakrajsek, 2016) is a place to assist mid-career faculty with functional development. Finally, personal development refers to professional/ career advancement as well as programs for well-being (Canale et al., 2013). Given that mid-career faculty might struggle with work/life balance, programs for well-being and resilience can foster vitality and rejuvenation. 2.1 Organizational Development Universities can consider programs and practices that foster mid-career faculty members’ leadership. Outside of financial incentives, a lot of mid-career faculty want recognition for their work as well as feelings of sense of belonging (Beauboeuf et al., 2017). Support and acknowledgement from department chairs, deans, and university leaders might help faculty members feel connected to not only their university but also a larger purpose. For universities that offer awards or special recognitions, it is common to include recognition for tenure-track faculty as well as faculty at retirement. It will also be important to include awards and recognitions for mid-career faculty to acknowledge their work and continued contributions to the institution. Additionally, most universities have faculty support programs devoted to professional development for first-year faculty members. Although resources are sparse and decisions regarding the use of limited resources are difficult, institutions can consider creating leadership programs for mid-career faculty. This is important given that in a study with 39 schools, 21 did not have evidence of programs specifically for mid-career faculty (Canale et al., 2013). These findings support

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the perspective that limited resources are usually devoted to other groups such as tenure-track faculty. Three institutions with promising programs for midcareer faculty include Michigan State University, Ohio State University (Canale et al., 2013), and The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. First, Michigan State University offers an annual program “Thriving in the Tenure System II: Transitioning from Associate to Full Professor” to help mid-career faculty become familiar with guidelines and criteria as well as opportunities for structured reflection (Academic Advancement Network, Michigan State University, 2018). In addition to an annual program, the Office of the Provost, Faculty, and Organizational Development offers a symposium specifically for mid-career faculty. In spring 2018, the conference theme was “Making the Most of the Mid-Career as an MSU Academic” with a keynote speech and breakout sessions on mentoring, leadership, and strategies for unit leaders. Having workshops and an annual symposium specifically for midcareer faculty sends a message to the university community that mid-career faculty are valued and meaningful. The University Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Ohio State University offers a faculty learning community for mid-career and senior faculty. Mid-career faculty across disciplines come together to reflect on teaching, develop a personal teaching enhancement plan, and create a project as part of a learning showcase. Faculty members self-select their teaching enhancement plan, which might include integrating new teaching methods, trying new strategies to measure student learning, or exploring strategies with large classes (University Center for the Advancement of Teaching, The Ohio State University, 2018). In order to incentivize participation, faculty members receive $1,000 for teaching enhancement activities such as attending a professional conference or purchasing teaching materials. Additionally, the Women’s Place under the Office of Academic Affairs publishes “Providing Leadership for Faculty Promotion: A Guide for Full Professors and TIU Heads” that focuses on best practices in supporting promotion to full professor. By providing guidelines for professors as well as tenure chair and committee members, the university shows mid-career faculty that they are supported and will receive guidance to achieve promotion. As part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE grant, the Office of the Senior Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Diversity at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley offers an Associate to Full Professor program. Program goals are to help faculty “manage post-tenure career-life expectations” and support mid-career advancement (Office of the Sr. Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, 2018). Session workshops focus on managing post-tenure career-life integration; networking and mentoring for

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advancement; enhancing research and securing external funding through collaborations; reviving teaching; and planning for promotion. Another integral part of the program is mentoring in which mid-career faculty members are paired with a faculty mentor to receive mentoring in career and teaching development. Organizational development focuses on leadership and mentoring opportunities (Canale et al., 2013). Because mid-career faculty might prepare for administrative or organizational leadership positions, providing training and professional development in leadership is important. The aforementioned universities have programs and practices specifically designed for mid-career faculty to identify records and goals for promotion, recognize criteria for promotion, and engage in meaningful mentoring relationships (Buch et al., 2011). 2.2 Functional Development Functional development includes teaching strategies, peer review, curriculum design, instructional skills, and interdisciplinary opportunities (Bataille & Brown, 2006; Canale et al., 2013). Researchers showed that faculty experience different professional development needs at different points in their careers (Seldin, 2006). Many mid-career faculty also feel disappointed in available professional development activities and are not able to find a support system to maintain their vitality (Huston & Weaver, 2008). These challenges could be overcome through a university’s teaching and learning center provisions of professional development for faculty members to improve teaching practices (Zakrajsek, 2016). Centers might be called Center for Teaching Excellence, Center for Teaching and Learning, Center for Faculty Excellence, or another name with the mission and vision aimed at improving teaching and learning. Creating a culture that values professional development extends to administrative positions such as college presidents, deans, and board of regent members (Honan, Westmoreland, & Tew, 2013). Evidence highlights the importance of developing and maintaining a teaching center for faculty to utilize resources, which has illustrated positive impacts on teaching (Andurkar, Fjortoft, Sincak, & Todd, 2010). The following activities can be designed through a center for teaching and learning specifically for mid-career faculty members to enhance functional development. These activities include faculty learning communities, book clubs, and workshops. By collaborating and engaging with peers on teaching and learning, mid-career faculty members might become reenergized with ideas, identify strategies to integrate teaching and scholarship, and process needs and concerns with others who have similar experiences.

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2.3 Faculty Learning Communities Faculty learning communities (FLC) provide one way to enhance teaching and learning by instilling community and scholarly discussions (Harrington & Zakrajsek, 2017). Cox (2004) defined FLCs as a group of faculty who “engage in an active, collaborative … curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning …” (p. 8). Comprised of a recommended group of 8–12 faculty members, a FLC meets every 3 weeks, explores a multidisciplinary topic, provides opportunities for collaboration and reflection, and creates a plan to implement teaching strategies (Cox, 2004). FLC facilitators design, implement, and evaluate the FLC with a final showcase where FLC members present and reflect on their learning experiences (Cox, 2016). What appears to differentiate FLCs from book clubs (see description below) is an application process with careful selection of participants (Zakrajsek, 2016). Depending on available resources and funding, participants could receive a $500 stipend, course release, or travel money as part of their participation and engagement. One strategy to obtain funding is to design FLCs around topics that are relevant for institutions. For example, if institutions are trying to foster community engagement, a FLC around community-engagement, service learning, and community-engaged scholarship might motivate administrators to fund the FLC. The following are important considerations for a FLC: safety and trust, respect, responsiveness, collaboration, relevance, enjoyment, and empowerment (Cox, 2004). When mid-career faculty members come together from different disciplines, there needs to be a sense of safety, trust, and respect to discuss important and personal issues. Faculty must feel comfortable to discuss topics relevant for mid-career faculty such as perceptions of campus climate, departmental politics, or diversity issues in the classroom. For those mid-career faculty who face perceptions of irrelevance or lack of mattering (Karpiak, 1997), being part of a teaching and learning group might serve as enjoyment and greater meaning. As the result of participating and reflecting with a similar group of colleagues, mid-career faculty members might develop positive perceptions toward meaning, belonging, and mattering. There also needs to be a sense of collaboration among faculty members to work toward specific goals and projects. A FLC on mid-career faculty could be topic-focused or group-focused. With topic-focused, the FLC would collaborate or work on individual teaching projects such as dynamic lecturing or scholarship of teaching and learning. With group-focused, the FLC would meet to focus on challenges and opportunities for mid-career faculty members (Cox, 2004). Blaisdell and Cox (2004) outlined the following needs of mid-career faculty that could be the focal point of a FLC: rethinking teaching practices, experimenting with new teaching pedagogies, or inspiration and meaning.

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Although most research has been in Science-related fields, researchers have found a number of FLC benefits on teaching and learning. Smith and colleagues (2008) identified that faculty who participated in a FLC reported improved awareness and understanding of teaching methodologies and higher order thinking concepts. Additionally, Hubball, Collins, and Pratt (2005) identified that faculty who participated in a FLC and engaged in reflective practices more deeply explored their teaching practices and beliefs compared with a group of faculty who did not participate in a FLC. In addition to faculty benefits, there is evidence that FLC activities are an effective mechanism to increase students’ learning experiences and academic success. Cox (2004) reported that faculty who participated in a FLC reported the following student benefits: (a) increased ability to apply principles to new situations, (b) increased learning through collaborative and active learning, and (c) increased learning through engagement. Offering faculty professional development opportunities through FLCs on effective pedagogy styles (e.g., active learning, dynamic lecturing, engaged scholarship, and small teaching) also might be a valuable method at sustaining or improving faculty teaching abilities (Glowacki‐Dudka & Brown, 2007; Zheng, Bender, & Nadershahi, 2017) in the middle stretch of academic careers. Mid-career faculty members who are trying to find their next task might consider the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL), which is the study of effective teaching and learning through research and reflection as well as disseminating findings through publications, presentations, and public displays (Bishop-Clark & Dietz-Uhler, 2014). Martin, Benjamin, Prosser, and Trigwell (1999) elaborated that SOTL needs to include engagement with existing knowledge on teaching and learning and dissemination about teaching and learning within specific disciplines. An important goal of SOTL is to improve learning among and between individuals by conducting investigations into different areas of discipline-specific expertise and best practices (McKinney, 2007). When mid-career faculty members conduct a SOTL project, they create and evaluate research studies in teaching and learning. Such a shift from a discipline-specific research question to SOTL (e.g., Does lecture or lecture plus active learning produce greater benefits in first-year college students’ learning and academic performance?) creates opportunities to improve and understand teaching and learning. By participating in FLCs on SOTL, mid-career faculty can understand how to design SOTL projects with implications for teaching and learning. Most faculty members are trained to conduct scholarship with implications in their discipline. This means that a faculty member in counselor education might examine which treatment approaches are most effective with people with specific

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presenting problems. A faculty member in Mechanical Engineering also might examine the influence of viscosity on force spinning dynamics (Padron, Fuentes, Caruntu, & Lozano, 2012). However, when faculty engage in SOTL, they use scholarship skills to examine and understand issues in teaching and learning. A couple of fruitful areas of investigation in SOTL include: (1) What is the impact of retrieval practice and pre-tests on students’ performance in core courses? (2) Which active learning strategies produce the strongest learning experiences? (3) What are differences in students’ perceptions of learning and achievement in lecture-only courses and lecture and active learning courses? (4) What is the impact of transparent assignments on students’ motivation, academic engagement, and learning? (5) What are the most important factors to create a positive and inclusive learning environment for college students? By engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning, mid-career faculty members will be able to integrate teaching and scholarship to improve students’ learning. When mid-career faculty members think about scholarship in teaching and learning, they begin to think about the types of learning experiences that result in deep learning, the types of instruction that helps students develop and build foundational knowledge, and the type of active learning strategies that result in effective learning (Bishop-Clark & Dietz-Uhler, 2014). These conversations represent opportunities to foster belonging, meaning, and motivation. Based on evidence in the literature, we contend that a FLC can be an effective mechanism for enhancing teaching and learning among a group of mid-career faculty. Potential topics relevant for mid-career faculty members in a FLC include (a) leadership, (b) scholarship of teaching and learning, (c) researchbased methods in teaching and learning, or (d) wellness and rejuvenation. 2.4 Workshops Workshops on teaching and learning can be an important starting tool for conversations on teaching and learning around mid-career faculty. Zakrajsek (2016) commented “that there is fairly consistent evidence that one-shot workshops rarely lead to productive changes in faculty members’ teaching effectiveness” (p. 101). With that said, workshops can be effective if they are designed as part of ongoing series of topics in teaching and learning. In the scholarship of teaching and learning, there appear to be research-benefits to support dynamic lecturing, active learning, and retrieval practice (Harrington & Zakrajsek, 2016). Centers for teaching and learning can design a series of workshops on one or several of the aforementioned topics to provide mid-career faculty members with opportunities to participate in multiple conversations on the same topic. Another idea is to have individual workshops with a follow-up session for reflection and practice. As one example, a teaching and learning center

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could lead a workshop on dynamic lecturing (Harrington & Zakrajsek, 2016) in the beginning of a semester and help faculty members become excited about application to their classroom. A center could have a follow-up conversation in the middle of the semester for mid-career faculty to reflect on changes in their classroom. Creating space for a follow-up conversation is important to help faculty members explore, reflect, and support changes in teaching. Important points to consider when designing workshops include time and topics. First, mid-career faculty members’ time is valuable as they might be engaged in service, leadership, and administrative activities. As the result of faculty members’ busy and varied time commitments, Zakrajsek (2016) recommended 40-minute workshops that start 10-minutes after the hour and conclude 10-minutes before the hour. Such a time schedule allows faculty members to participate if they teach a class before or after the workshop. Second, the topic appears to be paramount for faculty to decide if they will participate. Centers for teaching and learning can conduct a yearly needs assessment to determine their mid-career faculty members’ needs and desires for topics. Although mid-career faculty members at our university, which is a Hispanic Serving Institution, might want workshops on team-based learning, faculty members at other universities might want workshops on other topics such as creating a safe learning environment to discuss diverse issues. The second strategy involves directors of center for teaching and learning conducting a literature search on research-based teaching strategies. Centers for teaching and learning can explore topics that have been proven to be effective in the literature (e.g., dynamic lecturing and active learning) and lead workshops on these topics with mid-career faculty. 2.5 Book Clubs University administrators in a center for teaching and learning also can facilitate book clubs on relevant topics in teaching. Book clubs represent an effective way for mid-career faculty members from different disciplines to come together and discuss important topics to reshape perspectives and practices. Zakrajsek (2016) recommends for book clubs to be similar to meetings with an agenda, time-keeper, and notes with action items. Like a meeting, somebody sends an agenda, takes notes or minutes, and sends out a reminder about action items. While the number of meetings will vary depending on the difficulty and length of the book, having multiple conversations around the same topic is important. It also is important that the facilitator has background knowledge of the subject (e.g., book’s topic) in order to lead a fruitful conversation (Zakrajsek, 2016).

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Like determining topics for workshops, centers for teaching and learning can explore literature to discover relevant books for mid-career faculty. Two potential books that might pertain to mid-career faculty members focus on dynamic lecturing and scholarship of teaching and learning. First, many faculty in the United States continue to use conventional lecture as their preferred teaching methods. Therefore, a book club on dynamic lecturing could be separated into four parts: (1) exploring the use and rationale for lecture as teaching method, (2) enhancing lectures through activating prior knowledge and capturing attention, (3) enhancing lectures through reflection and retrieval practice, and (4) planning and evaluating lectures (Harrington & Zakrajsek, 2016). As a result of learning about research-based strategies to enhance lecture effectiveness, mid-career faculty members might gain support to implement changes in their teaching practices. Another relevant book to help mid-career faculty members reshape their perspectives is “Engaging in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Guide to the Process, and how to develop a Project from Start to Finish.” A book club could be separated into the following areas: reflecting on the scholarship of teaching and learning, introduction to the SOTL process and designing a research question, designing the study and collecting data, and analyzing and disseminating results. If mid-career faculty members have been productive in scholarship but have not engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning, participating in a book club on SOTL could provide new and exciting opportunities to focus on meaningful questions in teaching and learning (Bishop-Clark & Dietz-Uhler, 2014). Conversations on the scholarship of teaching and learning are important to provide faculty members with diverse mechanisms to combine their scholarship and teaching interests. By participating in a book club on dynamic lecturing or scholarship of teaching and learning, mid-career faculty members might (re)shape their perspectives in teaching and learning. These faculty members will not only read a book on the latest evidence in teaching and learning but also collaborate with other colleagues who face similar questions, ideas, and perspectives. 2.6 Personal Development Personal development refers to professional/career advancement as well as programs for psychological or personal/social development (Canale et al., 2013). Given that mid-career faculty might struggle with work/life balance or loss of meaning in work, programs for well-being and resilience are paramount for vitality and rejuvenation. Universities can use positive psychology and resilience principles to create personal development for mid-career faculty members’ well-being and work/life balance.

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Two strategies to integrate wellness into mid-career faculty programming are to (1) create partnerships with counseling centers or departments of psychology or (2) bring in external trainers. The Penn Resilience Program (PRP) is a research-based program that targets resilience and optimism among individuals and organizations (Cutuli et al., 2013; Penn Positive Psychology Center, 2016; Reivich, 2016). These practitioners have trained members of the following organizations: U.S. Army, Yale School of Medicine, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and University of Texas at Arlington. Their program focuses on resilience, gratitude, learned optimism, deliberate breathing, perspectives, mental games, positive emotions, and rejuvenation (Cutuli et al., 2013; Penn Resilience Program for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 2016; Penn Positive Psychology Center, 2016). Although the aforementioned concepts and ideas are part of a formal program, campus personnel in various university departments might have expertise to lead professional development on gratitude, character strengths, positive psychology, and resilience. While universities might not be able to afford an entire training on resiliency, perhaps a series of workshops on resilient topics could be feasible. By providing workshops and conversations on resilience, universities will send a message to mid-career faculty that their mental health, vitality, and rejuvenation are important. Some concepts within the Penn resilience program that appear relevant for mid-career faculty include resilient competencies, hunt the good stuff, gratitude, positive emotions, and rejuvenation. First, resilient competencies include self-awareness, self-regulation, mental agility, strengths of character, and optimism (Cutuli et al., 2013; Penn Positive Psychology Center, 2016; Reivich, 2016). As a result of potential feelings of neglect, loss of motivation, or lack of work meaning, mid-career faculty members can become aware of their thoughts and feelings as well as develop positive perceptions of hope toward the future. One way to accomplish this is to facilitate a series of workshops to help faculty members reflect on their character strengths and use these character strengths in their everyday life. The Counseling Center, faculty in the Departments of Counseling or Psychology, or the Teaching and Learning center could facilitate conversations on resilience. As one example to foster resilience, the Values in Action Inventory measures perceptions of character strengths, including creativity, honesty, zest, gratitude, perspective, and love of learning (VIA Institute on Character, 2017). McGovern (2011) also adapted these character strengths for teaching and learning. Given that some mid-career faculty might focus on the negative parts of their professional and personal lives, taking a survey on character strengths shifts the conversation to positive elements. When faculty members identify their top-five character strengths, they reflect on how to cultivate their strengths into their everyday life. This is important because

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Littman-Ovadi, Lavy, and Boiman-Meshita (2016) found that zest, hope, and other happiness strengths were related to employees’ engagement, work meaningfulness, and job satisfaction. As a result, universities can provide a series of workshops to help mid-career faculty reflect on their character strengths, which might result in increases in work satisfaction and meaning. Teaching mid-career faculty members about gratitude and “the good stuff” might foster appreciation about the small things in life (Cutuli et al., 2013; Penn Positive Psychology Center, 2016; Reivich, 2016). As previously mentioned, resources and programs are scarce for mid-career faculty, making voicing concerns or even complaints likely. When mid-career faculty learn how to identify the good stuff and express gratitude, they learn how to shift perspectives to focus on what is good in their life compared with what is wrong. Changing perspectives is important given that gratitude has been linked with life satisfaction, achievement, happiness, and optimism (Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Froh, Emmons, Card, Bono, & Wilson, 2011; Vela, Sparrow, Ikonomopoulos, Gonzalez, & Rodriguez, 2017). One way to foster gratitude within mid-career faculty is to have a workshop about gratitude journaling. Mid-career faculty members could maintain gratitude journals where they reflect on the following daily questions: What am I grateful for? What parts of my job make me happy? In addition to daily gratitude journals, mid-career faculty can reflect on what or who they take for granted as well as strategies to cultivate gratitude into their daily lives (Penn Positive Psychology Center, 2016; Penn Resilience Program for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, 2016). By cultivating gratitude and reflecting on positive emotions, mid-career faculty might be able to increase happiness, savor positive experiences, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. Finally, helping mid-career faculty identify and cultivate positive emotions might lead to rejuvenation. Positive emotions, such as hope, happiness, and meaning in life, might not be common discussion points in faculty conversations. Mid-career faculty might suffer from feelings of neglect, lack of meaning, unclear professional goals, or lack of motivation. For some mid-career faculty, conversations about a negative campus climate, professional disengagement, or lack of meaning might be common. When faculty members shift their perspectives to positive emotions, they move from focusing on “What is wrong with my job” to “What parts of my job do I like? What parts of my job make me happy? and What parts of my job provide meaning in life and purpose?” However, it is important to mention that we are not advocating for faculty to ignore negative and real parts of their professional lives. For some faculty, feelings of neglect, lack of meaning, and minimal sense of belonging are real concerns. What we recommend is that faculty add other perspectives to the conversation

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in order to provide a balance between negative and positive emotions. Workshops to help faculty cultivate positive emotions might lead to enhanced personal development. The aforementioned concepts could be adapted into professional development (McGovern & Miller, 2008) that focus on functional development. A series of workshops on resilient competencies, hunt the good stuff, gratitude, positive emotions, and rejuvenation might help mid-career faculty members increase meaning in work. For mid-career faculty, feelings of neglect, loss of interest or motivation, or loss of work meaning are significant emotions that could influence job satisfaction and productivity. By providing structured conversations on positive emotions, hope, gratitude, and resilience, universities will show mid-career faculty members that their vitality, well-being, and rejuvenation are important. 2.7 Implications for Researchers Based on current research in teaching and learning, there are directions for research in organizational, functional, and personal development. First, researchers should explore the impact of professional development and faculty learning communities on mid-career faculty members’ attitudes and practices in teaching and scholarship. Exploring the role of faculty learning communities, workshops on teaching or research, and book clubs would provide valuable information for university administrators regarding personal development. Second, researchers can explore the impact of a FLC or a series of workshops on faculty members’ resilience, well-being, or resilience. The following research questions can be explored using quantitative and qualitative methods: How do faculty apply what they learn in professional development to their classes? What is the impact of changes in teaching practices from professional development on student learning? How does professional development impact mid-career faculty members’ resilience and well-being? Qualitative interviews and focus groups could provide valuable insight into the aforementioned areas for future research.

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For many mid-career faculty, this time reflects a productive and influential period of their academic career with scholarly achievements as well as leadership and management roles in institutions and professional organizations (Baldwin & Chang, 2006; Baldwin et al., 2005). Although some faculty continue to find professional success with scholarship, teaching, and professional

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organizations, other mid-career faculty experience exhaustion, doubt, confusion, lack of support, lack of enthusiasm, depression, or lack of meaning (Canale et al., 2013). These factors have potential to influence faculty members’ work satisfaction and decisions to leave academia (Ryan et al., 2012). In this chapter, we provided implications for institutions to improve programs and practices for mid-career faculty through organizational, personal, and functional development. Because mid-career faculty might prepare for administrative or organizational leadership positions, providing training and professional development in leadership is important for organizational development. A university’s center for teaching excellence or learning (Zakrajsek, 2016) is a place to assist mid-career faculty with teaching strategies, peer review, curriculum design, instructional skills, and interdisciplinary opportunities (Canale et al., 2013).

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Adolfo Hernandez for formatting this book chapter. The first author also would like to dedicate this chapter to his late mother, Patsy Vela.

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Bataille, G. M., & Brown, R. E. (2006). Faculty career paths: Multiple routes to academic success and satisfaction. Westport, CT: American Council on Education. Beauboeuf, T., Thomas, J. E., & Erickson, K. A. (2017). Our fixation on midcareer malaise. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Bickel, J. (2016). Not too late to reinvigorate: How midcareer faculty can continue growing. Academic Medicine, 91, 1601–1605. Bishop-Clark, C., & Dietz-Uhler, B. (2014). Engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning: A guide to the process, and how to develop a project from start to finish. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Blaisdell, M. L., & Cox, M. D. (2004). Midcareer and senior faculty learning communities: Learning throughout faculty careers. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 97, 137–148. Buch, K., Huet, Y., Rorrer, A., & Roberson, L. (2011, November–December,). Removing the barriers to full professor: A mentoring program for associate professors. Change, 43(6), 38–45. Canale, A. M., Herdklotz, C., & Wild, L. (2013). Mid-career faculty support: The middle years of the academic profession. Faculty Career Development Services. Cox, M. D. (2004). Introduction to faculty learning communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 97, 5–20. Cox, M. D. (2016). Four positions of leadership in planning, implementing, and sustaining faculty learning community programs. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 97, 85–96. Cutuli, J. J., Gillham, J. E., Chaplin, T. M., Reivich, K. J., Seligman, M. E. P., Gallop, R. J., & Freres, D. R. (2013). Preventing adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing symptoms: Effects of the penn resiliency program. The International Journal of Emotional Education, 5(2), 67. Denson, N., Szelényi, K., & Bresonis, K. (2018). Correlates of work-life balance for faculty across racial/ethnic groups. Research in High Education, 59(2), 226–267. Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 377–389. Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8410–8415. 10.1073/pnas.1319030111 Froh, J. J., Emmons, R. A., Card, N. A., Bono, G., & Wilson, J. (2011). Gratitude and the reduced costs of materialism in adolescents. Journal of Happiness Studies, 12, 289–302. Glowacki‐Dudka, M., & Brown, M. P. (2007). Professional development through faculty learning communities. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 21(1–2), 29–39. doi:10.1002/nha3.10277

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Harringon, C., & Zakrajsek, T. (2017). Dynamic lecturing: Research-based strategies to enhance lecture effectiveness. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC. Honan, J. P., Westmoreland, A., & Tew, W. M. (2013). Creating a culture of appreciation for faculty development. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2013(133), 33–45. doi:10.1002/tl.20044 Hubball, H., Collins, J., & Pratt, D. (2005). Enhancing reflective teaching practices: Implications for faculty development programs. The Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 35(3), 57. Huston, T., & Weaver, C. L. (2008). Peer coaching: Professional development for experienced faculty. Innovative Higher Education, 33(1), 5–20. doi:10.1007/s10755007-9061-9 Kaminski, D., & Geisler, C. (2012). Survival analysis of faculty retention in Science and Engineering by gender. Science, 335, 864–866. Karpiak, I. E. (1997). University professors at Mid‐life: Being a part of … But feeling apart. To Improve the Academy, 16(1), 21–40. doi:10.1002/j.2334-4822.1997.tb00319.x Littman-Ovadia, H., Lavy, S., & Boiman-Meshita, M. (2016). When theory and research collide: Examining correlates of signature strengths use at work. Journal of Happiness Studies, 18(2), 527–548. Martin, E., Benjamin, J., Prosser, M., & Trigwell, K. (1999). Scholarship of teaching: A study of the approaches of academic staff. In C Rust (Ed.), Improving student learning: Improving student learning outcomes, Proceedings of the 1998 6th International Symposium (pp. 326–331). Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff Learning and Development, Oxford Brookes University. McGovern, T. V. (2011). Virtues and character strengths for sustainable faculty development. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6, 446–450. McGovern, T. V., & Miller, S. L. (2008). Integrating teacher behaviors with character strengths and virtues for faculty development. Teaching of Psychology, 35(4), 278–285. doi:10.1080/00986280802374609 McKinney, K. (2007). Enhancing learning through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: The challenges and joys of juggling. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Michaelsen, L. K., & Sweet, M. (2011). Team‐based learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2011(128), 41–51. doi:10.1002/tl.467 National Center for Education Statistics. (2012). Postsecondary education. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014015_3.pdf Office of the Sr. Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Diversity, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. (2018). UTRGV Advance: Gender diversity matters. Retrieved from https://www.utrgv.edu/advance/ Padron, S., Fuentes, A., Caruntu, D., & Lozano, K. (2013). Experimental study of nanofiber production through forcespinning. Journal of Applied Physics, 113(2), 024318. doi:10.1063/1.4769886

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Positive Psychology Center, Penn Arts and Sciences. (2016). Resilience skill set. Retrieved from https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/resilience-programs/resilience-skill-set Prince, M. (2004). Does active learning work? A review of the research. Journal of Engineering Education, 93(3), 223–231. doi:10.1002/j.2168-9830.2004.tb00809.x Reivich, K. (2016). Penn resilience program for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Penn Positive Psychology Center. Ryan, J. F., Healy, R., & Sullivan, J. (2012). Oh, won’t you stay? Predictors of faculty intent to leave a public research university. Higher Education, 63(4), 421–437. Seldin, P. (2006). Tailoring faculty development programs to faculty career stages. To Improve the Academy, 24(1), 137–146. doi:10.1002/j.2334-4822.2006.tb00455.x Shugart, S. (2013). The challenge to deep change: A brief cultural history of higher education. Planning for Higher Education, 41(2), 7. Smith, T. R., McGowan, J., Allen, A. R., Johnson, W. I., Dickson, L. J., Najee, Ullah, M. A., & Peters, M. (2008). Evaluating the impact of a faculty learning community on STEM teaching and learning. Journal of Negro Education, 77, 203–226. Strage, A., Nelson, C., & Meyers, S. (2008). “Stayin’ alive:” Meeting faculty mid-career professional renewal needs. Metropolitan Universities, 19(1), 71. University Center for the Advancement of Teaching, The Ohio State University. (2018). Mid-career and senior faculty learning community. Retrieved from https://ucat.osu.edu/ professional-development/learning-communities/ostep/mcsf/ Vela, J. C., Sparrow, G. S., Ikonomopoulos, J., Rodriguez, B., & Gonzalez, S. L. (2017). The role of character strengths and family importance on Mexican American college students’ life satisfaction. Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, 16, 273–285. VIA Institute on Character. (2017). Take the free character strengths test. Retrieved from https://www.viacharacter.org/survey/account/register Weimer, M. (2017). Mid-career faculty: 5 great things about those long years in the middle. Faculty Focus: Higher Ed Teaching Strategies from Magna Publications. Zakrajsek, T. (2016). Oh, the places your center can go: Possible programs to offer. Journals on Centers for Teaching and Learning, 8, 93–109. Zheng, M., Bender, D., & Nadershahi, N. (2017). Faculty professional development in emergent pedagogies for instructional innovation in dental education. European Journal of Dental Education, 21(2), 67–78. doi:10.1111/eje.12180

Conclusion

Protecting and Promoting Higher Education’s Greatest Resource Daniel Reardon

In the United States, college enrollment has been declining since 2012 (NES.gov), while college tuition has increased an average of 400% over the last thirty years (Mitchell, 2017). While several factors may account for both the decline in enrollment and the explosion of tuition costs, one consequence has been the dramatic increase of contingent faculty, who teach part-time with few or no benefits. At the time of this publication in 2019, nearly 70% of all higher education faculty are part-time (AAUP, 2018). This dramatic increase signals challenges beyond the scope of this collection, but speaks to the precious and dwindling resource of mid-career faculty. These are individuals in whom an institution has invested significant time and money; they have presumably achieved expertise in their research fields and in teaching, and they are many times best equipped to participate in faculty governance of higher education institutions. Yet, as our authors have recounted, mid-career faculty often feel adrift after committing years of time into gaining their first promotion—and thereby a significant degree of job security—but then are left to their own devices by department chairs and deans, who turn their attention to mentoring and supervising early career faculty. As Vela et al. noted in Chapter 9, institutional resources can be scarce for supporting the needs of mid-career faculty, who may be expected to more widely contribute service beyond their academic units by serving the institution as a whole. Mid-career faculty who engage in scholarship are also regularly expected to gain national or international reputations as a condition of promotion to full professor. This increased expectation invariably necessitates longer and more costly research projects, which in turn require external funding for which faculty most apply in an increasingly competitive environment of dwindling grant resources. Therefore, despite with what is often less supervision for mid-career faculty, often more is expected. As our authors have widely noted, after gaining tenure, faculty are expected to participate widely in faculty governance of their college or university, which means increased service time on committees. Mentoring of students, including directing graduate theses and dissertations, also © koninklijke brill nv, leideN, 2019 | DOI: 10.1163/9789004408180_012

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regularly comes with tenure. As a result, mid-career faculty repeatedly find less time to devote to what often led them to seek positions in higher education— teaching and research. Research expectations also change post-tenure. The next stage of advancement for many faculty—full professorship—is at least another five or six years away, and the financial incentives for reaching that stage vary greatly among institutions. Beyond the intrinsic motivation of achieving the highest levels of faculty promotion, little can accompany the advancement to full professorship. During this time in a faculty member’s life, other personal and professional opportunities can arise (Baldwin, DeZure, Shaw, & Moretto, 2008). Private sector companies recognize the experience, research history, and expertise of tenured faculty, and offer higher salaries and more attractive benefits than colleges and universities cannot match, especially in the era of dwindling appropriations to higher education institutions. Thus, higher education institutions risk losing faculty they’ve spent time and resources nurturing to the private sector, which offers faculty a way out of the malaise in which they may find themselves. Central to the problem of stagnating or disgruntled mid-career faculty may be due to administrative assumptions that post-tenure faculty, having achieved a measure of freedom and security after promotion, are deserving of a higher degree of autonomy than early career faculty who are working to achieve their first promotion. Thus, a “hands off” approach to tenured faculty ironically may cause in part the career drift that so many faculty experience. Equally problematic is that tenured faculty, because of their experience and accumulated expertise in the daily functions of their academic departments, should be bestsuited for leadership roles and increased roles among committees that administer faculty governance of an institution. Rispoli explained in Chapter 9 that “Effective leadership requires professional development and support” (p. 180); the assumption that experience qualifies a faculty member for leadership is ill-founded. Consequently, faculty who find themselves in leadership roles post-tenure can fare poorly without training in managing personnel, developing and maintaining budgets, and effectively organizing information. And as Rockinson-Szapkiw argued in Chapter 3, mid-career faculty problems multiply for women, who statistically are less likely than men to achieve tenure, and find it more difficult post-tenure to move into leadership roles. Although several institutions have enacted policies to improve gender disparity among faculty at the academy, such policies do little to assist women faculty with the “complex choices limited by a unique set of external and internal constraints and challenges that shape their families and academic career trajectories” (p. 42).

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The problems are exacerbated for minority and other underrepresented faculty, who, according to Graham and McGarry in Chapter 4, too often lack the choices that women faculty do. Challenges of families and career paths according to the authors are barriers to promotion and tenure for faculty who hold multiple intersectional identities. In this collection, the authors have detailed the challenges, obstacles, and barriers to productivity, promotion, and fulfillment for mid-career faculty. Each has also offered a variety of initiatives developed at their institutions. The common thread running throughout this volume’s chapters is the vital importance of continue mentorship for mid-career faculty. Beyond the understandable but ubiquitous challenges of resources and opportunities for innovation for faculty, the focus for all this collections’ authors remains on continued guidance by department chairs, fully-promoted faculty, and senior administrators. Graham and McGarry reported in Chapter 4 that several institutions that have adopted programs specifically to address the needs and concerns of African, Latinx, Asian, and Native American Diasporas have reported encouraging results. However, the number of these programs is still alarmingly small, and what Graham and McGarry call “racial battle fatigue” (p. 71) continues to undermine the productivity and satisfaction of Diasporic faculty, and damages institutional credibility. Additionally, women faculty among the Diaspora noted by the authors face additional challenges and barriers because of their gender. In Chapter 5, Bernard-Donals described how faculty in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s pilot mentoring program at the very least found direction and purpose for their post tenure careers. After the inaugural program’s conclusion, two participating faculty moved into administrative positions, two faculty reinvested in their passions for teaching and community service, and one was promoted to full professor. Almost as a side-effect, faculty in Bernard-Donals’ program developed stronger collegial bonds with one another because of their shared experiences as mid-career faculty, regardless of discipline, research interests, or courses taught. To alleviate mid-career faculty’s sense of isolation, DeFelippo and Dee in Chapter 2 outlined how interdisciplinary work and integrated scholarship, or research that informs teaching, can reinvigorate stagnant faculty by connecting them with other scholars and researchers, and linking in meaningful ways the various facets of their careers. The authors also stressed the importance of community engagement, which can reinvest for faculty a sense of their selfworth by sharing their knowledge and expertise with their communities. Vela, Morales, Vela, and Fisk in Chapter 10 argued that training for leadership positions can alleviate much of the ennui that post-tenured faculty experience. Rather than merely assuming mid-career faculty are ready to lead after

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gaining tenure, institutions would do well to develop programs or provide funding for faculty to learn the complicated and diverse nature of leadership and management roles within the academy. Plummer, Pavalko, Alexander, and McLeod also highlighted in Chapter 7 the importance of collegiality, interdisciplinary engagement, and collaboration through their formation of faculty writing groups at Indiana University Bloomington. Through the writing groups, faculty found support, commiseration, encouragement, and new avenues for research and scholarship. Buch, Dulin, and Huet in Chapter 6 and Rispoli in Chapter 9 considered the many variables that must be considered when developing mentoring programs for mid-career faculty. Primary among those variables is support—especially financial—for continued development of mid-career faculty. Funding for travel to professional development seminars and workshops, assistance through either stipends or course releases for full professors to participate as mentors, and continued reinforcement of support from administration are all crucial in maintaining the continued productivity and well-being of faculty. Buch et al. also underscore the vital importance of developing faculty of all ranks, and at every level. In an era when higher education faculty titles, job duties, and rankings are increasingly varied, the fundamental worth of every faculty member, regardless of position or title, must be carefully monitored. To that end, Bhardwaj, Hahs-Vaughn, Hernandez, and Scott in Chapter 8 called for a re-examination of retention and promotion criteria for faculty in a ways that recognizes the different strengths of individual faculty, and maintains a fluid assessment model for fairly, effectively, and impartially evaluating the contributions of every faculty member. In many ways the academy faces similar issues to those Caffarella, Armour, Fuhrmann, and Wergin described in “Mid-Career Faculty: Refocusing the Perspective,” which was published thirty years ago, in 1989. In their article, the authors describe the same challenges of mid-career faculty’s sense of isolation, stagnation, lack of support, and directionless wandering that the authors of this collection have described. In these ways, the article serves now as something of an indictment that higher education has not yet successfully addressed the problems of mid-career faculty, which today bear such striking resemblances to those Caffarella et al. describe. Those authors, like those in this collection, call for an examination of institutional climates to assess how mid-career faculty are developed as higher education’s most valuable resource. Thirty years later, we renew Cafarella et al.’s urgent message to protect and improve the careers of those faculty who have demonstrated their dedication, commitment, and integrity for their higher education institutions. In this volume, our authors have described several ways to ensure that mid-career faculty

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achieve their potentials for the highest standards of teaching, research, and service. If the academy is to thrive throughout the twenty-first century, it will be because its faculty led the way.

References American Association of University Professors. (2018). Background facts on contingent faculty positions. Retrieved from https://www.aaup.org/issues/contingency/ background-facts Baldwin, R., DeZure, D., Shaw, A., & Moretto, K. (2008). Mapping the terrain: Implications for faculty and academic leaders. Change, 40(5), 46–55. Caffarella, R.S., Armour, R.A., Fuhrmann, B. S., & Wergin, J. F. (1989). Mid-career faculty: Refocusing the perspective. The Review of Higher Education, 12(4), 4013–410. Mitchell, J. (2017). In reversal, college reign in tuition. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-reversal-colleges-rein-in-tuition-1500822001 National Center for Education Statistics. (2015). Table 301.10. Enrollment, staff, and degrees/certificates conferred: Fall 2015 and 2014–15. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_301.10.asp

Index academic fathers 49, 50 mothers 2, 41–55 accountability 3, 17, 127–131, 134, 138, 140 administrators 2, 17–19, 31, 33–35, 37, 53, 65, 69, 72, 111, 113, 117, 118, 123, 131, 132, 151–155, 159, 162, 167, 172, 179, 184, 191, 192, 197–199, 201, 205, 208, 212, 219 advancement 2, 13, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50–53, 61–77, 104, 109, 110, 124, 148, 150–153, 157–163, 167–170, 172–174, 181, 185, 189, 190, 192, 200–204, 209, 218 African 2, 61–77, 219 Age 8, 30, 42–44, 64, 65, 70, 91, 94, 110, 149, 151, 152, 192 American 2, 8, 41, 61–77, 219 assistant professors 3, 61, 63, 72, 89, 92, 94, 103, 104, 130, 132, 135, 148–150, 179, 200 associate professors 3, 8, 26, 52, 63, 71, 72, 75, 89, 90, 92–99, 102, 103, 105, 108–111, 114–117, 119, 120–123, 126, 127, 133–135, 143–146, 148–151, 157–160, 162–164, 166–168, 171–174, 178–183, 185, 188, 189, 191, 192, 201 barriers individual 70, 111 institutional 2, 42, 111, 113 perceived 110–111, 122, 199 behaviors 20, 21, 34, 42, 46, 47, 52, 54, 66, 70, 99, 153, 181 book clubs 204, 205, 208–209, 212 burnout 2, 11–13, 18, 21, 35, 36, 50 career academic 1, 10, 42–44, 47, 51, 95, 96, 103–105, 122, 145, 146, 148, 173, 197, 199, 206, 212, 218 advancement 2, 47, 49, 50, 51, 61–77, 104, 148, 150–153, 157–163, 167–170, 172–174, 181, 185, 189, 190, 192, 200–204, 209, 218 planning 111–114, 116, 117, 123, 124, 144, 145, 147, 148, 152, 158, 162, 172, 173, 181, 186, 201 renewal 144

challenges 1–3, 7, 15, 17–21, 23, 30, 31, 34, 42, 46, 47, 50, 51, 53–55, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68–70, 72–74, 90, 98, 109, 118, 124, 127, 128, 130, 133, 136, 139, 144–148, 154, 156, 157, 159, 163, 173, 181, 185, 188, 190, 191, 198–201, 204, 205, 217–220 childcare 11, 15, 43, 48, 49, 53, 90, 93 Chronos 91, 95, 104 collaboration interdisciplinary 19, 26–27, 34, 35, 129, 134, 220 Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (coache) 72, 108, 114, 120, 122, 127, 159, 160, 162, 174, communication 19, 31, 33–35, 37, 54, 68, 70, 97, 160, 166 community engagement 19, 26–29, 35, 37, 205, 219 creativity 1, 20, 22, 25, 26, 32, 35–37, 210 curiosity 20, 22, 25–27, 31, 32, 36, 104 development functional 198, 202, 204, 212, 213 organizational 202–204, 213 personal 3, 197, 202, 209–212 professional 1–3, 23, 35, 76, 94, 97, 98, 102, 109, 113–118, 120, 122–123, 134, 144, 152, 154, 155, 160, 166, 180, 187, 191, 192, 202–204, 206, 210, 212, 213, 218, 220 diaspora 2, 61, 62, 65–77, 219 discrimination 62, 64–66, 70, 75, 146 gender 47 disillusionment 1, 92 dual-career 15, 48, 192 duree 2 energy 3, 20, 22, 25, 26, 28–30, 32, 34, 36, 37, 48, 49, 116, 123, 147, 150, 156, 201 evaluation 3, 104, 109, 111, 155, 158, 165, 171–173, 187 program 119–121, 124, 134, 137, 163, 183

224 faculty development 25, 31, 32, 36, 73, 74, 110, 124, 126, 1301–132, 134, 138, 148, 160, 161, 166, 171, 172, 174, 189, 191 diverse 44, 54, 73 diversity 110, 117, 124, 134, 138, 160, 189, 203 junior 1, 41, 68, 137, 147, 157, 178, 180–183, 185, 198, 200 learning communities 19, 31–32, 35, 129, 204–207, 212 mid-career 1–4, 7–15, 17–37, 61–77, 89–105, 108–124, 126–140, 143–174, 178–192, 197–213, 217–220 writing groups 3, 126–140, 220 family 11, 14, 42–55, 63, 69, 100, 148, 154, 187 frustration 2, 18, 22, 156, 199 fulfilment 30, 151, 219 funding federal 47, 148 internal 94 research 93–95, 156, 179 gender 3, 12, 14, 15, 41–43, 45, 47–49, 51–55, 64, 66–70, 73–75, 77, 92, 110, 119, 121, 123, 124, 127, 128, 133, 136, 148, 182, 184–186, 218, 219 gratification 23 grit 20, 23, 25, 33, 36 identities ethnic 65, 66, 69, 70, 73, 77 intersectional 61, 64–65, 70, 77, 219 racial 64 innovation 19, 23, 25, 32–33, 37, 155, 182, 191, 219 institutions 1, 2, 4, 7–11, 14, 17–37, 41–48, 51, 53, 54, 62, 66, 67, 68, 71, 73–77, 93–95, 97, 100, 101, 103–105, 109–111, 113–115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 124, 127, 129, 130, 135, 143–149, 152–159, 161, 164, 165, 167, 168, 172–174, 179, 180, 183, 184, 187–190, 192, 197, 198, 200–212 characteristics 10–11 interdisciplinary collaboration 19, 26–27, 34, 35, 129, 134 isolation 1, 28, 92, 102, 105, 129, 219, 220 job satisfaction 1, 8–9, 13–14, 23, 41, 61, 62, 64, 65, 70, 73, 75–77, 119, 157, 178, 182, 190, 198, 211, 212

index Kairos 2, 91, 95, 104 Latinx 2, 61–77, 219 learning communities 19, 31–32, 35, 129, 187, 203–207, 212 life stage 14, 55 marginalization 65, 70, 71, 73, 74, 77, 132 men 8, 12, 15, 25, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49, 51–53, 55, 63, 64, 66, 67, 75, 90, 98, 109, 115, 127, 133, 218 mentor 3, 27, 37, 91, 96–99, 101–104, 113–117, 122, 152, 154, 156, 159, 167, 172, 181–192, 204 mentoring mid-career 89–105, 115, 122, 124, 174 mentorship formal 94, 159, 183, 184, 187, 189 informal 123, 130, 184–185, 187 models 3, 179, 182–188, 190, 192 networks 187–188 peer 113, 116–117, 123, 124, 154, 155, 185–187, 189, 192 mid-career faculty 1–4, 7–15, 17–37, 61–77, 89–105, 108–124, 126–140, 143–174, 178–192, 197–213, 217–220 mentorship 3, 178–192 planning 111–114, 116, 117, 123, 124 momentum 3, 90, 93, 147, 178–192, 200 morale low 75 motherhood invisibility 46, 48 mothers academic 2, 41–55 motivation 18, 20–22, 25, 32, 36, 116, 130, 144, 151, 156, 181, 199–201, 207, 210–212, 218 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty 1, 7, 61, 62, 75 Native American 2, 61, 63–66, 68–77, 219 neglect 129, 144, 199, 200, 210–212 NSF ADVANCE 110, 203 NSOPF 7, 8 obstacles 19, 23, 36, 90, 93, 103, 151, 219 opportunity 1, 2, 20, 24, 26, 27, 32, 33, 35–37, 43, 44, 47, 51, 52, 54, 73, 74, 91, 94–96, 99,

index 101, 104, 110, 114, 118, 123, 128, 131, 136, 137, 144, 148–150, 153–167, 180, 181, 185, 189, 191, 198, 199, 201–207, 209, 213, 218, 219 optimism 12, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 34, 36, 37, 156, 210, 211 outcomes 18–20, 23, 24, 29, 34, 75, 91, 100–105, 113, 123, 182–184, 186, 191, 199 passion 23, 148, 219 performance 18, 29, 24, 30 job 113, 191, perseverance 23, 26, 148 post-tenure 7, 108, 113, 127, 147, 150, 160, 171, 181, 200, 203, 218, 219 pre-tenure 127, 146, 179 productivity scholarly 41, 47, 179, 186, 188 professors 3, 8, 26, 52, 61, 63, 71, 72, 75, 89, 90, 92–99, 102, 103, 105, 108–111, 114–117, 119, 120–123, 126, 127, 130, 132–135, 143–146, 148–151, 157–160, 162–164, 166–168, 171–174, 178–183, 185, 188, 189, 191, 192, 200, 201 promotion 2, 4, 15, 28, 41, 43, 44, 46–50, 52, 53, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 71, 72, 74–77, 90, 92–95, 102, 104, 108–111, 113–120, 122–124, 126–128, 139, 140, 144–150, 152, 154–159, 161–174, 179–181, 185, 187–189, 192, 198–201, 203, 204, 217–220 resilience 22, 23, 202, 209, 210–212 responsibilities 3, 10, 13, 14, 18, 47–50, 52, 66, 68, 72–74, 92, 127, 130, 133, 136, 137, 144, 146, 147, 151, 154, 155, 157, 162, 164, 179, 180, 182, 184, 198, 201 retirement 73, 133, 145, 151, 172, 200, 202 sabbaticals 11, 28, 96, 103, 151, 188 salary 9, 13, 14, 21, 41, 50, 93, 191 satisfaction 1, 4, 8–9, 13–14, 23, 37, 41, 45, 54, 61, 62, 64, 65, 70, 73, 75–77, 109, 115, 119, 120, 127, 134, 137, 151, 157, 160, 164, 167, 168, 174, 178, 182, 188, 190, 198, 200, 211–213, 219 scholarship integrated 19, 26, 29–31, 35, 37, 219 self-efficacy 91, 95, 97, 99, 102, 103, 181 self-reflection 2, 152, 163 service 4, 10, 11, 14, 18, 25–31, 33, 46–48, 52, 53, 65–74, 89, 90, 92, 93, 98, 101, 102,

225 111, 113, 114, 116, 123, 127–130, 132, 133, 136, 139, 145–149, 151, 152, 155, 156, 173, 178–182, 185, 191, 192, 198–201, 205, 208, 217, 219, 221 service-learning 27, 28 stagnation 1, 147, 220 stamina 22, 149 STEM 69, 109, 110, 115, 121 support 1–3, 9, 12, 23, 30–35, 37, 47–52, 62, 65, 69–75, 77, 89–97, 99, 101–104, 109, 113, 114–119, 122–124, 128, 131–139, 144, 145, 148, 149, 157–162, 165–167, 171–174, 179–182, 184–192, 198, 199, 201–204, 207–209, 213, 218, 220 teaching load 12, 90, 147, 178, 180 tenure 1, 2, 8, 14, 15, 25, 34, 41–47, 49, 50–54, 62, 63, 65–77, 89, 90, 92–94, 98, 102, 104, 108, 110, 113, 122, 123, 127–129, 135, 137, 139, 140, 145–150, 158, 160, 161, 171, 173, 178–183, 185, 191, 198–200, 202, 203, 217–220 tenure-track 41, 42, 63, 108, 148, 179, 198, 202, 203 time 1, 2, 4, 10–13, 21–23, 25, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35–37, 41, 44, 46–50, 52, 53, 62, 64, 66–68, 70–74, 89–105, 108, 110, 111, 115, 116, 118–120, 123, 124, 126–140, 144–151, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159–166, 170, 174, 178, 180, 182–184, 186, 188, 191, 197, 200, 201, 208, 212, 217, 218 vitality 2, 17–37, 202, 204, 209, 210, 212 white 8, 11, 55, 64, 68, 69, 75, 129 women 2, 3, 8, 10, 12, 15, 25, 41–44, 46–55, 61–77, 90, 92, 98, 99, 109, 110, 113, 115, 117, 118, 127, 128, 133, 135, 136, 146, 148, 162, 181, 189, 191 work academic 2, 17, 45–46, 48, 50–55, 72, 90, 91, 96–98, 101, 102 work-life balance 1, 4, 14–15, 23, 99, 113, 147, 150, 181, 191, 199 workshops 28, 37, 96, 98, 114, 117, 118, 122, 123, 138, 139, 158, 159, 161, 162, 171–173, 181, 186, 187, 189, 203, 204, 207–212, 220 writing groups 2 faculty 3, 126–140, 220