What’s the best way to find out about available grants?

JANE SAYS:

There is no one way, but many. If you are a grad student, make sure you talk with your mentors (plural!) about funding sources in your areas of interest. Distinguish between fellowships and grants, as the former are usually for you alone whereas the latter often require a faculty PI to sign off on your behalf.  Also, don’t forget to check both private (foundations etc.) and public (government) sources of funding. If you are an international student, you will not be eligible for fellowships/grants from government sources unless you are a permanent resident; private organizations make up their own eligibility rules. Exception to the exception: international students can compete for grant/fellowship competitions internally held at your institution.  But in general, for non-nationals, private foundations become an important lifeline.

Apart from your mentors, check with your graduate school – they often have a website devoted to upcoming competitions, both internal and external. If your grad school doesn’t, check the grad school websites of top-10 schools around the country.  Remember that they often post deadlines way too late for you to tailor your project, get it through the required official channels – including signatures from financial officers (whatever your school calls its “Office of Sponsored Programs” or “Grants Management”) and Human Subjects Approval (sometimes needed at time of application, other times needed at time funding is scheduled to start). So think about funding sources one year before you actually need to apply. Most of these deadlines are recurrent, on an annual basis.

Also, read the acknowledgments often printed on the bottom of the first page of articles, and at the start of books.  It tells you who has supported that research – and thus can give you ideas for who might support yours. And talk to older graduate students, both in your department and outside. Don’t cast yourself too narrowly. Maybe your approach to research makes you eligible for humanities or hard-science based funding opportunities?

If you are already post-dissertation stage, which grants and fellowships you can apply for depends on whether you are in academia, or whether you are working e.g., for a non-profit or research facility.  If you are an academic, the same rules apply.  Key is now to make sure you are applying for grants aimed at your target group (e.g., junior profs, or post-docs).

Finally, keep in mind the NIH for health-related (broadly conceived) work, and the NSF for sociology more generally. NSF funds quantitative, qualitative, and comparative-historical research, and is particularly interested in funding data collection (rather than simply funding data analysis of existing data). Many foundations support sociological research, including SSRC, Russell Sage, Spencer, Sloan, Guggenheim, William T. Grant, and many others. It is worth meeting with the grants/foundations relations people at your university to see if they have ideas about where to look. Seed grant money can also come from the ASA Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline.

What are the components to a grant proposal? Where can I get samples of successful grant applications?

A successful grant proposal should show that it (a) is about an important topic, one with real relevance to the world outside of sociology (even when it is basic research), (b) is being carried out by someone who knows the relevant literature and is likely to produce the research (funding a proposal is taking a gamble; the review panel will try to increase their odds), and (c) has a strong research design, one that is likely to yield useful and important insights.

There are lots of guides available online, and the following essay contains great information:  http://fellowships.ssrc.org/art_of_writing_proposals/.

In addition to following general rules about how to organize a grant proposal, make sure you read, and follow, the funding agency’s actual grant guidelines. For instance, if they request information about the broader impact your research will have or how it relates to the funding agency’s mission, make sure you address this head on.  How to get examples? If you know someone who got a grant/fellowship from an agency where you want to apply (say, NSF, or Ford Foundation), ask them. Many funding agencies will list their most recent grant recipients online.  Even if the proposals are not posted, contact the recipients and ask them to share their recipe for success (or even the grant proposal).  They are your peers – probably just a year or two ahead of you in grad school/tenure track – and you will likely continue to run into each other at conferences down the road.

What are some issues to keep in mind when applying for funding for a quantitative project? For a qualitative project?

Regardless of your methodology, your proposal needs to demonstrate the elusive theory-method-data link. Make sure you understand this part: Most proposals get rejected because that link is broken.  For example, if you propose to study how gender identity shapes people’s conflict resolution strategies, doing interviews may not produce the most accurate picture.  Perhaps an experimental design, or a survey would be better.  If you want to examine how different policy contexts affect educational outcomes, you need to be clear about whether your theory is better designed to explain cross-sectional or longitudinal policy-outcome trends, and use the appropriate data.

Apart from that, good proposals, regardless of methodology, demonstrate that the PI has (or will acquire) the skills to complete this project in the intended timeframe, that the data can actually yield answers to the questions asked, and that the concepts being invoked can be gauged reasonably well with the data available. Providing the funding agency with a table of what your data sources are, what variables you will use to gauge which concepts (if quantitative) or what your coding scheme is likely to look like if collecting your own qualitative data can go a long way to getting approved.

Beware of falling into the trap of thinking that quantitative proposals have a better chance of getting funded.  It’s the theory-method-data link that remains key.  Unfortunately, in my own experience as a reviewer, some proposals simply fail because they come across as what we call “trust me” proposals – in other words, the reviewers get the impression that the PI is on a fishing expedition but fails to verbalize a clear research question, or expectations grounded in one or several (competing or complementary) theories, or seems to engage in haphazard data collection/analysis.

All that said, there are some things to keep in mind that are specific to quantitative work. You may be more likely to receive funding if you are collecting data rather than analyzing existing data. If you aim to collect data, it is important to show that you have really done your homework, and you need to know exactly how you will collect the data—right down to the interview schedule for surveys, the operationalization of measures and sources for quantitative historical data. If you are analyzing existing data, explain in detail why you need the funding, what it is about the data that requires a great deal of time and effort. You should demonstrate considerable knowledge about the data set in question, the available variables, and how they will allow you to answer your research question.

With a qualitative project, be clear about how you will collect the data in ways that maximize your contribution to the existing scholarship. If it’s historical work, specify the archives or other sources you will use and how you selected your cases; if it is interview or field research, specify how you will choose your cases, and give as much detail as possible about setting up the study to allow you to address your research questions.

I know nothing about budgets. What do I need to know?

You need to know where to find a good grants manager! There are people within your organization whose job it is to help you plan the budget. Use them.

Be aware that there is a huge distinction between fellowships and grants. This affects how your funding is routed (and when you get paid), whether taxes are withheld or you need to squirrel some away yourself. Depending on the size of the grant (not usually an issue for grad students), it also affects whether your institution gets to charge “indirect cost” (often used to maintain labs, equipment, etc.).  For regular grants, you will need to include not only your salary but also fringe benefits – your institutional financial officer knows what that means.  Each institution sets its own fringe and indirect cost calculation, and each funding agency can also impose limits on what they do and don’t pay.  Alas, this means that what you need to know to write up one budget justification may not be the same as what you need to put into the proposal when sent to another funding entity.  For example, one university takes 54 cents per every $1.00 the researcher receives for a federal grant, but only about 20 cents if it is a foundation. If you allocate funding for travel or equipment, make sure you give reasonable estimates. For travel etc., use federal guidelines (online, e.g. at www.gsa.gov).  For equipment, talk to your institution’s IT people. Unless you are a total techie yourself, buy it through them, so that you don’t have to worry about maintenance etc.

Do I have to get IRB approval before I apply?

That depends on the funding entity to which you are applying. Most definitely, you will need it by the time the funding starts – or they can suspend your award.  Remember that going through IRB can take months (unless you are exempt from review, which is NOT for you to determine), and that many IRB committees, especially at smaller institutions, do not meet during the summer months.

Can you describe the review process? Who reviews them? How long does it take?

That also depends on the funding source.  Federal government agencies (NIH/NIMH, NSF, NIJ and the like) usually have a panel of experts which meets regularly, in synch with the application deadlines.  Many private foundations follow similar norms. The panel members rotate, of course, so it’s not as clubby or secretive as you might fear in your more paranoid moments (and we all have those…).  Sometimes, the panelists don’t know who sent the proposal (making the review double blind, just like article reviews), sometimes they know it’s you. But usually you will not know who reviewed you (a blind review in one direction).  Sometimes, the expert panel reviews are supplemented by other, “external” reviews from specialists (or generalists) in your field.   Most of the time, funding entities try to get multiple reviews, upward of three per proposal.

How long it takes also depends on the funding source. Some funders want a letter of intent as a first step; this prevents you from wasting time if your proposal is not what the foundation has in mind. Most proposals will go through a several month long review process. You can contact the program officer for information.

If I don’t get funded, should I reapply? If I’m asked to revise, do I have to make every change the reviewers suggest?

Yes. And yes, within reason. Remember that people want to help you and are usually donating their time to giving you advice, so take it seriously.  Sometimes, reviewers give you advice that would take your project in opposite directions (e.g., one might suggest adding a longitudinal component whereas another wants to see an expanded cross-sectional analysis, or they disagree on how you should frame your study theoretically). Figure out which suggestion will strengthen your proposal. Find a good reason (and explain) why you have chosen not to follow a particular piece of advice given to you.  Run the reviews you get, and your ideas for revisions, past your mentors (again: plural!).  If the funding agency does not provide written feedback automatically, contact the program officer and ask whether it might be possible to obtain them anyway, or get a digest of comments from the program officer.

Are there best practices you could suggest to a novice grant writer?

If at first you don’t succeed, try try again. This goes for new and experienced grant writers.  And if you are going to put a lot of time into writing a proposal, maximize the output.  Find 3 (or more?) potential funding sources and send it off to all three.  You will increase the odds that at least one of them will come through.  They may not all fund the same thing. For instance, an NSF dissertation grant or Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Grant might help pay for your training (methods, language) or travel or equipment expenses, whereas a fellowship from *** will fund your living expenses for the year.  Just make sure you do invest the additional time to tailor your grant to the appropriate funding source.  It turns reviewers off when they get proposals that were clearly written for some other agency and some other purpose/mission.

What advice would you give to a graduate student seeking funding for a dissertation?

Apply! And apply! And apply! There are many opportunities out there, and since you’ve already had to write a dissertation proposal for your department, it makes sense to try. While it is disappointing not to get funding, it is better to have tried than to have not. It also will

teach you something about the process. Start looking early.  Start looking the year before you first plan to apply (just so you get a sense of who’s out there, and when the deadlines are).

In general, as you build your academic career, expect rejections and learn not to internalize them.

Start small.  Get internal grants first, for instance from your department or academic division, for an early part of your (M.A. or diss.) research project. This can include a travel grant to present your work at a conference, training courses at ICPSR, equipment so you can do interviews, or getting onto a faculty member’s grant as R.A., etc.  By building a record over time, you increase your chances that other funding entities will want to support your work as well.  It’s all about external validation.

What are the benefits of seeking grants from a private foundation?

Private sources of funding often have more leeway in what they can let you use funding for: living expenses, project-related expenses; if you are a faculty member: what you pay your RA or a consultant, whether you can use the funds to buy a course off….   Also, because many private foundations don’t allow institutions to charge the full amount of indirect cost (either limiting or eliminating it), it often means more bang for your buck, from your point of view.  Of course, for your institution, the picture looks different.  While they love the prestige that comes with external funding, especially from foundations, they’d prefer to benefit from both the prestige and a share of the funds from federal grants. Think about what you need. For example, NSF Sociology doesn’t support course releases but private foundations often do. If TIME is what you need, funding from a private foundation might be better.

Are there any approaches feminist researchers can take to ensure that their grants are taken seriously by reviewers?

If you are able to suggest reviewers, list at least five people that you know are conversant with feminist work, and who would provide useful reviews. Don’t try to mask the explicitly feminist nature of your work, but also emphasize that your project contributes to knowledge beyond feminist audiences. It is endlessly surprising to me how few feminists serve on grant panels, but I also rarely run across reviewers or panelists who are explicitly hostile; it’s more likely that I run across people who have no way to assess feminist work, or are vaguely uncomfortable with the “political” nature of feminist work. Also, if you are a feminist researcher, be willing to serve as a reviewer on grant proposals, and serve on review panels!

Regardless of whether you are a feminist, make sure you actually pose a research question that (1) has not been answered yet, (2) is answerable (with the methods and data you propose), and (3) of interest to a broad audience.  This means stay away from proposing a study to which you presume to already know the answer.  Put differently: If you already know what you are going to find, why on earth should I fund your research?  Make sure you differentiate being a scientist (which means you use theory and want to produce new knowledge) from being a pundit (which means you use ideology to confirm what you’ve known all along). If you are not designing a project that could produce new knowledge, and thus unanticipated findings, you have no reason to request research funding.  Bad example: “My study will illustrate how rampant and pervasive heterosexism affects the way juries arrive at verdicts in domestic violence cases.”  Better example: “My study examines whether, and if so, how the way juries arrive at verdicts in domestic violence cases is shaped by prevailing gender norms.”

I am currently on the market and preparing for my first campus interview. What advice can you offer as I prepare my job talk?

JANE SAYS:

The job talk is one of the most significant phases of the campus interview process. While a good job talk will not ensure that you will be offered the position, a bad job talk may very well disqualify you from further consideration by the search committee. In addition, your handling of the Q&A is an important piece of the job talk. Delivering a solid, well-organized job talk and Q&A session is thus essential to performing well during the campus interview process.

SO WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS OF A GOOD JOB TALK?

A good talk is a clear talk. You should organize your job talk around a clear question, a clear argument, and a clear conclusion. It’s a good idea to simplify your basic argument (summed up in a sentence or two), state it explicitly both at the beginning and the end of the talk, elaborating on the simplified argument throughout the rest of the talk. In order to construct a well-organized presentation, the substance of the talk should be clearly framed around your argument. You want to make sure you don’t draw the audience into a thicket of other issues. Structure the talk like a story. Make clear what you are asking, why your research question matters and how you have answered your research question. It is also vital that you clearly address the “so, what?” question! Be certain that the title of your talk reflects the argument you’ll be making as well.

A good talk is on something you know well. Resist the urge to develop a talk around something new, a line of inquiry that you have not yet fully fleshed out or examined in the work you’ve completed thus far. Choose a dissertation chapter with which you’ve developed a good bit of familiarity, even one you have already published or submitted for publication. It will take a lot of the stress out of the preparation of the talk, and you will look a lot more knowledgeable and smooth. There are times to take risks; this is not one of them.

A good talk is interesting to the broad range of sociologists or interdisciplinary scholars that will be listening to the talk. The job talk differs from the presentation of a conference paper in that it is more an introduction to your intellectual biography and research agenda, not a talk geared specifically toward subfield specialists. So don’t write a talk that is focused for a specialty audience or journal. Write a talk that has clear relevance outside of your subfield, one that will allow the audience to connect with your arguments.  Don’t use highly technical or specialized terms, and if you are presenting sophisticated statistical analyses that some may not be familiar with, present them as simply as possible, but offer to answer any additional questions during the Q&A portion of the talk. In the same vein, rather than focusing narrowly on the significance of your work within your subfield (or within your discipline, for those interviewing for positions in multidisciplinary departments), make clear the broader context of your work and its implications in the wider world.

A good talk does not summarize the dissertation. It is fine to devote one slide at the beginning and/or end of the talk to set it within the broader context of the dissertation. It’s also fine to spend one slide at the end of the talk contextualizing the talk in relation to a larger research agenda. But a talk that attempts to summarize all of a dissertation – no matter how good the dissertation – will come across as diffuse and confusing. You could focus on one empirical chapter from the dissertation, or organize the talk around one or two key contributions of your work to sociological theory, research methods, or a specific substantive area.

A good talk is a short talk. Many places will ask you to prepare a 45 minute talk; if so, prepare one that’s 40 minutes. If they ask you to prepare an hour talk, prepare one that’s 50 minutes. Your audience will thank you, and will be more awake and interested if your talk is shorter. Also, don’t make the talk shorter by talking fast. A 40 minute talk should use no more than 12-15 slides (and fewer is generally better). Never go over time!

A good talk incorporates visuals. Power Point has become a norm in sociology. It is possible to give a great talk without it, but many people are more visual than auditory, so they will appreciate the visual cues that Power Point provides. You can keep Power Point from taking over your talk, however, by making sure that the slides are simple, with a minimal amount of text (4-5 points per slide max), so you don’t lose your audience. Don’t use animations or lots of bells and whistles. You can incorporate pictures, but don’t use canned Power Point images. And always have a backup plan in case the technology fails (Power Point on a USB drive, transparencies made from Power Point slides, a printed set of slides or an outline of the talk, etc.).

Other tips:

• Be sure you have a clear idea of the search committee’s expectations for your job talk. How long should it be? Who will be in the audience (in some places deans attend, in others undergrads attend, etc.)? What level of technology will you have access to?
• Be prepared. Write a talk beforehand, and practice it so many times you almost have it memorized (practice to your mirror, to friends, to your advisor, and to department members). Strong talks often look exceptionally smooth, but it’s only because the person has practiced a lot. If you have had experience teaching, use that experience here! Being prepared also allows you to be spontaneous, such as showing how your work relates to others in the department where you are giving the talk.
• Be enthusiastic, use lots of examples, and try to bring in humor if you feel comfortable doing so. It’s nice to start the talk with a joke to diffuse tension. There will almost always be one person who starts nodding off during your talk, or simply looks disengaged. Don’t worry about that person but do try to keep most of the audience engaged and with you. Enthusiasm – about the department, about your research, and about the questions they ask – is almost always viewed positively (but, of course, don’t go overboard). If you find yourself getting nervous, be sure to remind yourself what it is you enjoy about your research. Remain connected to the passion you have for your research and this can serve to quell your nerves if you’re feeling stressed.
• HOW SHOULD YOU PREPARE FOR A Q&A?
• If someone offers to field questions, let them. You don’t want to be the person trying to remember everyone’s name or worry about insulting someone by skipping over their question
• Practice the Q&A beforehand with friends and others. Ask friends to ask you the hardest questions that they can think of. Ask them ask you the easiest questions they can think of. Prepare answers to them all. You will be judged on how well you think on your feet.
• It’s often useful to reframe a question in your own language, and then ask the questioner if you got it right. This shows that you are taking them seriously, while also ascertaining that you understood what they were asking, and gives you time to think about the answer. If you are not sure of the answer, it’s fine to say, “I need to think about that more” (but don’t say it again and again), or to say, “My data doesn’t really speak to that question, but I don’t mind musing on the answer.” But be honest… it could be potentially disastrous if you offer a fabricated response to a question posed by an audience member who is well aware of the answer to his or her own question.
• Take notes as people ask you questions. It signals that you take their ideas seriously and would be an open and engaged colleague, and that you are also interested in making your work better. It also gives you time to think. And, these notes can be useful in preparing for later job talks (and Q&As).
• Be enthusiastic about the Q&A. You want these people to think of you as someone who enjoys an intellectual back-and-forth, rather than a terrified job-seeker (even when the second may be true). Many people note “That’s a good question,” but try not to say that more than once. However it’s fine to come up with alternative ways to tell people that you’ve appreciated their question and the back-and-forth. You may also follow up with anyone who asked you a particularly insightful question after the session or even after the interview is over.
• Don’t spend a long time answering any one question. If you’ve spent 5 minutes answering a question, it’s been too long. Keep your answers short (if possible) and signal that you’re willing to keep talking even after the session or via email.
• Always treat questions seriously, even if one seems uninformed or suggests that they didn’t actually pay attention. Answer directly and with respect.
• Recognize that there are different norms regarding Q&A. In most places, people are trying to impress their colleagues more than challenge you. In many places, Q&A can seem hostile (they rarely really are), but if you answer graciously and make it clear how much you value the speaker’s perspective (even if you disagree), you will win points. In other places, you’ll get lobbed a bunch of softballs, but it still matters that you respond with enthusiasm and come off like someone who’ll be fun to chat with in the hallways. If you receive relatively few questions, don’t freak out – again, it may be a norm of the place.
• You do not always need to agree with a person who asks you a (challenging) question. You should, however, attempt to show why their point is a valid one, but also why you think your argument is still the better of the two. At times, the same question will be repeated by a number of audience members. This suggests that they are not sure that you understood the question, or are dissatisfied with your answer. But try to avoid getting caught up in an endless loop with one person, or on one issue.  If most people aren’t buying your answer-approach, and the issue comes up repeatedly, try to step back and acknowledge this, repeating the point you started with:  “Well, I can see many of you are skeptical about my answer.  You are making the very valid point X.  [I acknowledge and appreciate that, and if that hasn't been clear let me state that now -- if that's true.]  But I want to emphasize the other side of that, counterpoint Y, and here’s why.”

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The main things to keep in mind are delivering a clear, well-organized, well-developed, and broadly-oriented yet focused talk, that doesn’t run over time. Preparing for the talk, practicing multiple times in front of colleagues and professors, and conveying enthusiasm all help turn a good talk into a great one. Similarly, practice the Q&A and try to prepare answers for the variety of questions you may receive. Use the Q&A to convey that you are a thoughtful scholar, interested in and respectful of other people’s ideas, but able to articulate your own perspective clearly.

CAVEAT to all professional advice:  Always check with your departmental colleagues, chair, dean, etc. to find out what the norms and expectations are in your institution. And consult with your professional mentors to determine what is most appropriate in your specific situation.

Most people would probably answer no to that question.

But hard drives die. Everyone knows someone who has had a hard drive die beyond retrieving anything from it. Don’t let it happen to you!

I didn’t used to back up my computer’s contents regularly, and I’m still guilty of not regularly backing up photographs. But, about a year ago I started using Mozy.com’s free back up service, and now every single morning at 8am, a complete back up is made of my most important folders– i.e. my dissertation folder, job market folder, and teaching folder. I don’t have to even think about the back up or remember to do it. It just happens. To back up my entire hard drive I have to plug it into an external drive, so that happens less often. Even so, I know that everything has been backed up at least once a month. And the important stuff, once a day. And that’s peace of mind!

Here’s some links to advice on how to keep regular back ups:

• Backups are one of your most important tasks…
• Back up your PC’s hard drive
• Geek to Live: Complete, free Mac backup
• Online storage comparison

“My partner and I have both been offered fantastic jobs in different states.  We are trying to decide whether or not to attempt a commuter relationship, what advice can you give us?”

JANE SAYS:

Congratulations on your job offers. Should you decide to begin a commuter relationship, much of your experience will be unique to you and your partner and your individual personalities and relationship dynamics.

Let me begin by saying that some people report many positive aspects of commuter relationships. If the job opportunities that present themselves are as fantastic as you suggest, then your actual work lives might be much more satisfying than if you accepted less than fantastic jobs in the same location.  Also consider the joy of eating whatever you want for dinner, whenever you want to; having flexibility in your daily schedule; having
time to write without interruption, to develop friendships, or to attend an evening lecture without cutting in to “couple time.”  Some of this may not be possible if you have children and are the primary parent.  However, there are also some positive aspects of being the primary parent in your children’s lives. You can develop special routines and rituals and have more flexibility in those routines as well as be involved in the children’s school and other activities.  While being the primary parent can be exhausting, it also has some great
rewards.

With that said, there are some challenges that you may want to consider as you make your decision.

My first bit of advice is to make sure you communicate, not just about your initial decision to become a commuter couple, but often and regularly about how the arrangement is working for you.  When deciding whether or not to attempt a commuter relationship, you’ll want to talk about:

• What other alternatives do you have?
• How often will you realistically be able to be together (every weekend, once a month, etc.)?
• Who will do more of the commuting?
• How often will you re-evaluate your situation?
• If you have children, where will they live?

Financial Concerns:

If you are in a commuter relationship with someone from the corporate world, the company might subsidize some of the expense.  This type of financial support for commuter relationships is highly unlikely in the academic world. Consider the cost of travel.  Does your commute require driving or flying? How often will your schedules and your checkbooks allow you to be together? Can you arrange for housing that is conveniently located near the airport, bus or train station, or highway to make the commute a little bit easier? Will you be maintaining two households? Do they both need to be “full size” or can one be smaller than what you would normally want?  If you will be living together for extended periods of time during the summer or other academic breaks, will you be in an area where it would be relatively easy to sublet? Another financial concern that is less obvious involves health care.  If either of you will be spending a considerable amount of time in a different state (or different city), will your health care plans cover any doctor’s visits or emergency room visits that happen outside of your area?

Coordinating schedules:

Academics sometimes have the luxury of being more flexible than other professions/occupations.  However, some academic departments might not be very flexible.  Be sure to find out if you will have flexibility in your
schedule or will you, as the new person, have to teach M, W, F at 8:00 am and 4:00pm, limiting your weekend travel schedule?  Given the flexibility many companies now have with telecommuting and flextime, it is entirely possible that a non-academic partner may be the one with the most flexibility in terms of commuting.

Your Relationship:

If you do choose to commute, be sure to make time for yourselves (as a couple). This is especially difficult if you have children because the absent partner may feel guilty about not spending all their time with the children
when they are there but you have to attend to your relationship, too!  It’s easy to become very independent of each other (you probably already are very independent people or you wouldn’t be considering this option!). Make sure you spend time doing things you enjoy together and not just sitting together while you grade papers.
Talk about your work and your life so your partner knows about your colleagues, your classes, whatever is important to you.

Integrating friendship and social networks:

What affect will a commuter relationship have on you and your partner’s ability to form social and support
networks individually and together?  Will you feel “left out” when you visit because you do not know your partner’s friends (and vice versa)?  If you are spending every weekend together and treating it like a romantic holiday, will it keep both of you from building beneficial social networks in the places where you live and work?
Meeting your partner’s friends and colleagues (and vice versa) is important to help stay connected to each others lives but also, if at some time, you both end up living together in one place, the new “resident” will feel more at home and have some ready made networks in place.

Parenting:

If you have children, you will have to decide where the children will live.  If the primary caretaker is in an academic position, she or he might want to try to live near campus where there will be lots of available (student) babysitters.  Kids can benefit greatly from having relationships with college students and many
college students miss being in a family situation. Many commuting parents compare their situation to that of a single parent. But, unlike a single parent who might be able to make solo decisions, commuter couples (like some divorced or separated couples) have to try to negotiate co-parenting from a distance.  When I was a
teenager, my parents spent nearly a year in a commuter relationship. I remember when, to my father’s horror and disbelief, my mother let me start “dating.” My father felt left out of the loop on that decision and also seemed to feel left out during his weekends home because we had all developed busy lives and schedules during
the week that didn’t include him. Some commuters suggest finding ways to stay in touch during the week (like email or text messaging) and also finding ways to keep the absent parent “present” in the family by talking about them and what they are doing (“I heard from mom today and she said he has a big meeting in Chicago
tomorrow.”) and keeping them involved in plans (“Be sure to call dad and tell him when your school play is.”).

Reuniting:

The possibility of ending up in the same place again (or for some people for the first time) probably does not seem like a challenge.  But many commuter couples report difficulties learning to be together after long separations.  For some this difficulty has to do with learning to blend work and personal life when they
have been used to more separate or compartmentalized living. For example, you both might cram everything in at work during the week, so that when you’re together you’re “on vacation.”  One summer my husband worked in a different state for 12 weeks.  I missed him, but I LOVED having the house to myself and having an orderly and routine schedule.  When he returned, it took a while to readjust to his more chaotic and messy lifestyle (a lifestyle that seems to work perfectly well for him).  Whichever partner makes the move will also have to adjust to a new job. For an assistant level academic position this will involve negotiating a new tenure clock. If you and your partner are actively attempting to find jobs in the same place.

“I’m beginning to think about retiring from academia and I hear people talk about “planning” for retirement – what kinds of plans do I need to make?”

JANE SAYS:

First let me say, congratulations on reaching this new chapter in your life. Often when people refer to “planning for retirement” they mean making sure their finances are in order.  That is certainly an important piece of the puzzle; however, there are a few other things that you might want to take into account as you transition into retirement.

When to retire:

• You may (or may not) want to consider the timing of your retirement. On a political level, the interests of your department (or specialty area) might be a factor. Will your line be renewed or terminated?  Will it remain in your department?  Will it remain in your area of specialization?
• Another issue to consider is that you may need to start planning well in advance in order to take advantage of your final paid sabbatical.  The rules at most universities require a person to return for a full year after a sabbatical (see Hey Jane column 13). This means that one has to determine when she is eligible for a sabbatical and plan at least three years in advance to coordinate sabbatical and retirement: a year to apply for sabbatical, a year to go on sabbatical, and a year to come back to campus before retirement.
• The progress of your graduate students may influence the timing of your retirement.  Would you want to be able to continue directing theses and dissertations? Would you be allowed to do so after retirement? Some universities require emerita status in order to continue serving on graduate student committees (more about emerita status below).
• Grants and grant funds might be an issue as well. Once again, emerita status may allow you to apply for grants to be administered by the university and to use grant funds you have already been awarded.  If you are receiving (or expecting) grant money, you should check with your research office and/or the funding agency to clarify the details. You may find yourself in a situation where a grant is postponed until after you are scheduled to retire.  You may not be allowed to receive salary from the grant after retirement, but may be able to continue to receive expenses.  There is likely to be a great deal of variety depending on the grant.
• Service on key committees may influence the timing of your retirement. No one is indispensable, but sometimes the right senior person can make a difference on a project or an important committee. Once again, emerita status may allow you to continue to serve on department or university committees after retirement.

Emerita status:

Universities handle emerita status in different ways.  Some institutions bestow the status as a matter of course, while others consider it to be highly merit-based and require a process similar to the tenure and promotion process for the awarding of this status.  Even in the less competitive models, if an institution requires the nomination by a department, there have been cases in which a department declined to nominate a retiring colleague based on past political and personal differences.  While benefits that accompany emeritus status vary from institution to institution, some common ones are: library privileges, internet access (web space, e-mail), parking permit, office and/or lab space, permission to serve on campus committees, access to recreational facilities, discounts for athletic and cultural events, and discounts at bookstore. Other benefits less commonly offered include: tuition waivers for family members and permission to work on sponsored grants. Some universities hold a special ceremony for conferring emerita status.

Financial:
Clearly financial considerations are significant. How much financial planning one has done and what financial obligations one has are important issues.

• Phased retirement options will vary by university, but in general provide a gradual transition to retirement status. Typically these plans allow faculty to work less than full-time (often half time) for one to three years for proportionate salary.  Sometimes faculty retain full benefits, sometimes benefits are also proportionate (or some are full and some are proportionate).  Once you decide to enter into phased retirement, you are likely to be locked in to that decision, so plan wisely.  These plans have a variety of names – one retired SWSer mentioned an interesting one: Retirement Incentive Plan (RIP!)
• Your university is likely to offer financial counseling for retirement. If not, TIAA-CREF offers individual counseling.  See their website for more information: http://www.tiaa-cref.org.
• Debates about the fate of Social Security aside, for the time being, you will want to find out when it makes sense for you to collect social security. Check out the following website for more information: http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/
• If you are fortunate enough to have written a popular book (or books), royalties will continue. You may also consider limited speaking engagements for supplemental income.

Staying involved in sociology:

Many people continue to be involved in professional work after retirement.  One retired SWSer even commented that she is sometimes so busy with professional projects that she feels she “needs a sabbatical from [her] retirement.” Some suggestions for staying involved in sociology include:

• Continue to publish or edit, or get back to publishing if you have spent many years with a heavy teaching, service, or administrative load.  Or, serve as a peer-reviewer or on the editorial boards of journals.
• Maintain membership and be active in professional organizations including, but not limited to, holding office, serving on committees, organizing sessions, being on the program. The American Anthropological Association has an Association of Senior Anthropologists; it’s rather like an ASA section or an official dues-paying caucus in that its members get program sessions and funds for a reception based on the number of people in the association.
• Get involved with new professional organizations. Maybe now is the time to involve yourself in an international organization that you always had your eye on, but never had the time to fully participate.
• Continue to attend departmental colloquia and other events at your university.
• Seek short-term, full-time appointments at other institutions. Fulbright has a senior specialist program – http://www.cies.org/specialists/. This program allows you to organize visiting positions for 2-6 weeks. Fulbright pays fare and $200 per diem. The host pays housing and meals. You can do it once a year for five years.
• Be a consultant or expert witness.
• Volunteer sociological expertise, e.g. doing qualitative or quantitative research for not-for-profit organizations.
• Teach as an adjunct on your own or another campus, maybe even in a different department.
• Be a public sociologist. Write op-ed pieces on topics of interest, give public lectures, organize around social issues.
• Mentor students or junior colleagues.

Maybe you are ready to exit the world of sociology, but want to continue to earn some money and do productive or creative work.  Turn a hobby like photography into a second career, start your own charitable organization . . . the possibilities are nearly endless.

Or maybe you are ready for some well deserved rest.  Go for it. You’ve earned it.

Other thoughts:
Although many retired sociologists report enjoying the freedom of retirement, a few struggles they mention include:

• Getting re-organized to work at home. What things from your office do you really need?
• Should you continue all your journal subscriptions and where should you put all the books and journals (and art work and coffee mugs) from the office.
• Also, it appears that the work-family (or work-personal life dilemma) continues for some people after retirement.  For those continuing to pursue professional interests, it’s still the case that a grandchild’s birthday may conflict with a paper presentation at an international conference.

Many people report that they love being retired. If your body and pocketbook are relatively healthy, retirement allows time to rest, to travel free of teaching schedules, to read novels, to garden, and to take pleasure in all kinds of activities you always wished you had the time to enjoy.

“I want to cite my friend’s work in my new book, but I don’t know if it is appropriate to do because of our relationship. I don’t want to recreate the ‘Old Boys Network’ of which I’ve always been critical.”

JANE SAYS:

I say, if the work is relevant to cite, of course you should cite it!  You should also let your colleague know that you have cited her.  It is particularly important for young scholars to know when and where they have been cited for tenure and promotion consideration.  And citations in books are often harder to track than citations in articles.  I would also add that if your friend’s work is good, you might consider assigning it in your classes, recommending it to other colleagues, and nominating it for an award.

While the exclusivity of the so-called “Old Boys Network” can be very frustrating, we could all learn a thing or two about self-promotion, networking, and supporting our colleagues.  In fact the mission of organizations like SWS is, in part, to do these things in a more inclusive way than the “Old Boys” model.  Unfortunately, after 10 years in the discipline, I am just learning some of these things, but many SWS members do them very well. Hopefully the lists of ideas below will spur the listserv to generate more ideas for all of us.

Suggestions for supporting and promoting our colleagues:

• Publicize the accomplishments of your colleagues.  You can do this at many levels – your department, your college, your university, professional organizations, etc.  Listservs are a great place to publicize accomplishments (and the SWS listserv members are great at doing this!).  Other arenas include professional organization newsletters such as Network News and Footnotes, as well as the newsletters of sections within professional organizations – such as the Health and Health Policy Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
• Invite your colleagues to guest lecture at your institution.  This is a great way to promote the work of a colleague.  Others are introduced to her work and she gets to include an invited lecture on her CV.  A bonus for your institution is that colleagues who are not yet “famous” will not cost as much as those who are, but may still generate very lively and interesting discussions.
• Refer your colleagues to editors and others.  If you have been asked to write a chapter and you are just too busy, suggest a colleague.  This helps out the editor/publisher and promotes the work of your colleague at the same time.
• Recommend or nominate people for key committee assignments and elected positions.  While we want to help protect each other from being overloaded with committee responsibilities, we also want to help each other find our way on to important and influential committees on our campuses, in our professional organizations and in our communities.
• Nominate each other for awards.  Don’t be afraid to nominate your colleagues for awards.  Award committees are often desperate for nominees.  If your friend/colleague is still “unknown” in your sub-field and if her work is deserving of an award or recognition, it’s up to you to make the nomination.  I’ve even gone so far as to make up new awards.  On my campus, the director of the umbrella organization that houses all the progressive student groups is an amazing woman.  Her dedication to the students goes far above and beyond the call of duty.  So, this year I convinced our women’s studies program to create a mentoring award.  There was virtually no red tape, we just created the award and presented it to a deserving recipient.

Suggestions for self-promotion and networking:

• Send copies of your work to key people.  When this idea was first proposed to me I thought it sounded very pretentious, but I did send a few copies to people who had offered support to the project in some way or another.  Everyone sent lovely e-mails thanking me for sending a copy of my article.  Now, I send copies to a wider and more strategic array of people.  I send to people who might be able to cite me in their own work and also to people who are editors of anthologies where my work might be considered for future editions.  I might even include a note: “I used your book in my women’s health class.  The students loved it, but wished there had been an article on midwives.  I’m sending along a copy of a recent article in case you’d like to include something on midwives in your next edition.  If this piece doesn’t fit with your plan for the book, a couple other articles you might consider are . . .” This way I combine self promotion with supporting and promoting my colleagues.
• Send announcements about your accomplishments to professional listservs and newsletters.  Not only is it fun for friends and colleagues to learn what you’ve been doing, but it’s also a way to get your name (and your work) “out there” in front of a wider audience.  I often look at newsletters’ “members’ bookshelf” sections for ideas of books to use in courses, to order for my library, or to read for research purposes.
• Ask to be invited to give a guest lecture.  If you’re uncomfortable with a bold proposition, you could let people know that you’d be willing to give a talk to their class or on their campus.  If you are still getting your feet wet with these kinds of presentations, you could offer to do this for only the cost of travel, room and board.  But don’t sell yourself short, after you have a few of these kinds of presentations under your belt, find out what the going rate for someone in your position is and ask for it!
• Self nominate for positions within professional organizations.  It is perfectly okay to nominate yourself for positions.  If you are uncomfortable nominating yourself, ask someone to nominate you.  You might let them know why you want the position and what your qualifications are.
• Introduce yourself whenever you get the chance – you never know what these connections might bring.  I recently completed a developmental review for an edited collection.  One of the essays was written by a woman who lives in a country I happen to be traveling to this summer.  I asked the publisher for this woman’s contact information and we now have plans to meet when I am visiting her city.  This may turn out to just be lunch and interesting conversation.  But, it could also lead to mutual invitations for guest speaking engagements, facilitation of student study abroad opportunities at our respective universities, writing collaborations, and who knows what else.

Self-promotion has never been easy for me (and I imagine I’m not the only one).  I’m much more comfortable supporting and promoting friends and colleagues.  However, as I’ve taken baby steps toward self-promotion, I’ve found that the results can be very rewarding and can go far beyond simply advancing an individual career.  Relationships can be formed that end up benefiting far more people than just the individual who started out promoting her own work.

Included films: My Daughter the Terrorist, No! The Rape Documentary, Living on the Fault Line, Where Race and Family Meet, Slumdog Millionaire, The Breast Cancer Diaries

And Jessie over at Thinking at the Interface has a fantastic list of documentaries for classroom use.

The New York Times has an article on the video “The Story of Stuff” about the effects of consumption.

Tomorrow’s Professor has a great article on testing and grading strategies.

A few guidelines about testing and grading can help instructors to: (1) strengthen the process of instruction, (2) clarify the diagnostic value of testing, (3) make a fair assessment of what each student knows, and (4) report this achievement through grades.

And the Everyday Sociology Blog has a great piece on “cognitive dissonance” and sociology classes. I’m tempted to send my summer students as required reading. What do you think?

Historiann has another great post, this time on “opting out”– reminding us all we have the power to say no and not participate in discussions and situations that may be unhealthy for us.

Becky over at the Every Day Sociology Blog writes about using participant observation to study subcultures and includes recommendations for further reading.

Tomorrow’s Professor Blog has tips on writing before you’re ready and avoiding writer’s block.

There are some great suggestions for Internet tools for PhD students (and not only for students) over at 32 Days Remaining.

Lifehacker recommends a new Firefox addon to keep you from goofing off online when you should be working.

“Although I already have a tenure-track job, I have decided to go back on the job market.  I’m afraid that if I don’t include a letter of reference from a colleague in my current department, then the search committees will think that I am underperforming in my current job.  What advice can you give me about informing my current departmental colleagues about my job search?”

JANE SAYS:

Generally, pre-tenure, it’s not advisable to let it be widely known that you are on the job market.  Despite your actual reasons for searching, people will come up with their own interpretations.  They may assume that you are unhappy in the department, that you are just trying to get a raise, or that you are afraid that you might not be granted tenure.  All of these interpretations may influence the way you are treated in your department by some people.

With that said, I think it is assumed in academia (and in most fields) that everyone is potentially always on the job market and if they find another job that improves their lives, they might resign.   One big difference between academia and other fields is that our job searches are spread out over a much longer time frame than most.  This leaves us with a much longer time period to feel like we are “keeping a secret.” I’ve known people who love their jobs and love their departments, but simply want to move to a different geographic location.  Because they have supportive colleagues, they feel guilty about even looking for another job.  There’s no need to feel guilty, I think most people understand that you “have to do what you have to do.”

As far as a letter of recommendation, if you have a departmental colleague whom you really trust to be confidential, you could ask her or him to be a reference.  It can certainly be handy to have a letter that says “so-and-so is an amazing scholar, teacher, colleague and human being who would be a terrific addition to your faculty.  We really would hate to lose so-and-so, but our loss would be your gain.” However, that letter doesn’t have to come from someone in your department, but might come from a trusted colleague in another department at your institution.  If it is simply not possible to ask anyone at your institution for a recommendation, don’t fret, search committees understand the delicacy of applying for jobs while you are currently employed.

As for informing the rest of your departmental faculty, I would say wait until you have a written offer on the table.  However, if you are hoping to receive a counter-offer from your home institution, you will probably need to begin talking with your chair and/or dean with only a verbal offer.

Once you are tenured, job hunting is a whole different story.  At this point, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for a letter from a departmental colleague.  Ideally, you wouldn’t want to bother people for letters until you have made a short-list based on your CV, however, some searches will request letters right away.  In this case, you might contact the search committee and ask if you can postpone letters of recommendation until the short-list phase of the search. At this level, there is still no need to widely inform people of your search, however, once you’ve been invited to interview, it’s probably okay to let people know.  Often, someone desired elsewhere becomes more valued at home.  Once you’ve been offered the interview, you might want to inform your home institution because some administrators have the freedom to make preemptive counter-offers to encourage faculty to decline the interview.  The counter-offer might be attractive enough that you will choose to forgo the interview.  However, if you turn down the counter-offer and then are not offered a job, you have lost out on whatever was offered by your home institution.

A few more things to consider:

• If you are actively trying to leave your home department, you might try not to make big extracurricular commitments (long term committee work, chairing student committees, etc.) to your department while you know you may not be there to back them up.
• Once you have accepted another offer, you may want to consider how you will notify your colleagues.  Depending on your situation, it may be worth the time and effort to talk to everyone individually to explain your motives for leaving – especially if they are personal and not a reflection of the work environment or department. This will cut down on people relying on the “grapevine” and other people’s interpretations of why you are leaving.  It may make the difference between severing ties and maintaining ties with the department.  If you chose to use the opportunity of leaving a department or university to vocalize a complaint, try to do so carefully and diplomatically. The world of academia is a very small one and it’s never a good idea to burn bridges!
• This whole process can be tricky and you may want to have more guidance than this column offers.  In this case, you might seek a mentor through SWS’s professional needs mentor program.  Applications can be found at: http://www.socwomen.org/page.php?ss=6.

CAVEAT to all professional advice:  Always check with your departmental colleagues, chair, dean, etc. to find out what the norms and expectations are in your institution. And consult with your professional mentors to determine what is most appropriate in your specific situation.

I hope this helps!

– Jane

“I am on the job market and have been asked to participate in a phone interview. My department has prepared me well for the on-campus interview, but I am less confident in my phone interviewing skills. Help!”

JANE SAYS:

Phone interviews are a very important part of the interview process.  Search committees often use phone interviews to narrow down a short list of 10-12 people to the 2-3 people that they will invite for campus interviews.  Phone interviews are tricky because non-verbal communication is completely absent.  However, there are many things you can do to prepare for your phone interview.

General Tips for Phone Interviews:

• Usually, the phone interview will be scheduled ahead of time.  However, if someone calls and wants to interview on the spot, it is perfectly okay to ask to schedule the interview at a time that is better for you.
• Be prepared.  This is not just a casual chat, but is often a very serious stage of the interviewing process. Just as you would prepare for a face-to-face interview, during a phone interview, you should know something about the organization, department, and people who will be interviewing you.  You should be prepared to answer questions about your research, teaching and service and to ask questions about the position, the department and the university.
• Practice!!  Many departments give graduate students the opportunity to do “practice job talks” but may not provide an opportunity for practice phone interviews.  Ask your mentor or your friends to practice a phone interview with you.  This is especially important for conference call phone interviews (which I will discuss more a little later).
• If possible avoid taking other calls or potentially stressful meetings just prior to the call.  One time (before caller-ID) I answered the phone about the time the interview was scheduled and it was my mother.  Before I could say “can I call you back, I have a phone interview any minute now,” she blurted out that her neighbor (someone I was close to) had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  While I tried to clear my head and get ready for the call that came about two minutes later, I know I was not at the top of my game that day. Needless to say, I was not invited for a campus interview.
• Make sure you have a quiet environment.  If at all possible, leave the kids and the pets in another room (you might even consider hiring a babysitter).  Make sure that background noise such as televisions, washing machines, etc. are eliminated.  Turn off the ringers on any cell phones that might be in the room.  You might also consider turning off the call waiting function on your phone if possible.
• Know your equipment.  Many people recommend using a landline phone with a cord rather than a cell phone or a cordless phone that might lose power or in some ways be less reliable.  If you plan to use a mute button or a speaker phone function, make sure you know beforehand where they are and exactly what they sound like on the other end.
• Dress nicely.  Even if you normally wear pajamas when you work from home, it’s a good idea to dress for the phone interview as you would for a face-to-face interview.  It puts you in the mind frame of a professional meeting.  However, if you normally wear earrings, you might take them out for a phone interview as they could clatter against the phone or just be uncomfortable while talking on the phone.
• You might consider standing up while participating in the interview. This will keep you “on your toes.”  And SMILE!!  It will come through in your voice.
• Keep your CV and any notes you have about the department handy.  You may want to post large notes on the wall, this will keep them at your fingertips, but let you avoid the sound of rustling papers.  Also make sure you have paper, pen and calendar close by.  It’s unlikely that a campus interview would be scheduled right away, but it is possible.
• Don’t eat, drink, smoke, chew gum, etc. while participating in the interview.  However, you might remember to have some water handy in case your mouth gets dry.
• Remember that they can’t see your non-verbal cues.  If you need a minute to think about an answer, say “That’s a great question, I need to take a minute to think about it.” Or let them know when there might be an unexpected silence or unexpected noise -  “Excuse me while I take a sip of water.”
• Don’t ramble to fill the silence.  Finish your answers with a note of finality.  You want to avoid yes or know answers, but keep your answers succinct and with a clear ending.

A Note about Conference Call Phone Interviews:

Conference call interviews are a whole different monster.  Personally, they are my least favorite way to be interviewed, but they are very useful from the interviewer side.  It is a way for the whole search committee to hear your responses rather than have one person on the committee report back to the group.  All the same tips apply as for any phone interview, but I would emphasize practicing even more in this context. Especially with conference call interviews, I suggest asking friends to find a speaker phone and help you participate in a mock interview.  You might even suggest that your graduate department add this to the practice job talk.  One of the biggest problems with conference calls is that it can be a bit nerve wracking if two or more people talk at once or if you don’t know who is asking the questions.  If someone doesn’t identify themselves – it’s okay to say, “I’m sorry, I missed who asked that question?”  and then repeat the name, “That’s a good question Jane, my research addresses the . . . .”

Suggestions for Search Committees conducting conference calls

A conference call interview can be incredibly intimidating for a job candidate.  To help reduce some of the stress and be able to get a more realistic sense of the candidate’s abilities and personality, the committee might consider some of the following suggestions:

• A group of three to six people is ideal for a conference call.  If more than six people need to be in the room, you might consider limiting how many people will actually ask questions.  Of course everyone who is in the room should introduce themselves.  If you have 25 people in the room, you might let the candidate know that only 5 people will be asking questions.
• Know your equipment.  You might practice calling a colleague in the office down the hall, just to test the sound quality and know where any speaker or mute functions are and how to use them before beginning the phone interviews.
• Make a plan beforehand . . . if you’ll be asking each candidate the same set of questions, assign a question to each member of the search committee and ask them to go in a specific order.  You might even practice once before starting the interviews.
• Make sure someone is in charge of making introductions, controlling the flow and generally avoiding the chaos that can happen during conference calls.
• Identify yourself every time you speak.  If you happen to be on an interdisciplinary search committee, you might even state your name and department the first couple of times you speak.
• Even if you’re dying to say something, wait your turn.  People talking at the same time can be torturous for the candidate on the other end of the line.

If you are well prepared for a face-to-face interview, you should do fine with a phone interview if you keep these simple tips in mind.

CAVEAT to all professional advice:  Always check with your departmental colleagues, chair, dean, etc. to find out what the norms and expectations are in your institution. And consult with your professional mentors to determine what is most appropriate in your specific situation.

I hope this helps!

– Jane

JANE SAYS:
The first and most important piece of advice is: don’t be defensive in the framing of your teaching evaluations.  Instead, think of this as an opportunity to outline how you plan to improve.  Hopefully there will be at least one item or aspect of teaching for which you have scored well.  Start by pointing that out. Then, for items where your scores were not as high as you would have liked, be prepared to outline a specific plan for improving those scores.  Your plan might involve visiting your institution’s teaching resource center, subscribing to a teaching journal, or attending a teaching workshop at an ASA or SWS meeting. Your plan might be even more concrete, such that you propose a curriculum change or altering a current classroom practice.  By outlining your plan for improvement, when it’s time for your next review, hopefully you’ll be able to narrate a success story.  For a specific example, the excerpt below comes from my 4th year review statement:

On the overall evaluation item, the range of my scores changed from 3.4-3.9 for my 2nd year review to 3.6-4.6 with 4 out of 9 classes being above a 4 since the last review.  In the past I have been concerned with the evaluation items that purport to measure “points of view other than own,” “encouraged and responded to questions” and “respect for students.”  I have always done very well in these areas.  The last two years, I have focused on improving my evaluations on the items that claim to measure “lectures consistent with objectives,” “exam questions correspond with class material,” “unbiased grading,” and “informed class of grading criteria.”  Since I have been focusing on these items, my scores have been consistently high, ranging from 3.7 to 5.0 with most falling above a 4.0.  In the spirit of encouraging students to “claim their education,” rather than passively receive it, I have started asking introductory students at the beginning of the semester to articulate what expectations they have of their professors.  This usually leads to lively discussion.  In addition to helping the students formulate and articulate their expectations, this exercise helps me know what their expectations are at the beginning of class rather than waiting until the end of the course to see if I’ve lived up to those silent expectations.

It can also be useful to give some context to the evaluations.  One of my evaluators put it nicely by writing:

The committee notes that “Jane” teaches courses on deviance, crime, gender and health – courses that tackle issues of contemporary moral and political concern and in doing so raise the hackles of some students.  One of Professor “Jane’s” goals is to present students with a wide range of views on course topics.  Her success in meeting this goal may be seen in some comments written by students.  For example, Professor “Jane” is simultaneously too much of a feminist and not enough of a feminist.  Course content has a liberal spin and is even handed.  The committee reads these assessments as an indication that “Jane” is doing a good job of presenting a reasonably balanced perspective on topics covered in her courses.

You don’t have much control over how your evaluators frame your evaluations, so you need to give context yourself. Once again, let me emphasize that this shouldn’t take on a tone of defensiveness. If your evaluations indicate that students felt the course was too hard, or they didn’t understand what you wanted from them, or they have never been asked to think about these issues before, turn that around ask why they felt that way. There are several ways to do this that demonstrate you care about the negative evaluations and are working to do something about it.  For example, you can develop your own assessment questionnaire that asks students about their prior experience with certain types of assignments, pedagogy, or using certain skills, as well as the extent to which certain assignments or materials helped them to develop new skills and knowledge.  This can be very useful because 1) it allows you to provide a meaningful context for their dissatisfaction.  If they found the reading too difficult, having information about how often they have been asked to read journal articles in other courses, or if they know how to outline a reading can allow you to explain a source of their dissatisfaction as rooted in frustration.  2) It also allows you to demonstrate that students are learning even if they don’t “like” the course.

In addition to providing your own set of evaluation questions, you can also provide another source of information in your materials for review.  Many institutions now encourage peer  evaluations.  If you have time before your review materials are due, you might invite a colleague to observe you teaching a class and write an evaluation to include in your review file.  For your next review, you might consider an on-going “faculty coaching” relationship.  This is where two faculty team-up and spend time observing each others courses, discussing goals and strategies, and sometimes conducting focus groups with each other’s students.  This is a formative process and can not only help improve students’ course ratings, but allows for another person who has worked with you in a sustained way, to speak to the dynamics in your classroom and your teaching strategies.

Finally, if you honestly think that students are responding to your personal characteristics (age, gender, race, sexuality), it could be appropriate to use some of the existing literature on factors that affect student course ratings, but again do not rely on these in a defensive fashion.  Rather, show that you are in a situation that studies have shown to be associated with lower course evaluations.  It is best not to use this literature in isolation, but in combination with one of the strategies above.  (See the Report on Gender and the Evaluation of Teaching on the SWS website under Academic Resources http://www.socwomen.org/index.php?sss=116)

Again, this is a time to frame poor evaluations as an opportunity for becoming a better teacher, as stated above. Be clear that you WILL work to improve your evaluations, however it will not be at the cost of diminishing your commitment to your feminist pedagogy.  Be sure to explain that commitment and how it makes you a good teacher now, even if it is not showing up through student course evaluations.

CAVEAT to all professional advice:  Always check with your departmental colleagues, chair, dean, etc. to find out what the norms and expectations are in your institution. And consult with your professional mentors to determine what is most appropriate in your specific situation.

I hope this helps!

– Jane

Gina at the Academic Ladder has a great piece on avoiding writer’s block.

For those still in grad school or still paying off loans, consumerist has posted a “big ass” list of student loan resources.

Career Advice: Dancing with Kate Smith at Inside Higher Ed has some great syllabus tips.

Historiann interviewed the editor of the journal Gender and History, Ruth Mazo Karras. Both posts have excellent general advice on publishing in academic journals.

Dave over at Academic Hack has some great tips on academic branding and creating an online portfolio.

Here are responses from SWS members. Responses are usually kept anonymous but the last one is from one of our own SWSers who is a tax expert so she agreed to have her professional identity revealed. We hope this helps in these perilous financial times.

There are two categories of deductions: one is professional expenses – what helps you advance as a faculty member — professional organization dues and meeting expenses, expenses incurred in doing research, books, journal subscriptions, newspaper subscriptions if you use items in teaching, fees and editorial expenses for submissions to journals, travel that adds to your professional expertise as a teacher. The other is business expenses against what you earn in royalties, lecture fees, and other non-salaried income — here I deduct 1/2 of home phone bills, internet costs, my home computer and printer and other home office supplies (you have to argue that you can’t use your office for writing), meals with people to discuss publication projects.

I would add/clarify that you get to deduct a “home office” IF it is used exclusively for your work (that part of your house then gets “depreciated”). (If you use a tax program like Turbotax, it does the calculations for you; you can deduct the tax program too.)  I think there are also some rules, that you have to “make” money in terms of your nonsalary “self-employment” some number of years, i.e., you can’t deduct computer, etc., and always spend more than you earn in your self-employment.  But these rules may have changed…But if you have a mortgage, and a home office, then this can offset quite a bit of any honorariums, etc. you have earned.

You can also deduct some travel expenses, e.g., if you rent a cabin, or go to a writing retreat center…or anything you are not reimbursed for from your department (ASA, SWS, etc.) that is professional travel.

And…for something completely wild, IF you get a Fulbright, or do a sabbatical abroad, and you are out of the country 11 months out of 12, the income earned is tax free.  the 11 out of 12 can be in two tax years, e.g., September thru July, and does not have to be continuous, and can be any country (including Mexico and Canada).  (You may have to pay taxes in the country in which you are living, but that is not common I think.)  So, even though Fulbright does not pay much, together with travel and local living expenses, and being taxfree, and if you live reasonably modestly, that can be quite doable.

Someone used to publish a book on “Taxes for Academics” or something, that carefully outlined all the regulations and what kinds of things can be included.  I used it for several years, but don’t know if  it’s available now, might be worth keyword-checking on Amazon.  Has  anyone checked the AAUP website?  They may well have some material or  references.  There are indeed many things that can be deducted, but the  home-office deduction is very easy to go wrong with.

The book is: 2005 Tax & Financial Guide For College Teachers And Other College Personnel: For Filing 2004 Tax Returns (Tax Guide for College Teachers and Other College Personnel) (Paperback) by Donald T. Williamson (Author).

Unfortunately, it seems to be out of print, and because it’s specific to 2004 filing, may be outdated in its advice as well.  My school has a copy of it on file- you may want to check with your institution’s library!

From Hey, Jane: the following site noted that this guide is, indeed, out of print but listed some other helpful books: http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeArnzen/023023

Here are the ones I’ve found that seem to be most current. I haven’t seen them yet, so I cannot endorse them fully, but the first one — from NTSAA — has been very helpful for me in the past:

• 2008 Educator’s Tax Guide Teachers Tax Service
• Teacher’s Pocket Tax Guide 2008

If you know of others, please leave a comment about them. Others that I’ve recommended on this site before seem, sadly, to be unavailable or out of print — and I am longing especially for a new edition of the the THICK and highly useful AIS book, “Tax and Financial Guide for College Teachers and Other College Personnel”. They might be available used on ebay or elsewhere. Useful for guidance if you are new to figuring your taxes as an academic professional, but rely on them only with the knowledge that their specific legal references are probably falling out of date.

PROFESSIONAL EXPENSES (INCLUDING TRAVEL)

As an employee you will only be able to deduct professional expenses, including organization fees, journal subscriptions, travel expenses, conference expenses and so forth if you itemize your deductions.  In addition, there is a 2% of your Adjusted Gross Income (found at the bottom on the first page of your 1040) threshold — you can only deduct those expenses that exceed that 2%.

If you are given a stipend or grant for travel, it depends upon the source as to how it affects your taxes.  If the grant is from a non-profit source as part of an academic grant, it is generally non-taxable and does not
have to be accounted for on the return.  If it is a grant from your department or as part of your compensation from an endowment, then it needs to be accounted for.  There are two kinds of travel grants in IRS lingo — accountable and non-accountable.  The accountable grant means that you have to present receipts after the trip and return the difference or wait for a reimbursement.  You generally do not need to account for this on your tax return as you have essentially been reimbursed for your expense.

If it is non-accountable, it means that you are given a lump sum of money and you are not required to return any receipts or account for your trip in any manner or return any unused funds.  You need to know if your employer has included this lump-sum in their reporting of your income.  If they have, then you can only account for your expenses as described above, as part of your Schedule A, itemized deductions with the 2% threshold.  If the employer does NOT include your lump sum with your income on your W-2, then you should claim as income on line 7 of the 1040 any unused portions of the travel money and pay taxes on it accordingly.  You do not have to itemize in that case, just figure the net and if it is a positive amount,
you need to pay taxes.  If it is a negative amount (you spent more than the lump sum, you cannot deduct that extra unless you itemize).

I think someone asked if you could consider this kind of grant money as “other income” and file a Schedule C showing your expenses.  If it came from your employer, then you cannot.

Travel expenses include transportation (ground, air, etc), lodging, incidentals and 50% of your food. It can also include convention expenses such as registration fees or items purchased in order to participate in the convention (such as a manual for a workshop).

You can also deduct continuing education courses and training that pertains to your work as a professional expense as long as it isn’t something you are required to take as minimum requirement for your job.

You might also be able to deduct books and journals you buy for research or teaching, if the research is being done through the university.  You cannot deduct books and journals you buy for your own personal or professional development.  The key is that it must be something that directly contributes to your work.  (a subscription would be a professional expense, but buying a single copy for reading would not)

If the school provides a computer, office, phone, etc., you cannot deduct your home computer, office, phone, etc. as an employee expense.  Employee expenses have to be required by the employer in order to do the work you were hired to do.

TAX CREDIT for CHILD AND DEPENDENT CARE

If you pay for day care for a child or parent, you may be able to take a tax credit for some of your expenses (it is pretty low amount, but every little bit helps).  You need to have the tax ID (SS#, EIN#) of the institution or person you are paying for the care and the tax ID (SS#, ITIN#) for person(s) for whom the care is given.  You and your spouse must both be working. If one spouse is in school full time for more than 5 months of the year, that counts as working. (Exception to this is if the spouse is permanently and totally disabled).  The form you attach is 2441 to claim the credit.  It cannot be larger than the amount of taxes you
owe.

MOVING EXPENSES

You can deduct as an adjustment on the front page of the 1040 expenses you incur in moving.  Moving expenses are contingent upon having a new job. If you are employed you must work 39 of the 52 weeks after your move (if you can reasonably assume that you will meet this requirement, you do not have to wait until you have actually worked). You must also be closer to the new job than you were to the old job (if you had one) and you must have moved more than 50 miles. The new job has to have been accepted within 12 months of the move. If you meet these requirements, you can deduct the cost of moving your stuff and the cost of moving you.  Your stuff can be whatever expenses it took — paying workers, several trips, etc.  You can only deduct the last trip you take one-way to the new home.  So if you fly back and forth to find a house, for example, then you can only claim the last flight.  If you drive back and forth several trips moving stuff, you can claim all the trips.  You can also claim 1 months storage at the new location and the deposits for utilities.  You cannot claim deposits for apartments or closing costs on home, etc.  You cannot claim food for your trip, only transportation & lodging.

Pattie Thomas, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor
College of Southern Nevada

General Manager
Liberty Tax Service
Las Vegas, NV
c:702-239-1414
e:pattie_thomas@yahoo.com

Column 23 (January 2008)

For this month’s Hey Jane! Column I asked you to send me your “best” piece of advice.

My best professional advice came from my mother, a technical librarian. 1) Always attend your professional meetings and 2) Be on time.

Send copies of your publications to people who influenced your work or people you would like to read (and hopefully cite) your work.

If you are shy or find it difficult to meet people at conferences, start small – “I’m going to meet one new person today.”

If you want to get involved in a professional organization, go to section business meetings.  Section chairs are ALWAYS looking for volunteers to organize sessions and serve on committees.

Even in our highly technological age, there is still value to the art of the phone call.   Nominate yourself for awards, desirable committees, and positions in professional organization.

Column 23 (January 2008)

For this month’s Hey Jane! Column I asked you to send me your “best” piece of advice.

Buy and use the book Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day (so that you don’t become paralyzed at the enormity of the project).

Regarding my dissertation, my mother (who is an academic) said to me, “Your dissertation is a brick, not a castle. Finish your dissertation and then spend the rest of your career building your castle.”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing substitutes for high quality publications — you can never make a ‘trade-off’ of this against anything else.  Period.”

“One idea per article,” meaning pace yourself in terms of articles.

My graduate school advisor told me to publish often – book reviews, instructor manuals, anything to get my name out there and lines on my vitae.  This was great advice – and if you can find a mentor to help you create such avenues for publication, all the better.

The best advice I think I ever got was to apply for every competition you see – campus syllabus competitions, theses, published and unpublished papers, books, and on and on.

Volunteer to be a reviewer for a journal in your area of study early in your career (ideally during graduate school).  Reviewing journal articles and book manuscripts has helped me to become a much better writer.

One time after multiple revisions requested by the editor of a journal, I found that I no longer recognized my own ideas.  A mentor advised me to “never let reviewers hijack your work.” In trying to appease several different reviewers, I had lost sight of what I wanted to say.  Use the feedback of reviewers and editors to help make your ideas better, but don’t let them turn your ideas into something you’re not comfortable with.  Rather, make the changes you find appropriate and then explain to the editor why you have decided not to make some of the suggested changes.

Column 23 (January 2008)

For this month’s Hey Jane! Column I asked you to send me your “best” piece of advice.

“Do not be defensive!”  It was advice given for my job talks, but it has served me well in every presentational setting — job talks, paper presentations at meetings and in the classroom.

After you finish a significant task or project big or small, PAUSE.  Take some time — whether 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days — to acknowledge your achievement before moving straight into the next item on your list of things to do.  There should ALWAYS be time to honor, even celebrate, your accomplishment, if only with a pause for a cup of tea.

Don’t let a bad situation make you become someone you’re not (i.e., petty, neurotic).

After you’ve faced a difficult situation, take a couple minutes and ask yourself, “If I had to do this over again, would I handle this differently, and if so, how?”  Then mentally file it in a folder marked ‘life experience’ and move on.

When you say “no,” sometimes it helps to think of it as “No. Period.”

Don’t say “I’m sorry” when you mean “excuse me.”

Something I’m fond of saying:  “There are two sayings that can be applied to any situation:  ‘Life is short’ and ‘Life is long.’  The challenge is knowing which one is called for in a given situation.”

One piece of sage advice I received from a professor/dean in graduate school was, politically speaking, to “pick and choose your battles” in the university environment.

“Stick to your knitting” meaning, don’t spend too much energy worrying about departmental politics.

Column 23 (January 2008)

For this month’s Hey Jane! Column I asked you to send me your “best” piece of advice.

My advice is: “Don’t put second prize ahead of first prize.” I think I made up that wording myself. But what I mean is, if you will regret never having children more than you will regret not getting tenure, then don’t wait until after tenure to have kids. You can have both, but keep your priorities straight.

Syllabus prep will take as much time as you give to it.  Therefore, resist the urge to revise your syllabus as soon as classes end in May.  Put it away until two weeks before classes begin in the autumn.  This will create at least two months of pure, uninterrupted time for you to work on your scholarship.  I have adhered to this religiously and it has made ALL the difference.  (As an aside I do a modified version of this over the winter break as well and it also works to create a good chunk of solid writing time).

As someone who let graduate school be all-consuming, when I became a tenure-track assistant professor, I made a conscious decision to live a balanced life.  I took my work very seriously, but finally learned how to set boundaries.  I chose to work from 9-5, Monday –Friday, and limit my attendance at evening lectures and events to no more than one per week. Of course there were times (grant deadlines, etc.) where I had to break my own rule, but sticking to this self-imposed rule 90% of the time, I was productive at work and maintained my mental health.  I achieved tenure and continue to apply this rule, although I now usually attend two evening events/lectures.

Column 23 (January 2008)

For this month’s Hey Jane! Column I asked you to send me your “best” piece of advice.

At a teaching university, I was advised, kindly and gently, that my students are not my reference group.  Whatever students may appear to think of me (or may say to me directly) has more to do with who they are than with who I may be.  This advice really helped me to disengage from student response to the courses I teach. I spend 12 hours a week in a classroom and I am required (by contract) to post 4 hours per week of office hours.  And students do expect that professors are available for a chat, a pep talk, a review session, all manner of things, even outside of posted office hours.  So, remembering that my reference group does not include students allows me to keep some emotional distance and focus on my big-picture goals (for educating the next generation of sociologists, as well as my own research interests). Actually, I’ve found that I need emotional distance even from students who think I hung the moon.  Most young people are still figuring things out and I try to avoid the seduction of being the “well-liked professor.”  I believe this supports my efforts to be the “respected professor” who offers students significant learning experiences.

As a graduate student I was being chastised for grade inflation.  I was told that if you don’t distinguish between “A” students and “B” students and “C” students and “F” students, in the long run you do the students a disservice.  It took several years for that advice to truly sink in, but now I really appreciate it.

Any self-criticism you make in the classroom will show up on your student-teaching evaluations.  For example, I used to occasionally say “I’m feeling frazzled” today and inevitably I would receive multiple written evaluations that said “she was often frazzled in class.”  It was the specific use of the word frazzled that clued me into the mimicking behavior of the students.

Always have multiple mentors.  At different stages of your career you will need the advice of different people.  Also, you can be a mentor at every stage of your career.

Column 23 (January 2008)

For this month’s Hey Jane! Column I asked you to send me your “best” piece of advice.

Get as broad a variety of experience in graduate school (research, teaching, advising, etc.) as possible.

Apply for jobs broadly.

This wasn’t exactly advice, just an observation, but it helped me figure out my priorities about the job market.   My undergrad advisor said once, “you have to like young people — really LIKE them — in order to be good at this job” (and the job he was referring to was being a professor at a liberal arts college, as opposed to a Research I institution).  When I was on the market and doing on-campus interviews I paid close attention to the way the faculty at different institutions spoke about their students.  I took the job at the one place where everyone seemed to actually LIKE their students, and I have never regretted it.

As for the best career advice I ever got, I think it is a tie between two, the first from a dissertation committee member and the second from an informal mentor whom I met through a professional organization (not SWS). The first involved a decision I had to make between two job offers, neither of which was an ideal choice. I was advised to take the one with the lower teaching load and the teaching assignments closest to my research interests and to gear my publication productivity level to the type of institution where I would like to work. The advice was good and I was able to move from my first job to one that better suited me. I don’t remember the exact wording of the advice from the informal mentor, but it basically was that to be successful and sane as an assistant professor in academia one needed to be always cognizant of the criteria by which one was being evaluated, but also “to thine own self be true…” If one strayed too much from one’s core values and core interests in the quest to be successful, one would end up alienated and ineffective in the long run.

The best advice I was given came in a “job market” class it graduate school: Stay away from temporary lecturer positions, or visiting professor positions unless they are at the institution where you received your Ph.D.

The best advice I ever received was to *meticulously tailor* each job application to the school to which you are applying (and I don’t mean just swapping out one sentence in your letter or reordering the paragraphs!).  I spent more time than my peers preparing my application materials, but it really paid off.  I came from a decent, but not great, school, and had a decent, but not great CV and I was invited for six campus interviews my first year on the market. It was absolutely the result of the extra time and care I put into those materials.

Regarding the job interview process, I was given three pieces of advice by graduate school professors:  1) Remember that you are interviewing the members of the committee as much as they are interviewing you – this may be your job for a long time; 2) You get an interview because you’re qualified for the position. You get a job because of the chemistry between you and the committee members.  Getting a job is as much about fit as it is about qualifications; 3) When someone on the search committee asks you if you can teach course “X”, you should say yes.

Column 23 (January 2008)

For this month’s Hey Jane! Column I asked you to send me your “best” piece of advice.

My best bit of career advice came when I was a senior in college – I had applied to graduate schools and also to law schools, gotten into both and was trying to make up my mind. My political science professor asked me what was attractive about each option — I said that law school seemed to be a route to self-support (since grad school led to the academic job market and in those days it was truly terrible) but the classes in grad school seemed more like fun to me. He urged me to do what I thought was fun “and when you can’t afford to do that anymore OR it gets boring, then shift to something that seems more practical” I then got some good (not great, but ok) fellowships for grad school that allowed me to indulge myself for at least two years and after that I thought I’d have to bail out and head to law school. But I’ve been in sociology for over 25 years and haven’t gotten bored yet! And I keep managing to pay my bills. My cousin, with whom I was close as a kid, made the opposite choice — he’s making a bazillion bucks as a drug company lawyer — but I have never once regretted following the fun rather than the money, and while I am not rich, I’ve never been poor since grad school either. It’s the classic “do what you love and the money will follow” moral but it really is the best advice — and vice versa: if you get bored and unhappy, quit! There are other routes to making a living, and you are never actually making a decision that you can’t revoke if you decide the career really isn’t fun for you after all.

One of the more interesting pieces of advice I received as an undergrad was to think less about one’s major and more about the type of work you want to do.  Otherwise you can end up like someone with a BA in history who hates teaching; what do they do next?  There are, of course, a few other things to do with a history degree, but what if they are no more appealing to you then teaching?  Then what?  This advice was based on the idea that if you like teaching, you could probably teach several things–what you majored in, almost majored in, minored in, or a couple of your hobbies–and be happy.  But if you study a subject and don’t see a job that you will be happy at, you’re in trouble.  The other good advice I got, which is contradictory on the surface, but can be combined with the above, is even if you are clueless where it is going, just study what you are interested in– rocks, languages, music, whatever–and just go with that. The third piece of advice I found useful, was don’t think about any of this stuff too much.  Something like 80% of people are away from their major within five years of graduating (with a BA). Personally I just ignored the conventional advice and picked the area where I thought I could have the greatest effect (as an activist/organizer/etc.)

Choosing a Specialization:

Go with your heart and passion.   We don’t make enough money to be in this business unless we really believe what we do matters.  So choose to do what matters to you.

My best advice was NOT to do an interdisciplinary Ph.D. degree…. I have seen people pay the consequences of doing so…. you can still do Women’s Studies within disciplinary departments. I see some of my students being encouraged to do Women and Gender Studies in graduate school and there are so few jobs out there.

Regarding choosing my area of specialization, as a graduate student I wanted to study sexualities. My graduate school advisor told me to pick an established field in sociology, learn to speak “mainstream” sociology, and then do more marginal sociology within that field.  So I now identify myself as a family sociologist with a focus on gender and sexualities. I have a great tenure track job – and I’m not sure I would have gotten it without fitting squarely into the larger field. And I still study the sociology of sexualities.