The Kardia Group

Achieving tenure is a, often the, major milestone in the span of an academic career - but what changes does it bring? For too many faculty the answer can be mired in too many new responsibilities, unclear transitions and expectations, and too little time to recover from the rigor of the tenure process.

With proactive consideration, however, tenure can bring a range of changes that bring satisfaction, challenge, and expansion to an academic career. Typical changes include:

• becoming a formal mentor
• needing to see and understand the complexities of tenure decisions
• new risks and risk calculations in scholarship
• discerning in new ways whether and how the advice and experience of more senior faculty apply to me
• a larger responsibility for the mission of the university (beyond how my scholarship contributes to it)
• greater identification with (and responsibility for) the "system" of higher education - it's policies and procedures and mechanisms
• different demands and possibilities of when and how to speak my mind
• more formal leadership roles and requirements
• greater responsibility for figuring out when and how to say no
• less clarity to the career pathway - there are many ways to get there from here (and many "theres" to get to)
• less protection from the politics and tensions of the department
• more responsibility for finding productive solutions, innovations, responses to crises, etc.