| Surviving and Thriving in Academia |
Once you are offered the position, the critical process of negotiation begins. Applicants often are not aware of the importance of this process to their potential long-term survival within the institution. In addition, they may be uninformed about how to proceed to ensure their greatest advantage throughout the negotiation process. In fact, without the proper mentoring and advising throughout the negotiation process, applicants may not realize the impact these negotiations might have on their future satisfaction and ability to succeed in their academic careers. Often, applicants are naive about promotion and tenure and the importance of establishing, in advance, the criteria for moving successfully through this process. Therefore, you, as an applicant heading for negotiation, should recognize and understand: the importance of degree requirements, salary, equipment, and research space; what the department expects of you; promotion and tenure standards and procedures; and the availability of sabbaticals and other types of leave.
1. Degree requirements
2. Salary, equipment, and research space
In state institutions salaries are often public information available in the reference section of the college library or through the Affirmative Action Office. Your receipt of research grants and external funding can be used to positively influence salary negotiations. You may also negotiate additional prerequisite packages including moving expenses, travel allowances, research funds and/or space, time and/or space for private practice, support for continuing education and training, and support staff. Even when salaries are restricted to a particular range, there may be some leeway to purchase startup equipment such as computers and laboratory supplies. If your research program will require space in addition to your primary office, you should negotiate this also. You should also discuss the availability of research or teaching assistants and clerical help.
3. Departmental expectations
There may be some big differences in the department's expectations for White women than those for ethnic minority women. Minority applicants are often expected to be knowledgeable about ethnic minority psychology-some will be and some will not. The ethnic minority candidate should make a point of determining whether the department expects him or her to teach the ethnic minority psychology class, to mentor minority students, and to serve on the minority committee. Being prepared to respond appropriately to these expectations might make or break an applicant.
Women and ethnic minority faculty members are often overwhelmed with extra committee assignments, service responsibilities, and student advising and mentoring. In many research institutions, these activities all fall under the evaluation area of "service," which is often the least valued area in promotion and tenure considerations. For example, Suinn and Witt (1982), in a survey of graduate programs in psychology, found that "minority service" was viewed by department chairs as the number one obstacle to earning tenure. In a more recent follow-up survey to this study, Suinn (1996) found that minority service continued to be identified among the top four obstacles to earning tenure. If the department expects you to engage in committee and service activities related to "minority issues," it is critical to negotiate for their added weight in the evaluation process. If these expectations are not made clear from the beginning, but you observe that other women and ethnic minority faculty on campus are heavily engaged in these types of activities, you must be cognizant of the potential implications of your choice to engage in such activities.
In some cases, it is possible that you will be the only ethnic minority member of the faculty on campus. If that is the case, and students of color are on the campus, you can expect that those students will be directed to you for advising and mentoring. Because ethnic minority faculty members often share a deep level of understanding and empathy for the struggles of ethnic minority students, they often welcome, or find difficult to turn away, this type of activity. However, even if it is encouraged at the departmental and/or institutional level, you should know from the beginning if it is likely to be rewarded or overlooked during the evaluation process.
4. Promotion and tenure criteria
You should seek to obtain agreement with the department on the exact criteria used during the promotion and tenure process. Ethnic minority faculty members are often inundated with service requests within the department, the university, and the community. This may be because of the need for ethnic minority representation on various committees, the need for ethnic minority role models for students, or because of the perceived or demonstrated expertise of the ethnic minority faculty member in diversity issues. Although serving in these roles is valuable, the time required often competes with time needed for faculty duties, such as teaching, advising, and developing a research program. Further, if the promotion and tenure criteria reflect only more traditional faculty roles, you could be at a distinct disadvantage. This is most often reflected in the slow development of a program of research. If your duties will include diversity functions, you should negotiate while you are a candidate as to whether or not promotion and tenure criteria will also reflect these service and diversity roles. Some institutions, in order to ensure the promotion and tenure of new faculty, reduce the teaching loads for the first few years, especially if new faculty members are doing a great deal of service with community and ethnic minority students. This is an important option to explore.
5. Sabbaticals and other types of leave
Traditionally, sabbaticals, a period of time (often one or two semesters) during which a faculty member is released from duties to pursue a research project, write a grant, develop a new course, etc., are awarded after a faculty member has been tenured. However, some institutions are now utilizing leaves or sabbaticals in innovative ways. It is often the case that the most important time for an individual to have uninterrupted time to research and publish is before the tenure process. Some institutions have developed special programs in which they grant leaves to junior faculty of color and female faculty for the purpose of preparing for tenure. This is something that you may negotiate during the hiring process.
You might also inquire about other types of leave a junior faculty may get to pursue professional development opportunities such as funded postdoctoral research or study, or a congressional fellowship. Maternity and/or family leave policies should also be discussed. Be sure to understand the positive or negative impact each type of leave might have on the "tenure clock."
Make sure that any agreements are put in writing as part of the final offer that you will accept and sign.