As the title says, I've got a new job.
But it's not really that exciting a switch, sorry :)
As of mid-August sometime, I will officially switch my appointment from
2/3 Computer Science and Engineering / 1/3 Microbiology and Molecular
Genetics, to 2/3 Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, 1/3 Computer Science
and Engineering.
Big change, right? Hah.
Well, in some ways. While the change reflects physical reality -- my
office and many of my interactions have been in the Microbiology
department for several years -- the key point is that my tenure case
will run through Microbiology (and the College of Natural Science)
rather than through Computer Science (and the College of Engineering).
This is preferable because I'm behaving more like a biologist than a
computer scientist: writing journal publications instead of conference
proceedings, and mostly not presenting at conferences. So I think
the tenure case will be easier through Microbiology. Since I'm up for
tenure in about a year, I think now was a good time to make the
change.
The other major reason for the switch is teaching. Computer Science
is heavier on teaching load than Microbiology, and serves a different
population; they were having a hard time officially recognizing things
like my NGS summer course as part of my teaching (it's "outreach" if
it's not credit-hour teaching, basically). Microbiology is
enthusiastic about my teaching, my workshops, and my outreach, because
I'm serving biologists. I'm still going to be doing an awful lot of
teaching compared to some of my Microbiology colleagues, but it's teaching
that is directly relevant to my research (and, increasingly, for which
I have external funding.)
Overall, I'm pretty content with the switch in appointment. But I do
have some experience now, and hence I have:
Some advice for Assistant Professors
Never, ever take an evenly split joint appointment (50/50). Always
take something uneven, like 51/49 or more skewed. That way there's
clearly one chair, department, and dean who take primary
responsibility for you. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!
Despite the existence of various kinds of guidelines for promotion
and tenure evaluation of interdisciplinary faculty, no one pays
attention to them. This has been a significant disappointment in
my dealings with upper administration here; they're very
(extraordinarily, better than any other place I've ever seen)
welcoming of interdisciplinary work, but the official channels of
authority and influence have not been rounded out very well, so
it's a bit of catch-as-catch-can.
Different departments have very different cultures of publication,
granting, teaching, service, and promotion. It may take a few
years to figure out which one is the best fit.
Any official mentoring strategies you may have seen are going to be
mainly honored in the breach, especially if you're a
multi-department odd-ball. At least, that's been my experience.
This isn't a bad thing, necessarily, but it does mean you need to
seek out your own mentors and maintain your own lines of
communication. (I have an excellent, diverse group of mentors who
spent a fair amount of time talking me off of roofs in the first
few years.)
Switching departments happens, and people seem to be mostly OK with
it. More importantly, if you have good reasons -- like, "my tenure
case will be stronger over here, because X, Y, and Z" -- nobody
serious will blame you. The CSE department made a significant
investment in me, and I really appreciate it! But this is the right
decision for my short-term future, and no one has argued with me
about that when I've explained myself.
This ability to switch emphasis is particularly important when you
are split between multiple departments, because -- as your research
focus changes, and your student recruitment changes -- you may find
that what was a good fit 5 years ago is no longer a good fit, so a
move may be the best thing you can do.
(Come to think of it, this may be a good reason to accept a split
appointment - the flexibility of switching depts. Hmm.)
More as I think of it....
--titus
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