_Chemical and Engineering News_, February 23, 2009, Volume 87, Number
08, pp. 60-62
The Black Academic's Guide to Winning Tenure-Without Losing Your Soul,
by Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Laszloffy, Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 2008, 261 pages, $55 hardback (ISBN: 978-1-58826-562-3),
$22.50 paperback (ISBN: 978-1-58826-588-3))
Reviewed by Sharon L. Neal
THE E-MAILS about "The Black Academic's Guide to Winning
Tenure-Without Losing Your Soul written by Kerry Ann Rockquemore and
Tracey Laszloffy, began crossing my computer screen in late August,
just as
the fall semester was starting. Because of the provocative-not to
mention personally relevant-title I was very interested, but unsure I
would have the time to read the book before the semester break. The
buzz didn't let up though, and before I knew it, I had agreed to
review the book.
Rockquemore, who is black, is a sociologist on the faculty at the
University of Illinois, Chicago, and Laszloffy, who is white, is a
clinical psychologist who started her career and earned tenure there
but is now in private practice. The authors collaborated on a
mentoring program for junior faculty of color at the University of
Illinois, Chicago, and cofounded BlackAcademic.com
<http://www.blackacademic.com , "an online mentoring portal for
under-represented faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and those who
are committed to our success." The book grew out of their work and is
described on the back page as "for the African-American Scholar who
may be the lone minority in a department." This likely covers more
than 95% of the black chemists who hold faculty positions in
predominantly white institutions in the U.S. as well as the experience
of a sizable fraction of black postdocs and grad students.
The authors write that they are often asked, "Why write a book just
for black academics on the road to tenure? All faculty need [useful]
information!" Their answer is that black faculty report a number of
unique experiences that have racial components that they must
successfully navigate in addition to the challenges that are common to
all tenure-track faculty. The unique experiences include alienation
and isolation within their departments, classroom hostility, and
double standards in expectations and evaluation.
The book begins with a frank discussion of several of these
experiences (chapter 2), then moves to departmental politics and fit
(chapter 3). Descriptions of several strategies and tactics that
junior faculty can apply and adapt to master the unique and common
elements of navigating the tenure track (chapters 4 through 10)
constitute the bulk of the book. It is well written, concise (194
pages, 11 chapters, four sections), full of advice that is sometimes
counterintuitive, and illustrated and highlighted by fictionalized
anecdotes or personal stories describing young black faculty who've
faced difficult experiences and used Rockequemore and Laszloffy's
prescriptions to address them.
"Cultivating and managing interactions with other faculty is so
important."
The book is tightly organized around the theme of developing clarity
about one's goals and responsibilities and then adopting a proactive
posture to fulfill them. For example, the authors' advice that young
faculty proactively develop ways to ensure that their schedule and
efforts reflect the centrality of their publication record to the
strength of their tenure case rather than reacting to the immediate
demands of teaching and service is emphasized a number of times in
various discussions throughout the book. Another theme is developing
clarity about both the unwritten and written rules at work in the
various situations new faculty face, particularly those involving
race. This open discussion of race is so important for black faculty
who are much more likely to work in departments where racial issues
are the 800-lb gorilla in the room rather than ones where race and
other issues of power, prestige, and privilege are openly and
constructively discussed.
A corollary of the question "Why a book just for black junior
faculty?" is "Why might the book be of value to readers who are not in
its target audience?" One answer is that senior faculty members who
seek to mentor black junior faculty successfully and university
administrators who seek to evaluate young faculty fairly need
resources to help them focus and refine their thinking. They have few
other resources available. Another answer is that junior faculty from
other groups that tend to be marginalized, including women, Hispanics,
and Native Americans, will find strategies and tactics they can use or
adapt to their circumstances.
THE POTENTIAL for racialized interpersonal or departmental dynamics is
not the greatest challenge black junior faculty face; like all new
faculty, they must meet their department's expectations in research,
teaching, and service in five short years (assuming that documents for
tenure review are submitted at the beginning of the sixth year). As
stated, an overarching theme in all of Rockquemore and Laszloffy's
prescriptions is the development of professional habits that support
proactive engagement rather than passive reaction. A proactive stance
is difficult to construct in any position that has demands that are
significantly greater than available time and/or financial resources,
as tenure-track positions in chemistry are.
Rockquemore and Laszloffy observe that without the perspective that
comes from developing and implementing a strategic plan and timeline
for one's research, the immediate demands of teaching and service,
which can be greater for underrepresented faculty, often drive young
faculty to spend all their time putting out fires in these areas. This
leaves insufficient time for building a unique line of inquiry and a
substantive publication record. They suggest ways that new faculty can
build short-term accountability mechanisms for research and writing to
balance the immediacy of teaching and service demands into their
schedule. These include making inviolable 30- to 60-minute
appointments for writing each day, forming weekly writing groups with
other faculty, and having a "Sunday meeting" to plan the coming week's
work.
While the importance of research and publication productivity is
emphasized, the book makes suggestions new faculty can use in meeting
all their department's tenure review criteria. Chapters 3 through 7
provide concrete advice on departmental socialization, time
management, office organization, research productivity, teaching
effectiveness, and managing service loads. The book not only suggests
prescriptions to help faculty shift from a reactive to proactive
stance in all these areas, but also provides instruments and
frameworks faculty can use to assess their current situation before
implementing or modifying the book's advice to fit their particular
needs.
IN CHAPTER 7, the book outlines an adaptation of Boice's Balance
Program for new faculty. Robert Boice constructed the program after
studying approximately 200 new faculty on two campuses over two years.
Rockquemore and Laszloffy present program guidelines that are much the
same: Limit preparation to two hours per hour of class, write daily,
integrate research interests into teaching, devote four hours per week
to discuss teaching and research with faculty in the home department,
and keep daily records of work time expenditures. The most significant
difference is that Rockquemore and Laszloffy suggest that black
faculty devote twice as much time to cultivating relationships with
other faculty in their departments (Boice recommends two hours per
week). This suggestion and the one limiting the amount of time spent
alone preparing for class to two hours per contact hour strike me as
counterintuitive for most new faculty. I certainly would have been
surprised and resistant had I gotten this advice when I was a new
assistant professor.
Since admiration for the lone cowboy investigator and deference to
higher status faculty are strong prevailing social norms in our
discipline, the balance program suggestion that new faculty take
primary responsibility for cultivating relationships with the senior
members of their department (via discussions regarding classroom
strategies and so on) will surprise some new faculty. Although all new
faculty arrive convinced that it is important to conduct and publish
research, some may need to be persuaded that it is their
responsibility to reach out and cultivate relationships with other
(including senior) faculty. This will be especially true and difficult
for black faculty who survived graduate school by keeping a distance
from the departmental and group politics during their Ph.D. training.
Cultivating and managing interactions with other faculty is so
important, and the last section of the book before the conclusion
develops this topic further.
As in the discussions of productivity and organization, the book
encourages the development of more self-awareness. Chapter 8 warns
that relying on the habits one developed as a student to negotiate the
tension between succeeding professionally and maintaining integrity
may not be useful in interactions with other faculty. This chapter
describes the heartrending story of "Sandra," a shy, submissive social
scientist whose demeanor and inability to say "no," especially to
requests for service, was taken advantage of by supporters and taken
as a license for disrespect by detractors.
Only one anecdote in the book features a scientist. It strikes me as
ironic that it was provided to illustrate some elements of unhealthy
conflict resolution. "Sheena" is described as a natural scientist at a
small liberal arts college who was surprised and disappointed by a
critical third-year review. Where she expected praise for having three
papers under review (one in the revise and resubmit stage in the
discipline's top journal) despite a yearlong delay in getting her lab
ready, the department concluded that she had not met the evaluation
criteria (two published papers) and should be admonished to buckle
down, get to work, and turn things around. Sheena was deeply offended
by the department's decision to ignore the obstacles she faced and
characterize her as less than hardworking. The charge that she was
"lazy," though not expressed using that word, connected immediately to
Sheena's racial injustice warning system.
The department's use of teaching evaluations alone with no
acknowledgement of the hostility Sheena faced in the classroom only
added to her sense of betrayal. When she confronted her chair (by
e-mail) with the unfairness of the department's characterization, he
was not apologetic. Her chair not only cast her rebuttals as a
personal attack on him, but proceeded to dismiss all her arguments by
claiming that she was using race and gender to avoid facing up to the
deficiencies in her work. The book suggests this young scientist meet
face-to-face with the chair and use communication strategies it
describes to establish communication with him. The advice is sound,
but I wish the authors had more to say about how to make the argument
that black faculty are not overly sensitive or inadequately stalwart,
but rather are often subjected to more stringent scrutiny.
WHILE THE BOOK is a valuable resource for young academics, it is not
surprising that a book written for academics in all fields by authors
who are social scientists leaves several topics important to chemists
and chemical engineers unaddressed. The book has no specific advice
about writing grants and managing research funds. It has no specific
advice about the challenges of recruiting, training, and motivating
research assistants or postdocs. It has no specific advice about
having good communication with project managers and engineers during
lab renovations or what to do if renovations stall. It has nothing to
say about negotiating with instrument manufacturers or repair
technicians and machinists. It has no specific advice about
authenticating the originality and value of one's contributions to
multidisciplinary or collaborative projects.
Therefore, the book's advice that new faculty connect to a number of
mentors including those with similar research interests who can help
them work through some of the discipline-specific issues not covered
by the book is critical to young chemists and chemical engineers.
Fortunately, the habits the book encourages young faculty to
cultivate-developing clear goals, deliberately focusing all efforts,
and polling trusted senior colleagues regularly-can help them find the
additional resources they will need to win tenure without losing their
soul or their sanity.
Sharon L. Neal is an associate professor in the department of
chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Delaware, Newark.