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他们没教你的-----judy修改
By PAUL GRAY and DAVID E. DREW
Most new Ph.D.'s who accept faculty positions are shocked to discover
that no one told them what their day-to-day jobs would really entail.
They struggled as graduate students to master the literature, theories,
models, and analytical techniques in their fields and wrote
dissertations of which they are proud, but they quickly realize that
this knowledge is separate and distinct from understanding and dealing
with the challenges and obstacles that face a beginning professor.
After spending eight or more years observing professors, many Ph.D.
candidates and new Ph.D.'s assume that there is little they need to
learn about the job. We believe that they are wrong. What new
professors don't know can, and usually does, hurt their careers. Here
is some advice based on what we've learned over the years about the job
and what we try to impart, as mentors, to our students and newly hired
colleagues:
Understand that most academic fields are dominated by fewer than 100
powerful people. Early in your career, you should get to know as many
of them as possible - but not until you've mastered the literature
(particularly the papers they wrote!) and developed some ideas of your
own. If they get to know you and conclude you have no ideas, you're
finished.
Specialize. Get known for something. It helps visibility. Brilliant,
restless people who work on several topics simultaneously usually do
not achieve as much visibility as those who plod along in the same area
for many years.
Finish your Ph.D. as quickly as possible. Don't feel that you need to
create the greatest work that Western civilization ever saw. Five years
from now the only thing that will matter is whether you finished.
Don't take a tenure-track faculty position without the Ph.D. in hand.
We estimate the odds are two to one against your ever finishing your
degree. Furthermore, without a Ph.D. you will be offered a
significantly lower salary, and you may never make up the difference.
Don't take your first job at the institution where you received your
Ph.D. You will always be regarded as a graduate student by the older
faculty members and will be treated as such. It is different, however,
if you leave for some years and then return.
Consider the assistant-dean strategy. If your field suffers from an
oversupply of people, one strategy is to seek a job as an assistant
dean. Colleges are always looking for candidates for such necessary but
nonglorious jobs as assistant dean for summer school. You, as an
applicant, should insist that you also receive an appointment in your
field of specialty. You should also insist that you teach one course
and that you are given some time for research.
Change your career or move every seven years. Why?
1.People are hired at the national market rate but are given raises based
on the internal annual percentage increase. Moving is often the only
way to maintain parity or gain a major increase in salary and
perquisites.
2.People pay attention to you because you are new. In the first few years
in a new institution or department, you will have the aura of the
outside expert.
3.Changing fields allows you to move from a mature area to a new, dynamic
one. It is also an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of new
developments.
Know that publications are your only form of portable wealth. Prioritize accordingly.
Avoid serving on a committee where you are the technical expert. If you
do, you will be put on the subgroup (or, worse, become the subgroup) to
make recommendations or solve the mess in your area of expertise. Such
service will eat up enormous amounts of your time with little visible
result and even less personal gain for you.
Learn grantsmanship. Educate yourself about who provides money for your
type of research. Don't be snobbish. You may feel deep down that you
did not train yourself for a life of the mind in order to become a
peddler of slick prose to federal and foundation bureaucrats. But an
ability to raise money can have a seismic effect on your career.
Never, ever choose sides in department politics. The side you are on
expects your support and will give you no reward for it. The side(s)
you are not on will remember forever.
Never take a joint appointment, particularly as your first job. The
chairperson of each department will assume that the other chairperson
will take care of you. Each department will assume it owns at least
three-fourths of you. Furthermore, at raise, promotion, and tenure
times, each department will judge you only on the papers you published
in its discipline.
Get to know the development people at your institution and support
them. Skilled, interactive development offices can help in obtaining
outside money for you, for your department, and for students, all of
which improves your quality of life. Be careful, however; development
offices can be horribly inept. Many fund raisers know nothing about the
academic enterprise or what you do. You will be educating them over and
over. You may need to team up with colleagues to get people replaced
who are extremely bad at their jobs.
When you do something noteworthy, ask your college's PR department to
publicize it. That is one way for a lot of your colleagues across the
campus to find out what a wonderful person you are. (They may even
remember it at promotion time.) It also lets you brag to your
chairperson and to the people in your department without being
obnoxious about it.
Never become a department chair unless you are already a tenured full
professor. Yes, it will reduce your teaching load. Yes, it will give
you visibility. No, it will not confer power on you.
Most department chairs do less research and publish less while in that
position than they would as a faculty member. Thus you are producing
less portable wealth per year, and you are reducing your chances for
tenure or for promotion.
Don't feel flattered if the job is offered and you are pressured by the
dean to accept it: The dean has no other viable candidate who is
willing to do it. If you must accept, realize that you are in the same
bargaining position as a new hire. Use the opportunity to obtain
something in return. Be clear beforehand that you will resign the
chair's job if the agreement is broken, and if it is (as is often the
case), follow through.
Write most of your articles for refereed journals. Papers presented at
meetings get you funds to be a world traveler. However, even if
refereed, conference papers don't really count for tenure, promotion,
or salary raises.
Be careful when co-authoring a paper with a superstar. It increases
your visibility and associates you with his or her reputation. However,
choose carefully which papers you co-author. If the idea is yours, the
superstar will probably get most of the credit.
Don't accept the impressive title of editor in chief or department
editor of any publication early in your career. Journal editing takes
time. Don't get involved at the editorial level until your career is
well launched. At all costs, avoid editing struggling newsletters,
special-interest publications, and the like.
Do, however, serve as a reviewer for journals, particularly top
journals. Treat this job seriously. You will see much junk being
submitted and appreciate why some journals reject 80 percent or more of
their submissions. You will develop an aesthetic for what is good and
what is not. You will correspond with some powerful people. When you do
get a good paper to review, you will receive much earlier knowledge of
an important new development. And the information gained is worth more
than the time you take reviewing.
We describe the world of academe as we see it, not as we wish it to be.
But despite its many pitfalls, we believe that being a professor may be
the best job on the planet - and that colleges and universities are
wonderful, and occasionally transcendent, places to work.
Paul Gray is a professor emeritus of information systems and
technology, and David E. Drew is a professor of education at Claremont
Graduate University. This article is adapted from What They Didn't
Teach You in Graduate School: 199 Helpful Hints for Success in Your
Academic Career (Stylus Publishing, 2008).
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发表于 2008-4-26 06:36:00
