ADEPT Development
Content: Career Accounts (used for web, AV, C&Q, NYC and SM components)
This is a case summary, or unofficial account, of candidate's career. This account is non-coded; annotated, or color-coded versions, are written with biases and procedural issues highlighted, and are used only in the "Cases & Questions" activity.
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Lily Wu
Considering significance of letters of reference & what kind of service counts
Clarissa Marlowe, PhD in Biochemistry from the Johns Hopkins
University, was hired by the Department of Physical Sciences at
Mythical Tech as an assistant professor. Marloweís research field is
central to MT and has been for a long time; she joined a number of
colleagues who do similar and complementary work in the same subfield.
Her start-up package was slightly better than average, and she was
immediately asked to participate in a committee analyzing why few women
are employed in science on her campus during her first year.
During her first three years at MT, Marlowe produced more than adequate
publications in the top-ranked journals [include titles?] in her field,
including one prize-winning paper. She wrote most of her papers with a
small group of faculty and graduate students, but some represent
collaborations with just one or two individuals.
Marloweís funding level as an assistant professor was about average for
her field. She was able to secure a lab budget based on an NSF grant
for new faculty in her area as well as some training grants for
individual graduate students. She also partnered with colleagues in
drug delivery on a moderate grant from a pharmaceutical company.
In her fourth year, she won a PECASE [or some other honor/]
Her students generally awarded her good teaching scores. Evaluations
for the intro-level course earned some negative comments (by 2-3
students) about her casual attire; since then Marlowe upgraded her
wardrobe and wears tailored clothing. She attracted excellent students
to her lab, encouraging some undergraduates to continue graduate study
at MT and welcoming new graduate students. She was also nominated for a
college teaching award by the undergraduate coordinator with
recommendation from the graduate director who cited her ìdedicationîand
ìlong hours in her lab with graduate students.î
In addition to her work on womenís issues, Marlowe was appointed to a
number of unit and college committees concerning visiting speakers,
honors, and search. She became especially active in a professional
society and in her collegeís network for junior faculty in sciences,
for which she helped organize a session on grant-writing for new
faculty.
The letters of reference in her promotion and tenure curriculum vita (cv) are
generally good, except for one taking issue with a paper [the
prize-winning paper? or a paper submitted to a journal that a p&t
committee member edits?]. The negative review takes an extremely
hostile approach to Marloweís argument and could have been published as
a counterpoint. It also comments negatively about Marloweís style in
the professional society, indicating a personal grudge. Another review
comments as much on the value of Marloweís service to the profession,
especially for women in her field, as it does on the value of her
research. The unit promotion and tenure committee is split about
whether the negative review and the one privileging service matter. How
would these reviews affect your evaluation of Marloweís reputation?
[Considering how technology gets evaluated in social sciences, promotion to full, age?]
Ramona Richards, Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, joined Mythical Tech after spending
some years [6?] doing development work with the Carnegie Foundation.
Her research described how changing electronic technologies affect the
formation of world markets; her particular specialization concerns
electronic bank interfaces in southeast Asian economies. By the time
she joined MT, she had established a body of research [number of
articles] equivalent to that of an associate professor, so her initial
MT appointment was made at that level, but she was a decade older than
the typical beginning associate professor.
Richards earned tenure in her second year at MT, as she continues her
previous high rate of productivity measured by cited papers and
funding. In her first four years at MT, the number of her papers, their
citations, and the amount of funding she receives were among the
highest in her college. Her teaching scores were universally excellent.
She typically taught the introductory course in Asian area studies, an
upper division undergraduate course in Asian microeconomics, and a
graduate course on science, technology, and developing nations.
In her fifth year, Richards was awarded funding from the Rockefeller
Foundation that to establish a lecture series and to support some
graduate fellowships in southeast Asian economics for students to
collaborate with her on research. She also designates some funds to buy
her out from some undergraduate teaching.
Connected with the Rockefeller project, Richards established a website
to publish research on technological breakthroughs in international
economies, the only electronic journal in the field. Although almost
all of her previous work appears in print journals, she began to
publish about 30-40% of her papers through the website as of her fifth
year at MT.
In her sixth year, Richards built on her development success with
Rockefeller by securing a substantial endowment from MT alum Gregory
Chan who had never before donated to the institution. Chan was
impressed with her scholarship, her coordination of the Rockefeller
lecture series, and her diligence in expanding the curriculum in
international studies of science and technology. He designated the
endowment for a distinguished chair for a scholar in technologies of
markets to be named at some near future date.
During that same year, Richards comes up for promotion to full based on
her new work [x number of articles], the Rockefeller grant, and the
endowment. It is widely understood that such a promotion is necessary
for her to be eligible for the Chan chair.
Although Richardsí record is generally seen as within the acceptable
range for a promotion to full professor, several concerns are raised by
members of the promotion committee regarding whether she has relied too
closely on her Carnegie contacts in receiving the Rockefeller funds,
whether her scholarship has recently slipped in that much of it appears
on the website the Rockefeller project sponsors, and whether she has
tried to leverage the system in recruiting a large donation for a chair
that seems designed for her. How would you consider such concerns in
the context of evaluating whether Richards ought to be promoted to full
professor?
[Considering soft vs. hard research, joint appointment in AE & ME, advanced assistant professor]
[should discipline be changed to something else?]
Robert Sorel, PhD from Cornell in Aerospace & Mechanical
Engineering, with a dissertation on Computational Methods for Space
Plasma Physics, joined the faculty of Mythical Tech as an advanced
assistant professor jointly appointed to AE/ME, after four years in
AE/ME at Princeton. Sorel moved to MT for personal and professional
reasons. He desired to move his family closer to extended family, and
he wanted to collaborate more closely with the MT AE/ME research center
on modeling the heliosphere.
Sorelís research field is new to MT, recently attracting a number of
highly regarded researchers from respected programs of engineering and
physics. After being at MT a year he published a paper with two
colleagues and four graduate students in (list journals, change number
of authors?) After two years as an MT faculty member, Sorel and
collaborators attract a lot of funding (amount: ); some from NSF and
some from aerospace industry. They published their results in three top
journals.
Sorel and a collaborator share an award for a paper in his second year
at MT from a division of his professional society. The focus on their
work earns the collaborators a number of invitations to speak at
international symposia (number: )
Sorel never taught MT undergraduates, only graduate students
specializing in his field. He received excellent student evaluations
from the few students he teaches, who comment on how much they enjoy
the competitive but social atmosphere of his classes and lab. He also
advised a student receiving best student paper from professional
society.
Sorel served as a member of departmental speakersí committee. Most
members of his unit regard him as a difficult person, keeping him away
from undergraduates. He is also not on any other unit committees, nor
is he appointed to committees outside the unit.
Letters of reference for Sorel provided at the time of promotion and
tenure are very positive, noting his quick start in a cutting-edge
field and the significance of his research. Two potential referees
decline the opportunity to send letters, citing time issues.
Discussion in the unit-level promotion and tenure committee centers on
intrinsic value of Sorelís work, questioning whether the computer
modeling he is personally credited with developing is as significant as
the ìhand-pickedî reviewers suggest, whether this kind of research is
enough to earn tenure. One member also raises the issue of his
difficult personality as problem affecting the scheduling of
undergraduate courses
Some committee members question whether this modeling analysis has
commercial potential (at least for the university and not just for
Sorel who might spin off a company) or is it just an interesting design
problem without real-world significance. (reconfigure this critique?)
As a member of the committee, how would you respond to concerns that
Sorelís research does not rise to a high enough level and that some
reviewers were not interested enough in his scholarship to write on his
behalf?
[Considering publication venues, order of listing of authors, contribution to articles]
Arthur Stevens, Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering, came up
for promotion to full professor after [number] of years in grade. He
published 35 articles during his 9 years at Mythical Tech, 17 of these
articles appeared in books resulting from conferences. Stevens was
almost always listed as last author of his collaborative publications,
although occasionally [number] listed as first author. His
collaborators were almost all graduate students. He never published an
article, book, or conference proceeding as the sole author. [has
possibly written or collaborated on a textbook]
Regarded as a capable, confident teacher who offered a range of
required and elective course needed by the unit, Stevensí teaching
averages on the CIOS ranged from 3.8 to 4.2 in undergraduate courses
and from 4.3 to 4.5 in graduate courses. A number of undergraduates
remark on evaluations ranging over recent years that Stevens is ìvery
accessibleî and an ìinteresting lecturerî who provides ìwonderful
graphicsî to illustrate his points. Although he has been nominated for
his schoolís teaching award, he has never received it. Graduate
students in his research group attest to his willingness to advise them
regarding career prospects in academe and industry.
Stevens managed to support a research group with a steady $300,000 (per
annum average, which is the unit average {mean?}) in funding, and he
was a good citizen of his school serving on school-level committees. As
a good deal of his research had commercial application, much of his
funding comes from industrial sources, companies and professional
alliances [would this be likely?].
Stevens never served on Institute-level committees, nor did he take
leadership roles in scholarly and professional organizations, although
his collaborative articles have established his international research
reputation in the field as external reviewers indicate by their
comments establishing 5 articles submitted with his promotion curriculum vita (cv)
as ìbreakthroughî and ìnow classic.î
Although some members of the school-level promotion and tenure
committee endorse promoting Stevens to full professor, others question
whether his publication record is adequate for such a promotion. One
member is concerned that only half of Stevensí papers are from refereed
conference articles, while another argues that as last author, Stevens
had little technical input into these papers. As a member of the
committee, how would you respond to these concerns and ensure that
Stevens receives a fair evaluation?
[Considering fluctuating productivity, leave of absence in probationary period]
Lily Wu, Ph.D. in Computational and Neural Systems from California
Institute of Technology, entered Mythical Tech as an assistant
professor. She specialized in distributed computing and computation in
neural and biological systems within the biomedical engineering group.
Her start-up package was slightly higher than average as her field was
relatively new and required the purchase of some fairly expensive
equipment. Three other assistant professors in closely related areas
were hired in the same year with similar packages. At the end of Wuís
first year, her chair complimented her on establishing ìa good rapportî
with her graduate students and for finding some success in publishing
two papers based on her groupís work with two more in press.
Publishing additional papers in Nature, Neuron, The Journal of
Computational Biology, and Current Biology, Wu continued her steady
publication record through her next two years. She also took on
responsibility for teaching one of the core courses for the
undergraduate program and for teaching a key graduate course
established in her area, earning above average and excellent evaluation
scores from students. Exit interviews of seniors conducted by the chair
indicate that all students appreciate Wuís thorough approach and that
many, especially women, find her to be a valuable role model.
In her third year, Wu wins a Presidential Early Career Award For
Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). In addition, during her probationary
period, Wu and two junior colleagues, along with two senior professors,
developed a new center in biocognitive processing that is nurtured by
MT before attracting a good deal of NSF funding.
Anticipating the birth of a child during the summer, Wu requested
during the spring of her third year two considerations: to receive an
unpaid leave of absence during the subsequent fall term and to be
released from teaching duties during the following spring under
provisions of the Active Services Modified Duties Procedure. In lieu of
teaching responsibilities in the spring, she proposed to design a new
elective for upper-division students in her field and to continue
working with the center that she helped develop. Her requests were
granted, thereby stopping her tenure clock for one year. In addition to
designing the new course, Wu published two papers during the academic
year of her leave and modified duties.
During the following year, Wuís official fourth year of service, she
returned to teaching and earned speaking invitations at European and
Asian seminars. It is in her fourth year (the year after her child is
born) that her publication record has a demonstrable gap: she has not
submitted any publications and none are published in that year. But by
the time she comes up for tenure, her rate of publication dramatically
increases, and her total record resembles those of the other assistant
professors coming up for evaluation at the same time. [Her original
cohort has already earned promotion and tenure, but Wuís stopping of
the tenure clock delayed her case for a year.] As a member of her
school promotion and tenure committee, how would you respond to
concerns raised by another member that Wu has taken too much time to
get to the same place as others under evaluation that year?
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