Talking Tenure: Ministering by Meeting Needs at the University

One of the principles I have learned in reaching out to colleagues in the university is to minister to them in ways that meet real needs. One of the reasons that "How to Make Better Grades and Have More Fun" talks are such an effective means of reaching students is that nearly all students want to make good gradesit's a real need they have.

When you think about needs that professors have, two areas immediately come to mind: time management and tenure. Most professors are stressed and stretched in the area of time management; this is why outreach strategies utilizing The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon & Schuster1989) and First Things First (Simon & Schuster, 1994) are so effective. (see The Real Issue, January 1994, for information on these strategies)

For practically every professor in a tenure track position, the tenure process is a formidable prospect. They have a real need for information on how to successfully negotiate the tenure process. And this need repre sents an opportunity for those of us who wish to reach our colleagues in the university. Here is how to capitalize on this opportunity.

Every Christian Faculty Fellowship should be offering a "How to Make Tenure" seminar (see How to Make Tenure workshop) to all untenured professors on campus on an annual basis. It is usually a simple matter to obtain a list of all new tenure track faculty from the administration. A personal letter of invitation should be sent to each new professor well in advance of the actual seminar. Of course, if each new professor could be personally invited by a Christian professor in his or her department or college this would be even better.

The seminar is usually done on a weekday afternoon and requires about two hours. The format for the seminar is flexible but should include a generic presentation on how to make tenure covering such issues as "what counts;" "how to find out what counts;" "how to allocate time between teaching, research, and ser vice;" "how to prepare for the reviews;" and "how to develop a good strategy," among other possible issues.

In my talk on tenure, which I have presented to tenure-track faculty across the nation, I present a strategy for making tenure which I think is appropriate for any university or college: in the area of service, cheerfully do your shareand no more; in teaching, try to be an excellent teacherdon't try to win any teaching awards; spend all of your remaining time doing research which will lead to refereed publications in the best journals in your field.

The seminar could be given by someone with outstanding academic credentials who is brought in from at least fifty miles away (with a briefcase) or byone of the members of the Fellowship who has a solid reputa tion for excellence within the university. My talk is available through Christian Leadership's World Wide Web site, Leadership U (www.leaderu.com, and may be used as is or modified as is appropriate to suit a particular presenter or campus situation. I would also be happy to assist individuals who wish to develop their own talks.

The seminar can and probably should include comments by senior faculty representing the various colleges on campus to give information which might be specific to individual colleges; e.g., how a concert perfor mance or juried art work might compare to a refereed journal article. It is also quite effective to have younger professors who have recently negotiated the tenure hurdle to share their perspectives; what prob lems they encountered, what strategies helped them, what they would do differently.

If mentoring relationships between established Christian professors and the participants are a possibility, during the seminar is an appropriate time to establish such relationships as well. Finally, plenty of time should be allowed for questions and answers as there will be many questions. Refreshments may also be served and informal time for discussion planned. Be sure to have participants provide names and campus addresses for subsequent follow-up.

Follow-up is important and may be accomplished in a variety of ways. At one seminar, the organizer invited interested participants to join a Seven Habits discussion group he was starting. All but one of the participants joined the group and all of them ultimately became involved in the Christian Faculty Fellowship on that campus. Participants could be followed up through mentoring relationships that are established as a very natural part of the mentoring process. Alternatively, participants might be followed up by the Christian professor who invited them or by a member of the Fellowship who volunteers to do follow-up. And it is, of course, appropriate at the seminar to invite participants to become involved in regular meetings of the Fellowship.

I have done several of these workshops in the last three years with uniformly positive results. At the Univer sity of Minnesota in January, the organizers were reluctant to try the seminar as a campus outreach strategy, so they decided to have it just for untenured professors involved in the Christian Faculty Fellowship. The seminar was outstanding in every respect and the clincher came when a young man who had been denied tenure in an engineering department a year earlier shared why he didn't make tenure. Powerful! One of the senior professors told me after the seminar, "We will be doing this every year at Minnesota, but from no on we will be inviting all untenured professors."

At another recent presentation, a dean of a College of Arts and Sciences attended the seminar and remarked to me before the presentation, "You can't do this. The tenure process is too political, too subjective, too emotional. I just came to see you fall on your face." At the conclusion of the talk, the dean sheepishly commented to me, "I agreed with everything you said! Your recommendations are right on target. Every one of my faculty needs to hear this material!"

The "How to Make Tenure" seminar is one of the most natural and effective ways I know of for reaching out to new professors. Even if someone you invite doesn't come to the seminar for whatever reason, you have created good will because the invitation was extended on behalf of the Christian Faculty Fellowship. One of the participants at a recent seminar I did wrote on his comment card, "I have been struggling with an out of control, unbalanced life for many years and have been thinking about all of this a lot lately. I want to follow most of your suggestions." Meeting real needs. That is what we as Christian professors need to be doing for our colleagues. The tenure seminar does exactly that.

"When you think about needs that professors have, two areas immediately come to mind: time management and tenure."