When to go up to full (at my R1 university)

According to the when to go up for full workshop I attended several years back and according to the full professors I’ve talked to at various places there’s a checklist of things that basically boils down to:  Be twice as much of whatever you were at tenure.

Have twice as many quality-adjusted publications.  (I exceeded this 5 years ago)

Have twice as amazing service responsibilities by, for example, being on boards of journals and/or serving as an associate editor of a journal.  (Hit this 5+ years ago)

Be more well-known in the field, as evidenced by, for example, being on conference program committees, hosting conferences, etc. (So many years ago)

Take more of a leadership role in service by heading committees etc. instead of just serving on them.  University service, not just department service.  Etc. (Soooo many years ago)

 

When not to go up for full:  5 years after that (unless you’ve really put it off that long, in which case, going up right now is better than waiting even longer)

Yes, I checked all those boxes 5 years ago and for whatever reason just did not go up.  That’s 5 years and a bizarre new research path that has to be explained and a letter writer found for.  More PhD students whose outcomes have to be found (thankfully NSF makes you list them so I didn’t have to do as much digging as I otherwise might have).  More grants whose exact dollar amounts and own contributions and grant numbers have to be found and entered into forms.  And I have the same word limit that I would have had if I’d gone up 5 years ago.  I can barely fit the journal names into the space they give, much less coherently explain all of my different research agendas.

I delayed because I didn’t want more service responsibilities.  But I got them ANYWAY.  They just would have been different service responsibilities.  I delayed because I’d been promised a money chair available only to Associate professors, but there was a delay and it ended up being given to someone else instead.  And, since I would have been the *only* full professor without a money chair, it’s quite possible I could have gotten a different one if I’d been full.  I delayed because it’s easier to move as an associate instead of a full, but I’m stuck here until DC1 finishes high school now anyway, and now it’s embarrassing how long I’ve been associate.  None of these were good reasons.

If applicable, what are the rules for promotion at your institution?  Academic readers: Have you gone up for full?  When do you plan to go up?  When do people say to go up?

Advertisement