The Career Network: Mid-Career and On

Mid-Career and On

HEADS UP
What Conspiracy?
Faculty members are all too willing to adopt an "us versus them" attitude toward administrators but it's never that simple.

FIRST PERSON
Betrayed by Your Adviser
A dissertation shows your potential as a scholar; it shouldn't simply be a long footnote to your mentor's glorious career.

FIRST PERSON
Sabbatical Blues
You don't ask for a yearlong leave to do some ordinary piece of work, but to produce the "big one." It seemed feasible at the start.

An Academic in America
Leaving the Academic Village
It's time for professors to abandon the genteel pose of being aloof from the sordid marketplace.

FIRST PERSON
Were the Road Signs Wrong?
A junior scholar reconsiders the advice he got from senior professors on how to win tenure.

FIRST PERSON
The Professor as Instant Messenger
Determined not to be left behind, a faculty member decides to become IM buddies with her students.

MS. MENTOR
Isn't It Romantic?
Eager scholars could spend years reading up on how hard it is to have a romance in academe, without ever emerging to see if it's true.

FIRST PERSON
Not a Counselor
What, exactly, is a professor to do when confronted by a student with psychological problems?

FIRST PERSON
What Next?
Awaiting word on his tenure case, an assistant professor finds himself starting, and abandoning, new projects.

FIRST PERSON
Service Masochists
Have I become that terminal associate professor who spurns his long-term loves of teaching and research for the promiscuity of a million service obligations? a newly tenured professor asks.

HEADS UP
Facing the Facebook
Unless we reassess our high-tech priorities, issues of student insensitivity, indiscretion, bias, and fabrication will consume us.

AN ACADEMIC IN AMERICA
Don't Call Me Thomas
How can I give a C to someone who is close enough to me to use my first name?

FIRST PERSON
Evaluation Anticipation
As the new semester dawns, it's time for professors to learn what pleasant surprises await in the results of last semester's student ratings.

FIRST PERSON
A Perfect Faux Finalist
It wasn't any fatal mistake you made that cost you the position; you never had a chance to begin with.

FIRST PERSON
The Academic Path to Hollywood
You, too, can guide famous filmmakers through the thickets of historical or scientific accuracy.

FIRST PERSON
A Better Place
An associate professor chronicles the lessons he learned from his mid-career job search.

THE TWO-YEAR TRACK
Getting the Chair
Contrary to what many faculty members believe, being a department head isn't really a death sentence.

AN ACADEMIC IN AMERICA
Reference Works and Academic Celebrity
The unsung heroes of the humanities are the anonymous editors of books that most of us use nearly every day.

FIRST PERSON
Mom on Sabbatical
A professor wonders: How much of my leave am I allowed to devote to my 4-year-old?

FIRST PERSON
With a Little Help From My Enemies
The writing was slow-going, and she felt herself losing interest. She needed motivation. She needed a nemesis.

FIRST PERSON
The Invasion of the Office Snatcher
You're on leave and your department wants to lend your office to a temporary instructor. But it's still yours, right?

FIRST PERSON
On Guard
When you're up for tenure at a teaching-oriented college, every time you teach feels like it has to be a masterwork of pedagogical achievement.

AN ACADEMIC IN AMERICA
Principled Mediocrity
How many of us, as teachers, have encountered a student or colleague whose talents were greater than our own?

FIRST PERSON
Entering the Fog
A green professor is tapped to serve on a curriculum-policy committee and learns how faculty governance really works.

HEADS UP
We Want Change; No We Don't
An outside candidate for a department chairmanship finds himself asked to pick a side before he's even joined the battle.

MS. MENTOR
Mispronunciation or Manipulation?
Should a dean who pronounces "collegial" with a hard G be corrected? And do professors who feud over that have too much time on their hands?

FIRST PERSON
Going on Sabbatical
The gap can be wide between what you hope to achieve during a year off and what you actually do.

AN ACADEMIC IN AMERICA
Productive Procrastination
Avoidance can be highly fruitful, provided you have plenty of things to do while postponing the most dreaded task.

FIRST PERSON
By the Numbers, Please
Writing a self-evaluation for his tenure case, an assistant professor wishes someone would just tell him what to say.

FIRST PERSON
Pushing Them Through
To be a strong dissertation adviser, you have to learn to distinguish your own skills and limitations from those of your students.

AN ACADEMIC IN AMERICA
Saving Secondhand Bookstores
Used bookshops are as essential to scholarship as the availability of open stacks in campus libraries.

BALANCING ACT
Tenured and Battered
The story of how a tenured professor in the social sciences became a victim of domestic abuse.

FIRST PERSON
When Hitting Reply Means Forever
The problem with using an e-mail list to discuss a search is that the new hire can go back and read what everyone wrote. It's not always pretty.

FIRST PERSON
Talking About It
Why do academics never talk openly about sexual attraction between professors and students?

FIRST PERSON
Dressing the Part
Unlike their male counterparts, female professors have little choice but to watch what they wear in the classroom.

FIRST PERSON
Tenure Epiphanies
Two years after earning tenure, an associate professor finally comes to realize what it means for his career.

FIRST PERSON
Celebrated, not Just Tolerated
A black economist chooses a supportive department in a nowhere town over chilly colleagues in a more vibrant city.

FIRST PERSON
The Perfect Offer
An academic couple learns the crucial different between recruitment and retention.

BALANCING ACT
The Dual-Career Divorce
You negotiated a job for your partner as part of your hiring package. Then he dumped you. Can't you negotiate his firing?

BALANCING ACT
Getting Back on Track
A Ph.D. in sociology who left academe to raise a family finds few departments welcoming her return.

FIRST PERSON
The Grass Isn't Greener
A senior professor who spent the spring teaching in Europe finds that faculty work there can be far more problematic than in the States.

THE TWO-YEAR TRACK
Letters From Jail
Sometimes declining a student's request is the right thing to do -- for the administrator, the institution, and the student.

FIRST PERSON
Let the Experiment Be Made
It's easy to panic about online education at liberal-arts colleges, but one faculty member makes the case.

FIRST PERSON
Game Over
A couple of game-studies scholars, who aren't a couple in the romantic sense, come up short in their dual job search.

BALANCING ACT
So, What's in It for Me?
When faculty members ask that question, what they really mean is "What's in it for my family?"

FIRST PERSON
Scholarly Debts
The problem with taking a research sabbatical at partial pay is that your expenses aren't reduced by the same proportion.

FIRST PERSON
Fulbright of the Mind
No matter the discipline, an international experience causes you to rethink yourself and your country while puzzling out another.

FIRST PERSON
I Walk the Line
A professor at a small college finds that the boundary between friendliness and friendship can get very blurry in dealing with students.

FIRST PERSON
No Extra Credit For You
If it's exam week, it must be time for students to make those last-minute pleas for leniency.

HEADS UP
Managing From the Middle
"Midlevel Administrators Collaborate!" doesn't have quite the zing of most inspiring slogans. But it works.

CATALYST
Reproductive Success for Working Scientists
As a female ready to contribute your highly trained brain and your genetic material to society, what can you do to succeed at both?

ALL IN THE GAME
Where Have You Gone, Stanley Fish?
Is the desire to retire from the fray stronger than the desire to prevail in it?

FIRST PERSON
Becoming a Learner Again
In order to be a better teacher, sometimes you have to become a student again.

FIRST PERSON
Grading Blues
When you sit before a stack of ungraded blue-book exams, anything seems preferable to the task at hand.

BALANCING ACT
It's All an Illusion
An untenured academic mother decides that she can't do it all, so she's just trying to look like she can.

FIRST PERSON
Changing Tracks
After 16 years of teaching physics at a two-year college, a professor decides to pursue his doctorate, but not in the sciences.

FIRST PERSON
Diary of a Joint Search, Part 3
How does an area-studies program maneuver to gain the upper hand in a joint search with a more powerful department?

FIRST PERSON
Class Notes
More than ever, faculty members are being recruited to raise money for their departments.

ALL IN THE GAME
On Balance
The only thing you get when you enforce a political balance in hiring, teaching, or campus life, says Stanley Fish, is a politicized university.

BALANCING ACT
When You Don't Fit In
A biologist wonders why, after five years, her small-town college still doesn't feel like home.

FIRST PERSON
The Worst Building on the Campus
Tired of aging facilities, a humanities professor arranges to teach in his college's new science center. But are the scientists on to him?

FIRST PERSON
Part Gatekeeper, Part Huckster
A graduate-studies director finds that the admissions season demands a Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde approach to applicants.

FIRST PERSON
Team Job Interviews
Two scholars in game studies share what it's like to perform the interview gantlet with a partner.

HEADS UP
The Limits of Tenure
A department chairwoman battles it out with a combative staff member and loses -- not her tenured job, just her reputation.

THE ADJUNCT TRACK
Dear Adjunct Faculty Member
So maybe the official memorandum didn't exactly read like this one. But it might as well have.

FIRST PERSON
Teaching: the View From Poland
The realities of working in an overstressed educational system hit home for an American scholar on a Fulbright.

FIRST PERSON
An Academic Wanderer Accepts Tenure
The intoxication of dreaming about the next new place has left a Ph.D. with a hangover, and a desire, finally, to stay put.

FIRST PERSON
A God in Colchester
It is probably inevitable that some variety of "celebrity" will become a quantifiable part of the average academic job.

HEADS UP
The Fourth Factor for Hiring
Research, teaching, and service are the big three, but there's one more criterion that interviewers need to evaluate -- attitude.

FIRST PERSON
Too Many Dissonant Notes
A music professor who prides himself on his cultural sensitivity suddenly finds it wanting in the classroom of an urban university.

BALANCING ACT
Are Your Parental-Leave Policies Legal?
Many institutions' aren't, says a law professor, but a best-practices model is now available that is worth adopting.

ALL IN THE GAME
Who's In Charge Here?
For Stanley Fish, the evaluation of teaching by students amounts to a whole lot of machinery with a very small and dubious yield.

FIRST PERSON
Conference Man Returns to the MLA
A tenure-track professor thinks that maybe it's time to stop attending his discipline's annual convention.

FIRST PERSON
Who Really Benefits?
An academic parent sees his employee tuition benefit as a boon for his pocketbook but wonders if it will limit his children's educational options.

FIRST PERSON
Should a Mentor Be a Friend?
A tenured mentor fears that he is too emotionally invested in his relationship with a young colleague.

FIRST PERSON
A Couple of Rare Birds
How can you summarize two scholarly careers in a single two-page cover letter?

FIRST PERSON
Diary of Joint Search, Part 2
An area-studies program maneuvers to overcome its weak position in a joint search with a traditional department.

ALL IN THE GAME
One University Under God?
What will succeed high theory and race, gender, and class as the center of intellectual energy in academe? Religion, says Stanley Fish.

FIRST PERSON
Being There
At first, a scholar on a Fulbright kicks himself for not requesting a better location. But soon his temporary home reveals its charms.

FIRST PERSON
In but Not Of Academe
A new assistant professor finds that his conservative politics mean he will never quite fit in on a campus.

FIRST PERSON
Tireless Research Assistants
Every RA needs to understand that the job is mostly about protecting your faculty employer's time and mental energy.

BALANCING ACT
Cancer, Children, and Career
For a pregnant professor, diagnosed with cancer, suddenly earning tenure was no longer her life's biggest challenge.

FIRST PERSON
Administrative Trials and Errors
A newly tenured professor chronicles his first week on the job as his department's director of graduate studies.

FIRST PERSON
Doctoral Student, Scholar, Baby Sitter?
In the annals of graduate-student exploitation, there's one form of mistreatment that has gotten little attention.

FIRST PERSON
Polish Autumn
An associate professor of history continues to chronicle his Fulbright year in Poland.

MS. MENTOR
Where Are the Bodies Buried?
Should senior professors air the department's dirty laundry with new recruits or keep a demure silence?

FIRST PERSON
Doing My Best?
A veteran faculty member who has landed three community-college jobs wonders why a fourth has eluded her.

FIRST PERSON
My Own Private Library
An assistant professor suspects that he is a scholar because he is a bibliophile -- rather than the other way around.

FIRST PERSON
Gay, Christian, and Conservative
With the odds against them, an academic couple goes on the market together.

THE ADJUNCT TRACK
Why Do I Do This?
Teaching here, writes a lecturer, is like being in a bad marriage that looks good to outsiders.

FIRST PERSON
Game for Anything
Academic couple seeks open-minded institution for nontraditional relationship.

FIRST PERSON
Missing Summer Already
Back on campus, an assistant professor mulls the wisdom of the faculty tradition of summers off.

FIRST PERSON
Prepare for Departure
A historian begins a chronicle of his Fulbright year in Poland.

FIRST PERSON
Diary of a Joint Search
An assistant professor begins a three-part series on how a traditional department and an area-studies program go about hiring a faculty member together.

FIRST PERSON
Teaching the 101
A tenured professor makes the case for why introductory courses shouldn't just be left to adjuncts and TA's.

ALL IN THE GAME
The Party's Over
Stanley Fish's last day as dean was pretty much like any other: a little routine, a little drama, and a lot left hanging in the air.

FIRST PERSON
From Seminar to Study Group
It's challenging enough to teach undergraduates, but no one teaches professors how to teach graduate students.

FIRST PERSON
The Attrition Bug
With his junior colleagues departing for greener pastures, an assistant professor fears for the future of his department, and his social life.

FIRST PERSON
Searching for Sinister Motives
A new assistant professor learns how not to start off on the right foot.

FIRST PERSON
Speak Only Twice
As a new director of graduate studies prepares to run his first committee meetings, he turns to Robert's Rules of Order for some guidance.

CAREER TALK
How to Get Unstuck
Readers share their stories about how they got themselves out of a career rut.

FIRST PERSON
What Savings?
Academe, says a soon-to-retire professor, is not structured to help faculty members accumulate savings early in their careers.

CATALYST
Second-Career Scientists
Academic science is a tough calling, but it can make for a great second career if you want it badly enough.

HEADS UP
Getting Back in the Game
For an associate professor, taking her turn as department head has meant seriously derailing her research career.

FIRST PERSON
Silencing Huck Finn
A professor sets out to teach students a lesson on censorship and book banning, and learns one himself.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Taking Your Questions
A financial planner answers questions from our readers about IRA withdrawals and other money matters.

FIRST PERSON
No Place Like Home
About to be tenured, an associate professor goes on the prowl for a job at a "better" university.

MS. MENTOR
Am I Really Stuck?
Lonely and bored, a tenured professor wonders whether it's time to enter administration.

FIRST PERSON
Fending Off a Plagiarist
An assistant professor found herself having to prove that her dissertation was really hers.

MS. MENTOR
A Fraud and a Great Teacher
Should a cheater who also happens to be a great teacher be outed or protected?

FIRST PERSON
On Your Marks
We are not alone, those of us who indulge in procrastination and get irritable when grading. We are legion.

FIRST PERSON
Grateful for Tenure, but ...
Is it normal to feel trapped once you finally earn tenure?

FIRST PERSON
Office Doors
What do the images and captions that professors tape on their doors say about the occupants inside?

FIRST PERSON
Notes From the Hiring Season
A department completes another round of faculty hiring, despite badly worded job ads and internal philosophical disputes.

ALL IN THE GAME
Letting Go
Stanley Fish wonders, What do you do when you're on your way out?

FIRST PERSON
The Mid-Career Job Search
Job hunting as a tenured professor means you're not as vulnerable as the untenured but it still has its risks.

BALANCING ACT
Falsely Accused
A Ph.D. sacrifices her career to follow her academic spouse and finds herself accused of sexual harassment.

FIRST PERSON
Two Lives Become One
Just when she had reconciled herself to living 1,000 miles from her partner indefinitely, a Ph.D.'s luck changes.

FIRST PERSON
Please Don't Keep Me Informed
By all means, says one administrative job candidate, spare me the details about how badly my application fared.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Taking Your Questions
A financial planner with expertise in advising academics answers questions from our readers about Social Security and other money matters.

FIRST PERSON
The Benefits of Eavesdropping
An assistant professor improves his teaching by "invading" his colleagues' privacy.

FIRST PERSON
Living Well
A house, a family, a garden, possessions -- all of those things undermine professional mobility in academe.

MS. MENTOR
Those Rotten Young People
Ms. Mentor knows that it is tiresome to be patronized or tuned out because of one's age.

FIRST PERSON
The Newly Tenured
A new associate professor finds he's no longer one of his department's smart young hires. He's now one of its worker bees.

FIRST PERSON
Remembering the Old Lions
For all their gruff aloofness, the old lions of the faculty were extraordinarily effective teachers.

FIRST PERSON
A Search Committee Starts Over
After being snubbed at the last minute by its top candidate, a department in the rural South tries again.

THE ADJUNCT TRACK
The Half-Time Track
After 16 years of splitting his time between two campuses, an adjunct decides he wouldn't have it any other way.

FIRST PERSON
Complain, Complain
A scholar who has never taken a sabbatical wonders why so many academics gripe so much about their work.

MS. MENTOR
Are You the Retiring Sort?
Retirement, says Ms. Mentor, crouches like an elephant in the middle of the floor at countless faculty meetings.

BALANCING ACT
So, What's the Inside Scoop?
An insider's information about a job opening can be as off-base as an outsider's ignorance.

FIRST PERSON
Eccentric Professors
With their bizarre behavior and magnificent obsessions, oddball academics are a glue that holds together the culture of an institution.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
How to Prosper
Your ability to make sound investment decisions at each stage of your campus career can influence how everything else turns out.

FIRST PERSON
Hung Over Again
An assistant professor fears he is throwing away his career one drink at a time.

ALL IN THE GAME
Intellectual Diversity
As a genuine academic value, intellectual diversity is a nonstarter. As an imposed imperative, it is a disaster.

FIRST PERSON
In Defense of LPU's
A dean of science makes the case for publishing research results piecemeal to boost your CV.

HEADS UP
Intervening in the Classroom
As a department head, you'll have to deal with complaints from students about mean teachers and complaints from teachers about rude students.

CAREER TALK
Answering the Mail
Should a tenured professor explain to hiring committees why he is on the job market? Our columnist answers that question and others.

FIRST PERSON
The Academic Pyramid Club
The getting and giving of letters of recommendation is a chain of favors constantly repaid.

FIRST PERSON
To Spurn a Star
Big-name scholars are used to being courted, but sometimes they're just not right for the job.

MS. MENTOR
The Tenure Gloat
You've won tenure despite your critics' best efforts. Is it OK to rub it in?

FIRST PERSON
Just Another Leftist Loon
A new assistant professor pens an Op-Ed piece criticizing President Bush and gets an earful.

FIRST PERSON
No Respect
When students are disrespectful, it is usually because they feel disrespected by the teacher.

FIRST PERSON
Number Crunching
A new assistant professor takes a peek at his colleagues' salaries and sees his future.

FIRST PERSON
RateMyBuns.com
Ask a stupid question -- How sexy is your professor -- and you'll get a lot of stupid answers.

FIRST PERSON
To Retire or Not?
Professors hired back in the era of mandatory retirement are caught between the instinct to leave at 70 and the drive to keep going.

FIRST PERSON
Grading on My Nerves
Faced with the chore of grading papers, a professor develops a powerful aptitude for evasion, delay, and self-protection.

MS. MENTOR
Academic Frauds
Should a doctoral student be allowed to hire an editor to help write her dissertation?

BALANCING ACT
When Tenure Isn't Enough
Overworked and unhappy, a tenured professor decides she wants out.

SPOTLIGHT
Beauty and the Brains
Good-looking professors consistently outscore less attractive ones on student evaluations of teaching, a new study finds.

MS. MENTOR
Keeping a Lid on Your Blog
Should a young student be dissuaded from revealing too much on his blog?

ALL IN THE GAME
Grading Congress
A recent Republican report on college tuition costs isn't worth the paper it's printed on, says Stanley Fish.

BALANCING ACT
Part Time by Choice
A tenured professor goes out on a professional limb to get a life.

CAREER TALK
The CV Doctor Returns
Our experts evaluate the vitas of four faculty-job candidates and an administrator seeking to move up.

FIRST PERSON
Life in Mutation
A historian adapts both personally and professionally to his wife's cancer.

HEADS UP
Orientation
Dennis Baron begins a monthly column on life as a department head.

FIRST PERSON
Shameless Self-Promotion
Having a successful academic career largely depends upon your talents at tooting your own horn.

MS. MENTOR
In a Fall Funk
Ms. Mentor observes that many academics feel victimized in the autumn by the clueless and the uncaring.

ALL IN THE GAME
Let Them Teach at Stanford
When a public university hires "rock star professors," does it translate into any benefits for undergraduate education? Stanley Fish thinks so.

FIRST PERSON
Rescuing My Manuscript
For an associate professor, the publication of her first book was exhilarating. The editing process was not.

MS. MENTOR
It's All About Fit
Dr. Good Fit teaches superbly, seeks advice, shares research, joins committees, makes lasagna, smiles a lot, and is fictional.

ALL IN THE GAME
Hard Choices
Making them may be a bad idea, writes Stanley Fish. And urging that they be made may mask the real agenda.

BALANCING ACT
Out of Sync
Harmony derives from a sense of personal control over our work and our lives.

SPOTLIGHT
Canceled Searches
Even the normally robust job market in economics has slowed down lately.

FIRST PERSON
On Camera
A veteran television producer asks you to appear in a documentary as an academic expert. Here's what to expect.

SPOTLIGHT
Do the Math
Professors are retiring in mathematics but many departments don't have the money to replace them with tenure-track hires.

FIRST PERSON
Life After Tenure
Even when your promotion goes well, the up-or-out experience colors the quality of academic life.

ALL IN THE GAME
The Same Old Song
It is only by remaining distinct -- by remaining narrow -- that an enterprise can ensure its survival and its utility.

SPOTLIGHT
Jobs in History
It was a bad year to be a senior professor on the market in history.

FIRST PERSON
The Other Candidate
Is it wrong to wonder how heavily race worked in the other guy's favor and against mine?

FIRST PERSON
Debunking the Myths
Grant writing is an essential skill for academics. So why is it so difficult and so mysterious?

SPOTLIGHT
Jobs in Physics
A wave of faculty retirements is under way in physics but not all departments can afford to replace the retirees.

FIRST PERSON
From Professor to Administrator
Service to others is a low priority when you're ascending the faculty ranks, but it's what matters in an administrative search.

FIRST PERSON
When Tenure Fails
The experience of not getting tenure can affect a lot more than just your employment status.

CAREER TALK
The Best Home Pages
Our columnists take a look at the Web pages of academics and offer critiques of what works and what doesn't.

FIRST PERSON
Don't Go
The best piece of advice you can give an undergraduate who wants to go to graduate school in the humanities is, don't.

FIRST PERSON
No Contest
An assistant professor decides he would rather withdraw from competition than sell his soul to win a teaching award.

ALL IN THE GAME
Aim Low
Democratic values and academic values are not the same, says Stanley Fish, and confusing the two can easily damage the quality of education.

FIRST PERSON
Office Hours
You can tell a lot about faculty members by how they set up their office hours.

BALANCING ACT
Salvaging a Career
A trailing spouse, tired of low-paying adjunct work, arranges a sabbatical for herself.

SPOTLIGHT
Big Raises
Despite the slow economy, two liberal-arts colleges manage to award major raises to full professors.

MOVING UP
Transition Time
A new president arrives. Will the vice presidents keep their jobs? Will they even want to?

FIRST PERSON
Turned Down
How do you learn to live with faculty colleagues who voted against your promotion?

FIRST PERSON
Promoting Late Bloomers
A consistent underperformer finally gets a burst of scholarly energy. Should he win promotion to full professor?

BALANCING ACT
Salary Games
Linking merit raises to outside offers is one of several practices in academe that discriminate against female professors with families.

FIRST PERSON
The Seven Digital Sins
An ethicist devises a list of the seven digital sins infecting academe.

MOVING UP
After the Presidency
A college presidency is a 24/7 job. Once it's over, it's time to bask in the joys of a normal life.

CATALYST
Senior Scientists
For academic scientists, the decision to retire doesn't necessarily mean an end to their research.

MS. MENTOR
Tormented by Evaluations
Ms. Mentor's mailbag is full of complaints about student evaluations of teaching -- none of them from students.

SPOTLIGHT
Managing Adjuncts
What can department heads do to improve the plight of adjuncts, and are they doing enough?

FIRST PERSON
Choosing the Finalists
In a diary of a faculty search in history, the committee settles on four finalists.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Politics and Portfolios
Socially responsible mutual funds appeal to academics hoping to mesh their investments and their politics. Here's what to consider before investing in one.

MOVING UP
Closing a College
The former provost of the now-defunct Trinity College of Vermont describes what it was like to shut it down.

MS. MENTOR
Survivor Guilt
Ms. Mentor explains why guilt plagues so many academics who've made it on the tenure track.

FIRST PERSON
Just Say Yes
Job candidates aren't the only ones waiting nervously for the phone to ring.

FIRST PERSON
Under the Knife
A new assistant professor chronicles the uncertainties of life at a public university in a time of budget woes.

FIRST PERSON
The Tenure Files
In his series on the tenure process, Dennis Baron looks at what it takes to get a case successfully past the college committee.

MOVING UP
Passed Over
Sometimes internal candidates have a lock on the job. But what happens when they aren't selected?

FIRST PERSON
A Long Shortlist
A committee creates a shortlist of 12 candidates in the latest installment of a diary about a faculty search in history.

FIRST PERSON
Bennington or Tenure?
A nearly tenured professor mulls the risks of giving it up for a job at a better college.

CATALYST
The Scientist as Manager
Like any business, a laboratory can flourish or flounder by the quality of its management.

ALL IN THE GAME
Saving the World
If you want to save the world as a university administrator, says Stanley Fish, do it on your own time.

BALANCING ACT
Which Half Is Yours?
Excessive attention to who deserves the credit in collaborative ventures defeats the whole point.

FIRST PERSON
External Reviewers
The third article in a series on how the tenure process works in one English department.

CATALYST
Competing for Students
Recruiting top graduate students to your laboratory can help ignite your career. Here's what to look for.

MS.MENTOR
'I Don't Fit In'
Sure you do, says Ms. Mentor. Academics just like to think they're especially unique.

ALL IN THE GAME
Let the Bad Times Roll
Money has dried up, and so has Stanley Fish's schedule.

FIRST PERSON
A History Search
A senior historian who is leading a hiring committee begins a chronicle of the search.

FIRST PERSON
Where I Belong
A self-described "white Canadian heathen" finds her niche teaching at a historically black university.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Damage Control
Your retirement accounts have taken a beating and you can't retire unless you have enough to live on. So, just how bad is it?

FIRST PERSON
A Digression on Digression
For all the stress placed on order and proper planning in the classroom, sometimes digression is what works.

SPOTLIGHT
Demanding Full Credit
When most colleges calculate faculty workload, they only give science professors partial credit for teaching laboratory courses. Is that fair?

BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER
Your Secret Desire
Why do so many academics secretly want to be freelance magazine writers?

FIRST PERSON
The Weasel Clause
When your tenure-track career is derailed by the weasel clause, the options are grim.

CATALYST
A Couple of Scientists
The scientific life seems suited to being single. Here's how a few academic couples have managed to combine love and research.

MS. MENTOR
The Art of Not Making Enemies
Ms. Mentor rarely gets to tell all of her correspondents that they have done wrong. Now's her chance.

ALL IN THE GAME
Discipline and Punish
The general reluctance in academe to dismiss or even discipline a professor stems from class prejudice, says Stanley Fish.

FIRST PERSON
Dreaming of 6 Figures
Academics like to say they're not in it for the money. Would it be so bad, asks Thomas H. Benton, if they were?

FIRST PERSON
Teaching as an Emeritus
Robert Michael learns the joys of work as an emeritus part-time professor.

BALANCING ACT
Your Money or Your Time?
Academic employers need to learn that many professors, given the choice, would take time off over more money any day.

FIRST PERSON
A Look at the Record
Here's the second in a series of articles by Dennis Baron on how the tenure process works in one English department.

SPOTLIGHT
In Charge Without Tenure
Departments are increasingly tapping untenured faculty members to serve as chairmen.

FIRST PERSON
Redefining Myself
Your courseload may be heavier at a teaching-oriented college, but the chains that can constrict your scholarly work will be lighter.

CATALYST
Small-Scale Science
You may have pictured yourself at a major research university. Here's how to know if you should give small-college science a try.

MS. MENTOR
Kicking the Competition
Just because a colleague is undermining you, Ms. Mentor says, doesn't mean you should respond in kind.

SPOTLIGHT
Post-Tenure Review
Whether you think it has saved tenure or eroded it, post-tenure review is an unavoidable reality at most public institutions.

SPOTLIGHT
What to Expect
Professors who have been through post-tenure review offer advice on what to expect.

SPOTLIGHT
Turning Down a Promotion
It means more money, more power, and a better office. So why do some academics still say no to a promotion?

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Taking on Outside Work
John Vineyard has a few pointers for academics on how to get started as a consultant.

BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER
A Living Wage
An Air Force Reserve officer finds that his summer job in the Pentagon pays more than his full-time job on the tenure track.

CATALYST
The Seven-Year Itch
Mary Beckman offers advice from scientists on taking a sabbatical at home or abroad.

MS. MENTOR
Can Liars Get Tenure?
Is there an open, honest way to deny tenure to someone whose views are repellent? Ms. Mentor is stumped.

ALL IN THE GAME
Somebody Back There Didn't Like Me
Voting on a tenure case this year? Stanley Fish offers a few rules to help you make your decision for the right reasons.

SPOTLIGHT
Tenure or More Money?
DeSales University offers its faculty members a choice: Seek tenure or sign a five-year contract with a big bonus attached.

MS. MENTOR
Tenure-Track Anxiety
Ms. Mentor counsels nervous junior scholars who fear that their odds of getting tenure are slim.

ALL IN THE GAME
The Golden Rule, Part 2
Stanley Fish explains why academics seem incapable of treating job candidates as fellow human beings.

FIRST PERSON
Baiting the Cheaters
It's time to set ethics aside, says Vincent Moore, in order to beat plagiarists at their own game.

FIRST PERSON
Thank God for School
A married couple of teachers finds that a summer free of teaching offers a bit too much togetherness.

CAREER TALK
Attention, Hiring Committees
With a little foresight, a search committee can avoid unnecessary wear and tear on candidates. Here's how.

SPOTLIGHT
Serving on the Search
Professors learn to look out for faculty interests when they sit on presidential search committees.

FIRST PERSON
Is Congeniality Overrated?
A congenial department is usually one whose members are of one sex, one race, one pedagogy -- in other words, homogeneous.

CATALYST
A Moving Experience
The life of a scientist doesn't settle down once the lab is established. There's always a move, somewhere down the line.

MS. MENTOR
I'm Perfect
So why won't anyone in academe hire me? Ms. Mentor knows why.

BALANCING ACT
Bringing Your Work Home
Naomi J. Miller experiments with ways to integrate her work with her family life.

CAREER TALK
Do I Need a Web Page?
If you're going on the market this fall, it might help to have your own Web page. Here's how to make it a good one.

FIRST PERSON
Leaving on a High Note
When Michael Dalton decided to leave his tenured job for a better-paying one, he knew his colleagues would understand. But would his students?

FIRST PERSON
Starting Over
What's it like to give up tenure and start over as a new assistant professor?

MS. MENTOR
I Thought I Mentored Her
It's easy, Ms. Mentor says, for a mentor's invitations to a young scholar to be misinterpreted.

ALL IN THE GAME
Say It Ain't So
Stanley Fish laments the lost art of speaking and writing precisely.

FIRST PERSON
Becoming Emeritus
Robert Michael had made the decision to retire from full-time teaching. Now it was time to clean out his office.

BALANCING ACT
Mothers vs. Others
The chilly climate for women in academe reflects stereotypes not only about women in general, but about mothers in particular.

FIRST PERSON
Breaking Up
A chairman in English tries to leave his department gracefully.

SPOTLIGHT
A Hot Commodity
The competition between business schools and economics departments to hire Ph.D.'s in economics has helped drive up salaries in both arenas.

CATALYST
Science on the Stand
Serving as an expert witness in court cases can be a lucrative side career for scientists.

MS. MENTOR
Why Won't She Behave?
Ms. Mentor comes to the defense of a perpetual research associate.

ALL IN THE GAME
Stop the Presses
Why Stanley Fish continues talking to reporters, against his better judgment.

BALANCING ACT
Great Expectations
Achieving a perfect balance in work and life is an exercise in futility. But is it so futile you shouldn't even try?

FIRST PERSON
Dealing With Plagiarists
A professor experiments with a zero-tolerance policy for student plagiarists.

FIRST PERSON
Are We There Yet?
The saga continues: An academic couple -- she in chemistry, he in psychology -- search for jobs in the same vicinity.

SPOTLIGHT
The Organizer
Academics who can't seem to organize their research files and offices have another option: Hire someone to do it for them.

FIRST PERSON
Reunion Blues
Thomas H. Benton goes to his first graduate-school reunion, and finds himself outclassed.

FIRST PERSON
Giving Up Tenure
David Rivers gave up tenure to take a new job that better suited his family life. Is he insane?

ALL IN THE GAME
Were It Not for My ...
... wife, husband, partner, mother, dog, or flower garden. Stanley Fish ruminates on the reasons job candidates turn down offers.

CATALYST
Scientists Turned Authors
When scientists take the plunge into the literary world, they rarely return to the laboratory.

FIRST PERSON
Family Ties
When Michael Dalton decided to search for a new tenured position, his family was on board -- until the move became a reality.

FIRST PERSON
When a Former Colleague Dies
It used to be that months could go by before you learned of a former colleague's death. Not anymore.

SPOTLIGHT
Professor and Coach
A look at the dying breed of teacher-coaches in academe.

BALANCING ACT
Following Your Passions
If you follow scholarly trends rather than pursuing your research passions, you may win recognition but you'll lose yourself.

CAREER TALK
Negotiating a Better Deal
Even in tight financial times, it's possible to negotiate better terms of a job offer.

FIRST PERSON
The Search Goes Cold
Harry Lancaster, an assistant professor of English, finds his search for a better job foundering.

FIRST PERSON
The Question No One Asks
Job candidates in academe answer a lot of questions during interviews, but there's one big one they're never asked.

FIRST PERSON
Tips for Better Teaching
What are some of the things that good college teachers seem to do?

FIRST PERSON
Too Much of a Good Thing
An academic couple -- she in chemistry and he in psychology -- struggle to find jobs in the same area.

FIRST PERSON
My Dream Campus Interview
Searching for a tenured position in accounting, Michael Dalton hits the interview circuit.

CATALYST
Keeping Your Lab Clean
Even careful, conscientious scientists can get blindsided by research misconduct in their laboratories.

ALL IN THE GAME
You Probably Think This Song Is About You
Unhappy departments, writes Stanley Fish, are each unhappy in their own way.

FIRST PERSON
From 'Old Boys' to Mentors
As graduate programs take on the task of socializing Ph.D.'s to professional life, what remains for the adviser to do? Plenty, says Robert A. Gross.

BALANCING ACT
The Backlash Against Academic Parents
Outdated assumptions about the ideal worker undermine people's efforts to integrate their work life with their personal life.

SPOTLIGHT
Back to the Faculty
Can a dean ever really go back to being a faculty member?

FIRST PERSON
Teaching the MTV Learner
How to keep students from "channel surfing" for something more interesting once class begins.

FIRST PERSON
The Death of Creativity
The research-university model has killed creativity in the humanities and social sciences, writes James M. Jasper.

CATALYST
From Nobel to Ig Nobel
More than 30,000 scientific prizes are awarded around the world. What can winning one of them actually mean for your career?

ALL IN THE GAME
Keep Your Eye on the Small Picture
Stanley Fish proposes a few administrative pieties that he would like to see banned from polite conversation.

MS. MENTOR
What Should You Wear?
Ms. Mentor comes to the aid of wardrobe-challenged academics.

FIRST PERSON
Teaching "American Psychos"
As he prepared a special-topics course, Douglas L. Howard wondered, Have I sold out?

BALANCING ACT
Professors and Parents
Joan Williams applauds the AAUP's new policy recommending special benefits for new parents, but wonders, Will anyone follow it?

CAREER TALK
Answering Your Questions
Do I have to return from a sabbatical? Readers get some answers to their career quandaries.

FIRST PERSON
The Job Interview
Fresh from interviewing 30-plus candidates at the MLA, Dennis Baron looks at this rite of passage.

FIRST PERSON
Relationship Counseling
Why is the relationship between professors and fund raisers so often a strained one?

SPOTLIGHT
The State of Hiring
How the recession has affected hiring at a regional state university in Tennessee, a community college in California, a liberal-arts college in Iowa, a public research university in Arizona, and a private research university in New York.

FIRST PERSON
"Are You Coming Back?"
She had taken a leave from her tenured post out west to be with her husband, a fellow academic in the Midwest. Now she had a decision to make.

CATALYST
Doing Science Under Protest
How to keep your research going in the face of public attack.

ALL IN THE GAME
Staying the Course
Stanley Fish looks at the challenges of sustaining an institutional campaign to move up in the academic world.

MS. MENTOR
Academic Revenge
Even the gentlest of academics, Ms. Mentor knows, harbor fantasies of revenge.

FIRST PERSON
Reading Job Applications
An English department chairman tells what he is looking for when he reads the applications of job candidates.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Continuing Care
Advice for academics who plan to move into one of the many retirement communities springing up near college campuses.

SPOTLIGHT
When a Colleague Dies
How departments deal with the death of a faculty member in the middle of a semester.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Continuing Care
Advice for academics who plan to move into one of the many retirement communities springing up near college campuses.

CATALYST
Surviving a Media Onslaught
Here's how to be charming, informative, and quotable when reporters come calling.

FIRST PERSON
Is This a Dream?
Michael Dalton, an associate professor of accounting, knew the job market in his field was good. But he wasn't expecting it to be this good.

FIRST PERSON
An Honest Search
How do you ask colleagues if they'll serve as your reference when you don't want them to know you are job-hunting?

MS. MENTOR
Stuck in Second Place
Tired of battling colleagues to win the prize of full professorship? Ms. Mentor grants you permission to give up.

FIRST PERSON
Consider This My Final Offer
Michael Dalton, an associate professor of accounting, begins a diary of his search for a new faculty job.

CATALYST
The Paper Mill
Our new columnist on science careers, Chris Woolston, explores the rewards of prolific publishing in the sciences.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Tuition Remission to the Rescue
Academics may get a break on their children's college costs through tuition-remission benefits, but they still need to do some financial planning, says John Vineyard.

FIRST PERSON
Don't Bother Me, I'm Just Visiting
Paul Martin Lester chronicles the life of the visiting professor.

FIRST PERSON
From Professor to Administrator, and Back Again
Ann Marie Shackelford had a choice to make: She would pursue a career in administration or return to the faculty.

ACADEMIC ASSETS
Giving Professors an Incentive to Retire
John Vineyard looks at incentives designed to make retirement attractive to faculty members.

Also see:

Academic Assets
Advice about managing your money.

Balancing Act
How to find a balance between work and family.

Ms. Mentor
Words of wisdom about academic culture.

First Person
Firsthand accounts of Ph.D.'s on landing jobs and working in academe, or outside the ivory tower.