Sean Carroll's advice on How to get tunure

[petergreat]

Sean Carroll, a professor at Caltech, just wrote a wonderful article in his blog Cosmic Variance on "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/03/30/how-to-get-tenure-at-a-major-research-university/" ".

The article has many interesting points. And it reveals some darker side of academia as well. For example, Sean points out that publishing in more than one field only hurts your chance, because most people in charge of hiring resents breadth and want specializers.

 

[twofish-quant]

It's things like that that make me happy that I ended up outside of the research university. The thing about working in an investment bank is that you are very strongly encouraged to maintain outside interests, and things like organizational skill and teaching skill are pretty essential.

Much of the work of working in industry is giving "lessons" to bright but non-technical people about why they should be paying you.

 

[Vanadium 50]

For example, Sean points out that publishing in more than one field only hurts your chance, because most people in charge of hiring resents breadth and want specializers.

Actually, what he said is "don't dabble". That's different from what you said. It's good to make a major impact in one subfield. It's better to make a major impact in one subfield and a minor one in another. It's career death to make only a minor impact, no matter how many subfields you do it in.

Oh, and he is not a professor at Caltech. He's a senior research associate.

 

[petergreat]

Yeah, I noticed he was not a professor shortly after the post. That explains a lot about his article.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Sean Carroll, a professor at Caltech, just wrote a wonderful article in his blog Cosmic Variance on "http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2011/03/30/how-to-get-tenure-at-a-major-research-university/" ".

The article has many interesting points. And it reveals some darker side of academia as well. For example, Sean points out that publishing in more than one field only hurts your chance, because most people in charge of hiring resents breadth and want specializers.

Based on my experience as an Instructor at a major research university and now tenure-track faculty at a major public university, I would say that all of his major points are correct.

The only thing I would change is to put "get grant money" at the top of the list. A successful track record of getting significant extramural funding (like, $500k+ awards) quantifiably demonstrates most of the other requirements: do good research, be prolific, be technically sound, and make an impact. More and more institutions require even tenured full professors to recover >50% of their salaries from grant money.

However, it's also true that I was hired with the expectation that I would (eventually) receive tenure- the search process is long and time-consuming and the Department has to front some cash (startup funds) which is then lost.