What are the tenure requirements in humanities/social science in the US
January 21, 2011 8:00 AM Subscribe
Interdisciplinary career advice. What are some examples of the tenure requirements in humanities/social science departments in the US - number of articles, book(s), etc.? There are complications ...
... because I have a humanities/social science background, but am in a non-humanities/social science school (basically hired as some sort of experiment, maybe). I am in a technology oriented department where the main requirements are publish often, doesn't matter where. The main journals/conferences are not hum/soc sci friendly. Monographs are frowned upon as they take away from the overall publication count.
I have a potential opportunity to write a monograph on a timely subject for a series for a top university publisher. I'd like to be able to justify this to my tenure committee. How much might such a book count for in disciplines such as history, cultural anthropology, philosophy, etc.? How much extra would be needed on top in these disciplines?
... because I have a humanities/social science background, but am in a non-humanities/social science school (basically hired as some sort of experiment, maybe). I am in a technology oriented department where the main requirements are publish often, doesn't matter where. The main journals/conferences are not hum/soc sci friendly. Monographs are frowned upon as they take away from the overall publication count.
I have a potential opportunity to write a monograph on a timely subject for a series for a top university publisher. I'd like to be able to justify this to my tenure committee. How much might such a book count for in disciplines such as history, cultural anthropology, philosophy, etc.? How much extra would be needed on top in these disciplines?
Response by poster: tjw - Good point. It's not R1. For the sake of anonymity, it's a reasonably well-respected private institution (think 4th quartile of the US News top 100) that does not focus on humanities and social science; and so there is no real precedent for this in my department.
And so I am looking for possible requirements in humanities/soc sci departments in other universities with similar rankings (say #75-#125).
posted by life moves pretty fast at 8:18 AM on January 21, 2011
And so I am looking for possible requirements in humanities/soc sci departments in other universities with similar rankings (say #75-#125).
posted by life moves pretty fast at 8:18 AM on January 21, 2011
Don't you have any colleagues at other institutions? People you've met at meetings? Folks you went to grad school with? Your PhD advisor(s) and mentors? Or are you so isolated at this out-of-your-discipline department that MeFi is really your best shot at getting good advice?
I really don't mean that to sound snarky, I just hope you should be able to get better-sourced advice.
posted by secretseasons at 8:35 AM on January 21, 2011
I really don't mean that to sound snarky, I just hope you should be able to get better-sourced advice.
posted by secretseasons at 8:35 AM on January 21, 2011
(of course, it occurs to me [too late] that you may be asking all those people as well. If so, good for you; if not, consider it; and sorry again if it sounded snarky)
posted by secretseasons at 8:40 AM on January 21, 2011
posted by secretseasons at 8:40 AM on January 21, 2011
Response by poster: No problem.
Or are you so isolated at this out-of-your-discipline department that MeFi is really your best shot at getting good advice?
To an extent, this is true. I'd like to emphasize that it's an interdisciplinary thing - Ph.D. in one discipline, which I have not been back to for pubs/conferences, and academic career in a second discipline, which I have exclusively focused on. So for example if I had a PhD in history, I may have been working on the history of the Internet for a while, but in a CS department. And I have not been to history conferences, and do not publish in history. It's actually different/more complex than this, but you get the idea.
I'd heard that building an interdisciplinary academic career might be hard, and it seems so.
posted by life moves pretty fast at 8:49 AM on January 21, 2011
Or are you so isolated at this out-of-your-discipline department that MeFi is really your best shot at getting good advice?
To an extent, this is true. I'd like to emphasize that it's an interdisciplinary thing - Ph.D. in one discipline, which I have not been back to for pubs/conferences, and academic career in a second discipline, which I have exclusively focused on. So for example if I had a PhD in history, I may have been working on the history of the Internet for a while, but in a CS department. And I have not been to history conferences, and do not publish in history. It's actually different/more complex than this, but you get the idea.
I'd heard that building an interdisciplinary academic career might be hard, and it seems so.
posted by life moves pretty fast at 8:49 AM on January 21, 2011
Response by poster: And yes - there is no-one in my department with my disciplinary background/training.
posted by life moves pretty fast at 8:50 AM on January 21, 2011
posted by life moves pretty fast at 8:50 AM on January 21, 2011
In an R1 hard humanities department (like literature), the tenure requirement is basically a book. Promotion is a second book. As you drift more and more to the science end of things, the emphasis becomes more and more on larger quantities of shorter articles.
However, the original question was about justifying a monograph to your tenure committee. You should have to justify publishing period. More publishing is always better than less publishing. If you have an opportunity for a monograph, take it.
posted by yeolcoatl at 8:58 AM on January 21, 2011
However, the original question was about justifying a monograph to your tenure committee. You should have to justify publishing period. More publishing is always better than less publishing. If you have an opportunity for a monograph, take it.
posted by yeolcoatl at 8:58 AM on January 21, 2011
Best answer: This seems like a really tricky question because there are so many case-specific factors. One of the major ones I don't see mentioned above is who your external reviewers would be -- in my interdisciplinary dept. the reviewers are from the relevant field/subfield of the person. They basically, as I understand it, will apply the tenure standards from that field and subfield, which can be quite different across my department. But if your external reviewers are from your department's field, and not your field of training, you probably need to conform to that. So I would try to get a concrete answer about this from your chair, something that may be difficult if there is no institutional precedent.
I know of cases where people were burned in interdisciplinary situations by gradually shifting from one field to another, potentially one of the great things about this kind of environment, but going up for tenure as neither one thing or the other. Given what I know of these cases, this is a scenario you want to avoid at all costs.
posted by advil at 9:11 AM on January 21, 2011
I know of cases where people were burned in interdisciplinary situations by gradually shifting from one field to another, potentially one of the great things about this kind of environment, but going up for tenure as neither one thing or the other. Given what I know of these cases, this is a scenario you want to avoid at all costs.
posted by advil at 9:11 AM on January 21, 2011
Best answer: If you were in the humanities at the kind of institution you describe, the likely ballpark of the tenure standard would probably be book-plus-articles. But you aren't. The real issue here is going to be communicating clearly in advance about, and coming to mutual agreement on, a fair standard with the tenure committee that you actually have (and the department, for purposes of their recommendation, and the administration).
So if you think book-plus is a fair standard for your kind of work, considering the broader field(s) it touches upon, you should try to make that case clearly and in writing to these folks now, in advance of the tenure case, and see if they can be gotten to agree on it. You might use some external reviewers or writers to help communicate this — contacts who work in departments in or around your old field might send letters describing what their field's tenure standards generally are, and perhaps you could supplement this with statements on tenure standards from the field's professional associations.
But maybe the tenure question actually isn't the first thing you should be worried about here? If you want to, and you think it'll be intellectually productive for you, you should probably write the book in any case. It certainly won't hurt your CV!
posted by RogerB at 9:14 AM on January 21, 2011
So if you think book-plus is a fair standard for your kind of work, considering the broader field(s) it touches upon, you should try to make that case clearly and in writing to these folks now, in advance of the tenure case, and see if they can be gotten to agree on it. You might use some external reviewers or writers to help communicate this — contacts who work in departments in or around your old field might send letters describing what their field's tenure standards generally are, and perhaps you could supplement this with statements on tenure standards from the field's professional associations.
But maybe the tenure question actually isn't the first thing you should be worried about here? If you want to, and you think it'll be intellectually productive for you, you should probably write the book in any case. It certainly won't hurt your CV!
posted by RogerB at 9:14 AM on January 21, 2011
In my experience all the requirement are kept very vague on purpose to give the committee more power to get rid of people, or keep people. It's never fair or consistant.
posted by Blake at 9:22 AM on January 21, 2011
posted by Blake at 9:22 AM on January 21, 2011
Response by poster: advil yup that's good advice re. external reviewers. What's interesting is that when I see the folks who might be external reviewers, they often have similar interdisciplinary trajectories to myself - i.e. they are not really 'in' their departments either.
know of cases where people were burned in interdisciplinary situations by gradually shifting from one field to another, potentially one of the great things about this kind of environment, but going up for tenure as neither one thing or the other. Given what I know of these cases, this is a scenario you want to avoid at all costs.
I hear you, and I have tried to avoid the pitfalls. But it is not as easy as it looks ...
posted by life moves pretty fast at 9:34 AM on January 21, 2011
know of cases where people were burned in interdisciplinary situations by gradually shifting from one field to another, potentially one of the great things about this kind of environment, but going up for tenure as neither one thing or the other. Given what I know of these cases, this is a scenario you want to avoid at all costs.
I hear you, and I have tried to avoid the pitfalls. But it is not as easy as it looks ...
posted by life moves pretty fast at 9:34 AM on January 21, 2011
I wonder if you can just find five people in roughly your field (or similar interdisc situations) at similar types of institutions, who have recently been tenured, and see what they had published prior to tenure.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:12 PM on January 21, 2011
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:12 PM on January 21, 2011
Response by poster: Thanks everyone, plenty of food for thought, especially as I was foundering around a bit with this!
posted by life moves pretty fast at 4:40 AM on January 24, 2011
posted by life moves pretty fast at 4:40 AM on January 24, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:02 AM on January 21, 2011