The Academic Gateway: Understanding the Journey to Tenure investigates the experiences of professors employed in tenure-track positions who are starting their career within a university environment, but have not yet attained the affirmation and permanence that tenure offers. The role that they have taken on entails the preparation of students within a professional school. Some of them have very limited professional experience, while others bring multiple years of experience with them in their transition to a faculty of education.
The contributors speak to the three key components of their faculty role: teaching, service, and research. Addressing organizational structures and differences relative to prior roles, they examine how these changes
have assisted, confused or altered the way they conduct their day-to-day work. They speak about relevant prior experiences, the preparation they received through graduate school, and the details of the learning curve as they entered into their tenure track role.
Have they been successful? The reader will experience the same uncertainty and anticipation every professor goes through during their journey to tenure. This approach amplifies the realism of not knowing whether issues that are spoken about will ultimately be overcome and enhances the validity of their experiences by not biasing the contributions towards those who expect success.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction xi
Section I
Editors’ Preface—Late Tenure-Track 13
1 On the Tenure-Track: Navigating Research, Teaching, and Service Responsibilities in a U15 Institution
Frank Deer 17
2 Meet Jill—She Fell Down the Hill but Came Back up Again: Struggling with Mental Illness While on the Path to Tenure
Joan M. Chambers 29
3 Re-Locating: Moving Between the Field and the University
Lee Anne Block 41
4 Belonging Differently: Immigration, Identity, and Tenure-Track
Cecile Badenhorst 51
5 The Three-Headed Monster
Greg Rickwood 63
Section II
Editors’ Preface—Tenure-Track Collaboration 75
6 Women Reflect on Becoming an Academic: Challenges and Supports
Memorial’s Education Writing Group 79
7 I Think You Are Ambivalent: The Realities of Indigenous Scholarship in Mainstream Universities
Onowa McIvor, María del Carmen Rodríguez de France, and Trish Rosborough 93
8 A Dynamic Duet: Fluid Mentorship and Holistic Co-Teaching
Manu Sharma and Cam Cobb 111
Section III
Editors’ Preface—Mid-Tenure-Track 129
9 Practitioner to Academic: A Composition of Transitions
Timothy M. Sibbald 133
10 Surviving and Thriving in the First Years of Tenure-Track: A Journey Through France, Spain, and Québec
Margarida Romero 145
11 For Academy’s Sake: A Former Practitioner’s Search for Scholarly Relevance
Lloyd Kornelsen 159
12 Transitioning to the Academic Tenure-Track at Mid-Career: Exploring Adaptive and Maladaptive Responses to Challenges and Adversity
Peter Milley 179
Section IV
Editors’ Preface—Early Tenure-Track 199
13 From There to Here
Victoria (Tory) Handford 203
14 The “Ten-Year Road” to Tenure: A Personal Narrative of the Beginning Phases of the Journey
Greg Ogilvie 217
15 Professor, Student, Mother: Can You Have It All?
Kathy Snow 233
16 Just Today and Just Tomorrow: Building Capacity on the Tenure-Track in New Brunswick
Lyle Hamm 249
Conclusion—Tenure-Track Advice 265
Contributors 273
Index 281