someone with a terminal degree just starting a career as a university professor. It is not intended to be a guide for faculties with years of university or college ...
Surviving Academia: A Guide to New University Professors ____________________________________ K. Obeng
North Carolina A&T State University Greensboro, North Carolina
Surviving Academia: A Guide to New Professors Copyright © 2005 K. Obeng All rights reserved. Universal Publishers Boca Raton, Florida • USA 2005 ISBN: 1-58112- 471-6 www.universal-publishers.com
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CONTENTS
Overview……………………………………………………….1 Surviving the Research Requirements............................... 9 Surviving the Teaching Requirements............................. 35 Surviving the Service Requirement.................................. 85 Promotion and Tenure Application and Beyond.......... 101 Conclusion ......................................................................... 127
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PREFACE
You are completing a doctoral program and are looking forward to an academic career. You may also have already completed a doctoral program and have received an offer from a university to begin a career teaching and doing research. In each case, you will find this book interesting reading because it provides advice in terms of what to do to survive on your job. Some in the academia would wish they had such a book to read before starting their careers. That they did not meant they had to learn to survive through trial and error or with the guidance of a god-fatherly figure, which most often was an advisor years back. However, the desire to be independent often meant they had to take their first few steps on unpaved academic roads with jagged rocks covered with thorns ready to tear into their flesh should they stumble and fall. For those who trekked these treacherous roads, some learnt to measure each step carefully, avoiding the protruding knife-edged rocks in the roads and became very successful. Others just labored along, showing visible scars of weary battles and thinking about their mistakes and what they would have done different if they were to start over. For those who did not survive these treks, their careers were to be outside the academia. The hope is that you will survive walking these rough roads and will excel in your academic career too. If in surviving you find something minute in this book to be useful, then I have accomplished what I set out to do. My belief is that you will find more than one thing in this book to be useful in preparing for a successful career in academia. K. O.
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OVERVIEW
INTRODUCTION Every year, universities employ new faculties who have just graduated from doctoral programs or completed their terminal degrees, to join their ranks. Many of these faculties have never taught full time in universities before except maybe as post-doctoral students or teaching assistants, nor published articles in peer reviewed academic journals. Suddenly they find they are required to teach and publish. Additionally, they find they are required to provide service to their departments, schools, communities and professions. The question that they face is how to balance their time to accumulate a good enough record of teaching, research, and service to be successful when, at the appropriate time, they apply for promotion and tenure. Another question is if schools are to provide guidance to these faculties then what approaches have been found to be effective in satisfying the requirements of teaching, research and service that can be recommended to these new faculties to be sure they are adequately prepared to do their jobs well? Are there some experiences of well-established faculties that can be passed on to the new hires? These questions provide the motivations for this book. At the onset, it is important to note that this is neither a research book, nor a teaching book. Rather, it is written to provide guidance to new faculties joining the
academic ranks of various schools for the first time. It is considered a must read book, and was written because little or no guidance is given to most new faculties when they take their first teaching jobs in universities. They are thrown into the midst of senior faculties, many with veils covering their faces, and who show little or no interest in new faculties making one wonder why the new faculties were employed. They also are thrown into universities many of which do not have faculty retention programs or Centers of Teaching Excellence to mentor new faculties or that do not offer teaching workshops to help and direct their new faculties. Perhaps the universities assume the new faculties got exposures to teaching in graduate school through workshops and teaching some classes. So, once employed the universities assume the new faculties must know how to teach, conduct research, and publish and never think these faculties need help. Thus, it seems that these new faculties are given jobs but not shown how to make careers out of them. Further, it seems that due to problems with tenure density some schools may not even be interested in these new faculties making careers out of their jobs anyway but just to fulfill a need for a short term and leave. Indeed some schools pride themselves as springboards to good academic jobs elsewhere so they pay little and do not actively work to keep the new PhD hired. This lack of interest in new faculties does not increase their retention rates and increases the frequency of hiring. It makes some departments and schools appear to be revolving doors where new faculties are hired but not kept. Hence, these faculties must learn to cope and survive on their own to develop careers in university teaching. Alternatively, the lack of interest shows a need exists to provide some guidance to new faculties to make their university teaching experiences worthwhile. 2
OBJECTIVES After many years watching the frustrations of these faculties, some of whom lost their jobs or developed psychological problems because they did not know what to do, did not plan well, or their schools did not have senior faculty mentors to help them or both, the need for this book arose. It is based upon the experiences of many faculties in several universities obtained through interactions and conversations with them over many years. It gives advice and directions in terms of what new faculties can do to satisfy the three requirements of research, teaching, and service that their jobs demand, and to make careers out of these jobs. It recognizes that these experiences vary by school and types of degree programs. For example, experiences in doctoral granting institutions may be different from those in masters and undergraduate degree programs. Similarly, the requirements for promotion and tenure at doctoral granting institutions may be different from those at undergraduate institutions. Accordingly, and keeping these differences and requirements in mind, it is the objective of this book to present only those relevant experiences that cut across disciplines and schools and appear useful regardless wherever new faculties may be employed. The advice and suggestions it provides can be modified to suit different academic environments. TARGETED GROUP The primary audience of the book is the fresh PhD or someone with a terminal degree just starting a career as a university professor. It is not intended to be a guide for faculties with years of university or college teaching experience though it could make interesting reading for them. This is because such faculties know what it takes to go through the professorial ranks. However, even here such 3
seasoned faculties could use the book in advising their doctoral students and may find it worthwhile reading. Additionally, it is not intended to satisfy the needs of everyone. Yet, the topics and discussions are broad enough to suit many people and situations. Many new faculties may find the book useful in terms of how they should organize themselves to survive. Those who went into administration early in their careers, and are returning to full-time university teaching also will find it useful. Universities and colleges may use the book as a resource guide for their newly hired professors. The book is written from the perspective of someone teaching in a business school. Nevertheless, those teaching in other disciplines such as the social sciences will find it useful. ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTERS To achieve its purpose of providing guidance to new faculties the book devotes a chapter each to meeting the requirements of research, teaching, service and promotion and tenure respectively. The chapter on research points out that surviving research is not going to be easy and sometimes it will involve the faculties balancing their family demands against the demands of their jobs; it involves sacrifices. Because of these sacrifices, the chapter advises faculties to develop research agenda and begin publishing quickly to establish records of research. Unless new faculties do so, their research may lag behind and they will not be able to get tenure on their jobs. Other sections of the chapter address the selection of outlets where faculties must publish their work, the need to persevere in trying to get papers published especially in dealing with paper rejections and faculties investing in themselves to develop their careers. Another subject addressed in this chapter is that new faculties must seek funded research. This is necessary 4
because the monies brought into universities by faculties are considered favorably in promotion and tenure applications The chapter on teaching points out the need to have a teaching philosophy and select effective teaching methods to use in the classroom. It emphasizes using intensive writing as a teaching strategy to make students learn and it gives an example of the process to follow to make students write good papers. In its section on innovative teaching methods, the chapter provides examples of some core techniques that many faculties with diversified backgrounds, have found to be very effective in teaching at university and college levels. These include chapter and article summaries, discussions, problem solving, flexible and active learning, cases, and academic counseling. The latter, academic counseling is discussed in detail to show its importance in getting students to do well. While some of these methods may be applicable to undergraduate teaching environments still they can be modified for graduate level teaching. In addition, the chapter draws upon the experiences of some recipients of teaching excellence awards in their universities to highlight some teaching strategies that have been found to work best in classrooms. Eventually new faculties must be evaluated in terms of teaching effectiveness and this is discussed in this chapter. Additionally, while the importance of being an effective teacher cannot be overemphasized, the chapter advises new faculties not to teach to evaluations but to uphold their integrity and high academic standards. This chapter and the one before it emphasize that research and teaching are the most important requirements to maintain and keep a job at university and college levels, and that faculties should devote most of their time to them. The chapter on service requirements points out the irony new faculties face when they must devote some time to an activity that counts very little in promotion and tenure decisions. It discusses the three components of service, 5
which are service to the department, service to university, and service to the community and profession. It notes that service to the community and profession involves networking and devotes a section to it. Additionally, it discusses what can and should be done to meet the service requirements and advises new faculties to refrain from spending too much of their time on service. The general theme throughout the book is that faculties must invest in themselves to develop strong research records and be good teachers. This is because when time comes to change jobs these are what will help them most.
The chapter on promotion and tenure discusses the processes that new faculties must follow to receive promotion and permanent tenure. At the onset, it cautions new faculties that their positions are probationary until they receive tenure. Being so, they can be dismissed summarily such as for poor teaching, lack of research productivity, moral turpitude, and inability to comport themselves in class. Additionally, the chapter shows that before these faculties come up to be evaluated for promotion and tenure they would have gone through evaluations for multi-year contracts. Therefore, a section of this chapter is devoted to multi-year contract evaluations where it is noted that depending on their initial ranks new faculties may go through one or two such evaluations. The purpose of the multi-year contract evaluations is to be sure faculties are on the right paths toward promotion and tenure. Hence, new faculties are advised to take these evaluations very seriously, as sometimes they are used to terminate contracts. Similarly, they are advised to prepare well for tenure.
The section on promotion and tenure process discusses departmental, school or college, and university6
level reviews that an application for promotion and tenure must go through. It details what those evaluating an application look for and mentions that the overall fit of the faculty in a department is very important. This means that even though new professors may demonstrate excellence in research, teaching and service, they may not receive tenure if they do not fit in the department. This may be because of departmental politics or the behavior of the professor. The chapter advises new faculties to know when to apply for tenure and the meaning of being tenured. It mentions that tenure is based upon the premise that professors will maintain their productivity for the remainder of their academic careers. This suggests an implied contract between tenured faculties and their universities. Consequently, when professors are not productive it means they have not lived up to their ends of the contract. To assure continued productivity and demonstration of teaching excellence, the chapter notes that many university systems now require post-tenure review. This review and its implications are discussed and new professors are advised to maintain high levels of continuous productivity. This is because after they receive permanent tenure and promotion, they will also go through post-tenure review periodically. Another section of the chapter discusses the appeal process that may be followed by professors who have been denied tenure to request reconsideration. While this is not wished upon anyone, some new faculties may face this situation. When they do, they are cautioned to weigh their options carefully because of the time and monetary costs involved.
The last chapter deals with conclusions. It draws from the various chapters to highlight the main ideas for new faculties to use to survive their employment in universities. These ideas include those related to teaching, research and service and how to prepare for tenure and beyond. 7
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SURVIVING THE RESEARCH REQUIREMENTS
INTRODUCTION Professors with many years experience teaching at universities develop a deep sense of appreciation for the work involved in conducting research and publishing in mainstream academic journals. They learn to accept that conducting research involves much dedication and personal sacrifices, that research activities are not wasted efforts but career investments, and that a program of continuous research enhances teaching. Additionally, they share the philosophy that to be a good teacher one must be up-to-date with research in one’s field. Since research is an activity expected of the faculty, developing a research agenda and following it are important. This will ensure that when the time comes for promotion and tenure, faculties will give good accounts of themselves. Because of its importance in promotion and tenure decisions, we consider research expectations in this chapter. We discuss various views on research, examine those views in detail and make suggestions for maintaining research productivity. The rest of the chapter is divided into six sections. The next section provides a definition of what is meant by a publication in the academic field and it is followed by how to develop a research agenda. Next, the chapter discusses where to 9
publish papers (i.e., publication outlets), perseverance, investing in your career, funded research and conclusion respectively. WHAT IS A PUBLICATION? In applying for tenure, it is generally assumed in most schools, that one has met the requirements of a good teacher unless there are valid and compelling reasons to believe otherwise. Thus, a major part of the tenure decision process focuses on the contributions one has made in research and service to one’s university, community and profession. These contributions are researches resulting in publications. By publication, the general view in most schools and among many university professors is an article in a refereed academic journal in one’s discipline. It refers to original articles that have been evaluated by peers and published in refereed academic journals. It does not refer to an article in a proceeding, a trade journal or a newspaper. For example, if one is an associate of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a publication in TRB News is not a refereed journal article. However, an article in Transportation Research Record qualifies as a publication. If one is a member of a professional organization, a newsletter article is not a publication by the standards of most schools, for it has not received peer scrutiny. In sum, publication refers to original research, applied or basic, showing contributions to knowledge in a field of one’s expertise published in a peer reviewed academic journal. Though some will disagree and argue that publications should include articles in practitioners’ journals, the above view of what constitutes a publication is one shared by many. This is because a practitioner journal article often lacks theoretical rigor and is not accepted as a publication in many schools. Accepting it as a publication dilutes the standards by which faculties everywhere are 10
judged. This is not to say that such articles are unacceptable, but that they should not dominate a package. Moreover, most schools do not accept such publications and some case research as refereed journal articles. Instead, they see cases as instructional material and count them towards teaching. The contrary view of cases is taken by the AACSB (American Association of Colleges and Schools of Business) that considers cases with instructional materials as intellectual contributions and valid research activities for accreditation purposes. However, it is to be noted that there are differences between cases that are meant solely for teaching and what are termed research cases. The latter are in-depth studies of organizational issues, and are used to find testable hypotheses for future research and are what are considered as research activities by some schools. This is because they broaden the understanding of the issues faced by a researcher and allow for the development of innovative methods to solve organizational problems. Unlike exploratory research, however, they do not develop and test hypotheses and this is why some look down on case research. It is why you cannot depend also upon cases alone for research and publications in many disciplines. DEVELOPING RESEARCH AGENDA Once we understand what is considered a publication it becomes easy for new faculties to know where to focus their efforts. For these faculties to be able to develop a continuous flow of publications, it is important that they develop agendas for research and follow them. For those who just received doctorate degrees a good source of research is your dissertation. Even for those who might have finished few years ago, your dissertations are still good sources of research ideas. Everybody can probably publish an article from his or her dissertation. For example, the first two publications of a colleague came from the appendix of his 11
dissertation, which he claims his advisor and he disagreed on where it should be in the dissertation. Later, he wrote papers from the other sections by expanding the ideas they contained. Though this may not apply to you on the same scale, you can find something good in your dissertation. Look for it to put you on a path of developing a good research agenda. Hamermesh (1992) suggests that at least one article should be published from a dissertation by the end of an assistant professor’s first year on the job. He goes on to suggest that the entire thesis material should be submitted for publication consideration by the end of the first year. Another suggestion that senior faculties in some schools make is that new faculties should quickly send out the first copies of their papers and not to worry about the comments they receive. They should worry about the comments only after a second set of reviews has been received from a second journal. Their reason is that unless there is something fundamentally wrong with the paper you do not want to change it until you have received consensus opinions on it. If you finished school sometime ago, a good source of developing a research agenda will be the publication outlets in your disciplines. Sometimes, authors of academic journal articles provide directions for future extensions of their research. It is for you to choose those articles you understand and are of interest to you. Then, see if you can find something in the articles that you can use as the basis of your research in your school. For everyone, conference attendance and patiently reading research articles can help in developing a research agenda. You can also get ideas from the research papers your students write even if you teach primarily undergraduates. Developing a research agenda is necessary for you to be on track to be an expert. It may involve collaboration with some faculty members in your school and elsewhere. 12
Most schools and colleges encourage collaboration and when you do it, one approach is to choose individuals from your discipline (or other disciplines) who have similar research interests. This makes it easier to divide the research tasks among yourselves particularly when your skills complement each other. You may also collaborate with individuals from whom you believe you can learn, or you can conduct interdisciplinary research with someone outside your discipline. Go into collaboration to give your best and with the idea that you have something to give to your coinvestigators. Also, go into collaboration expecting to learn from your co-investigators and expecting them to learn from you. Thus, you should view collaboration as a two-way relationship. It is not a relationship where one piggybacks on the other without contributing one’s worth, i.e., a parasitic relationship. To borrow an expression from friends in management, collaboration combines core competencies to develop a product (a paper, proposal, or a book) to benefit all participants (you and your collaborators). A crucial factor in collaboration is finding out if a potential partner has the same work habits as you. In other words, does this person share the same work ethic as you? Will the person have time when you must work late to meet deadlines? If not then, avoiding collaborating with such a person is prudent. Shy away from individuals, who do not appear serious about their commitment to research, lack the motivations to do research, or have work habits that are inconsistent with yours. Unless you avoid them, you will be frustrated and bloated with work. Also, avoid individuals who enter collaborations hoping to be in charge instead of working and not contributing substantially to the research. Collaboration is not a subservient relationship. If you should endure such a relationship, which I hope you do not, make sure your gains from it exceed your cost of time, frustration, and so forth. Particularly, make sure you are the 13
lead author in this and subsequent papers that come out of it. If the collaboration has received outside funding, be sure most of the summer and travel funds come to you, and be in it for a very short time. Though schools encourage research collaboration among faculties, having solo articles in your portfolio is important, particularly when applying to be promoted to a Full Professor. In fact, it is suggested that for promotion to a full professor it is extremely important that you provide overwhelming evidence of being able to publish alone in leading journals in your field. Thus, you must have a consistent record of single authorship publications over a long period in your application package to establish a record of research productivity. For promotion to an Associate Professor, this requirement is not stringent though it may become so as institutions evolve and evaluation standards change. A problem with published collaborated researches is how to count them toward promotion or tenure or how much credit should be given each author. Do you count each as a single article for each author or what do you do? In some schools, how much credit you receive is an inverse proportion to the number of authors on the paper. The more authors on a paper the less credit each receives. The rationale is to reduce the incidence of academic loafing and to encourage professors to show evidence of independent work. Other schools count a co-authored paper as a full publication for each author. Because of the differences in the credit a co-author could receive, it is very important for new faculties to know how such credit is determined in their departments and schools to know when to collaborate. Together, collaborated research and single authorship publications inform reviewers that you can work both in a group (which is needed for cohesiveness) and on your own. Many years ago, there were stories about a wellknown professor who did not receive tenure in an 14
institution because the faculties felt he was a loner. They felt his elegant publication list did not have jointly authored articles, which implied to them he could not work in groups. To avoid this problem, some schools require faculties to collaborate with others in research. Taking a cue from this unfortunate experience you should be sure your promotion and tenure application packages include both single authored and coauthored articles with the former being more numerous than the latter. This is not asking too much because most institutions require it. It is what makes institutions know you have developed your own identity. Some institutions even expect tenure track professors to have solo articles in selected top tier journals, as well as require collaborative papers in top tier and other mainstream journals. Heeding this suggestion should help in your future job search should you decide to leave your university. It must be emphasized that research expectations differ for various ranks, and this is implied in the discussion above. Nevertheless, being clear again that the expectations are different for promotion from associate to a full professor and from assistant to an associate professor is important. In many schools, a promotion to a full professor requires one to have a well-established research record that has led to many publications in well-known academic journals in one’s field. An interpretation of this requirement is that one must have continuously published in one’s discipline, particularly in the leading journals in one’s field. This interpretation makes the rank of a full professor, if you like the epitome of one’s career. It is a position cherished, revered, and reserved only for the accomplished and should be respected as such. It is not a position doled out to friends or faculties with sporadic and paltry research, or who publish only when time is near to be reviewed or apply for promotion. It is a reward for hard work. Compared with the full professor rank, one may not need a well-established record for 15
promotion from assistant to an associate professor though having it will not hurt. Some research is required to show one be on the right path to establish a decent record, or that one has a promising record as a researcher. This means that one is researching and publishing and is on a path to be considered an expert in one’s discipline. PUBLICATION OUTLETS Whether you are an assistant or an associate professor, you may need some collaborative research to keep you busy. When you collaborate, we hope you will end with a paper to send out for publication. When collaboration does not result in a paper, it has failed and has not added value to your research agenda, except where a school emphasizes research dollars in promotion and tenure. Of course, writing and submitting a paper is no guarantee of its acceptance for publication. It depends on how you write. Most people know how to write well so this statement may appear to them as irrelevant. Still, it should be pointed out that vast differences exist in how you write a dissertation and academic journal papers. There are also differences in how to write for an economics versus a management journal, so learning how to write for different journals is critical. For example, after years of writing for transportation and economics journals, I collaborated on research to be published in another area. My coauthor wrote some sections and I wrote others. We read the paper repeatedly to make sure it was theoretically sound and flowed, made corrections, and submitted it to a top tier journal in my coauthor’s field. When we received the reviews, the editor asked us to rewrite the part I wrote to meet the journal’s requirements so its readers could understand it. This did not mean I could not write; it meant I had to change my style of writing to suit different readers. You have to do the same if you pursue interdisciplinary research. 16
Writing for publication, means you must choose where to publish your papers. Look, to publish in only the mainstream refereed journals in your field and where your peers in similar and higher-level institutions publish. For, after all, you must aspire to teach in those higher-level institutions one day. I hope that when that opportunity comes, your qualifications and publications record will help you be accepted in those institutions. If you need guidance about where to send your papers, check the publication rankings in journals published by professional associations. For example, the American Economic Review, which is the main publication of the American Economic Association, sometimes publishes articles on journal rankings in that discipline. Similarly, you may find publications in your own discipline that provide journal rankings that you may use as a guide to where to submit your papers. Check also with the senior faculties in your department who do similar work as you do. It is possible that some of them may be affiliated with some journals and they may recommend them to you. Here, a note of caution is perhaps appropriate. While the ultimate goal of every researcher is to publish in the number one journal in his/her discipline, it is not often that it can be done. The acceptance rates of most highly rated journals are very low and the time lags for reviews very long. It may take a year or more to get reviews back on your paper and it could be as much as three years before it is accepted and published. This will not give you time to have many publications in your application if you spent all your time on just one. Therefore, be prudent in where to send your articles and be realistic. You may for example, decide to send some articles to first tier journals and others to second tier journals and that is your choice. However, keep in mind that despite the long time lag to receive reviews from some top tier journals they are often suggested as desirable outlets for articles because they are most likely to give rigorous reviews. Further, keep in mind the 17
requirements in your school particularly regarding the acceptability of publications in some journals that are not in the mainstream. Some beginning faculties do not seem to understand this point, especially those teaching in undergraduate and masters level programs. They seem to think that they have to publish in low-level journals and that is a mistake. How can you make yourself mobile by publishing in places that are unacceptable by most schools? Many years ago, at an interview, an applicant commented that the interviewers were asking him to publish in higher-level journals than comparable undergraduate institutions and programs required. Bluntly, he was told that the standards would not be lowered to accommodate him, and that the school took pride in maintaining high standards. In fact, this comment by the applicant showed that he was not a good fit and would find it difficult to meet the performance standards of the school and he was not hired. In the same way if you keep such ideas in your mind that because you are teaching in a non-doctoral program you must publish in lower level journals you are mistaken and in for a shock when times come for you to be reviewed. Recognizing that authors need to know the status of their papers early, some top tier journals have established deadlines of two or three months for reviewer turn around. This is encouraging. Editors of these journals are known to send mail to remind reviewers when the due dates for their comments are approaching. An advantage of this change is it allows published articles to be timely. Another advantage is that it allows the authors to know the status of their papers and to submit them elsewhere if they are rejected. You should be ethical in what you do. Give credit to those who helped refine your thoughts if those help made impacts on the paper. Sometimes you may want to consider a joint author if the contributions of such a person will enrich you paper and increase its chance of publication. In 18
no way should you submit the same article to more than one journal. You can do so if the article has been rejected by a journal. What you must remember is that most journals in a field may use the same set of reviewers. These reviewers often are the most accomplished in that discipline. So, your paper may end with a person reviewing it for another journal or who reviewed it earlier. Even if reviewed by different people you want to avoid both articles being published and editors discovering they are substantially the same. Often this happens when junior faculties delay writing and publishing and are confronted with tenure. If you are not ethical you may be black listed by journal editors, and you will find it very difficult to publish your articles. To elaborate on this point there is a story of two faculties who collaborated on a paper and submitted it to a journal for review and possible publication. Unknowing to one of the authors, who will be called the first author in this story, his coauthor later submitted a similar article under his name to a second journal that repeated most of their earlier submission word for word. As fate would have it, the editor of the second journal submitted the paper by the coauthor to the first author’s colleague to review, and this colleague passed it onto the first author because it had referenced many of his earlier works. Upon the first author receiving it, he called his coauthor and asked him to withdraw his submission to avoid him telling the editor what he had done. The coauthor withdrew the paper and both did not work together again. The lesson is to be ethical to protect your career, and not think that the double blind review means a reviewer cannot always tell the author of a paper. With experience, reviewers are able to tell who wrote the paper, and authors are able to tell who reviewed their work. Journals too are known to send the entire paper with authors’ names to reviewers even though they promise 19
blind review. So, after all, the double blind review may not actually exist as we think. Returning to the issue of publishing in mainstream journals, a reason for it is that it ensures that your institution will see its name and yours in major journals, not in very obscure journals no one knows except you and maybe a handful of others. Publishing in a mainstream journal also helps the growth of your department and school, as both move toward offering higher degrees, by attracting high caliber faculty like you. Remember that the growth of your school is your growth too and reflects your investment in it. Another reason is that some schools actually give monetary awards for publishing in such journals. A colleague mentioned that his former department at Appalachian State University gave monetary awards raging between $500 and $2,000 based upon where the publication appeared, and these awards were added to the base salaries of the faculties receiving them. Unlike this colleague’s former institution, some schools do not have awards or a list of suggested publication outlets for each department but give more weight to articles in top tier journals. Therefore, choose carefully those outlets that are respectable for your papers. Even where such a list does not exist, there may be a longterm goal for each discipline in your school to identify and rank its publication outlets, and specify those in which faculties must publish. Often such a goal will be consistent with the institutional strategic goal of emphasizing research and increasing doctorate and other higher degree offerings. Even where such a list does not exist, follow the suggestion of Hamermesh (1992) and send your articles to the top tier journals in your field because most departments require publications in top tier journals to be considered for tenure. He notes that the top 40% of economic departments in the U.S. require a publication in the top 25% of economic journals to be eligible for tenure. 20
Your school may be among those that do not have such a list. However, there may be a department, which has made progress by identifying publication outlets for its faculty. Such a department may have identified a list of acceptable outlets where its faculties must publish their work. While everyone waits for this practice to spread across departments, faculties may find it prudent to avoid wasting their time publishing in newsletters, trade or practitioners’ journals, newspapers, and obscure journals. The same goes for you. Additionally avoid publishing in a less desirable outlet by every standard of academic publishing. In most schools and departments, these outlets do not count, and I am sure they will not count in your institutions as well. Also, diversify your publication outlets by shifting from proceedings to refereed journals. Many schools hold refereed journal articles dearly and do not favor promotion and tenure applications containing mostly proceedings. These schools recognize the high quality of some refereed proceedings and accordingly give them their due weights in assessments. However, if your publications are only proceedings when you apply for promotion and tenure, your application will not receive favorable reviews. You may even be asked to withdraw your application. This is because some schools consider proceedings articles as work in progress, not finished work. These articles are meant to solicit comments to be used in writing the final paper from conference or workshop attendees. This is why some journals, particularly those in business, accept improved versions of proceedings articles for publication. Others, however, do not accept them as original articles, and consider them as published elsewhere. Therefore, before you submit proceeding articles to a journal, be sure it accepts such articles. 21
