Ed Aboufadel's Tenure Track Diary -- Part IV

By Edward Aboufadel

January 5, 1998: Today was the day that my portfolio needed to be placed in the department mail room for everyone to read. It is quite the doorstop ? I had to go out and buy a 3-inch binder for it all. It includes papers I?ve published, materials from my classes, notes from students, and various announcements. Seeing it all together reminded me that I?ve accomplished a lot over the past five-and-a-half years. So tenure and promote me already!

January 6, 1998: The head of the Personnel Committee just put a note on the electronic bulletin board outlining a schedule of events related to personnel decisions. There are nine people in my department that are being considered either for contract renewal, promotion, or tenure, so to make things manageable, we are going to consider three at a time. I am in the second group of three, which means that recommendations from individual faculty as to my tenure and promotion are due to the Personnel Committee by January 19. The PC will then turn these reports into a "department recommendation" that I will receive on January 26. Then on January 29, the department will meet to vote on the department recommendation. According to a memo from the Dean, I then have to send a bunch of documents to him by February 12. By April 1, the Divisional Personnel Committee makes its decision, and by May 1, the Dean makes his. The last decision is the important one.

I?m off to Baltimore shortly. As soon as I get back next Monday, I have three recommendations to write and submit.

January 12, 1998: The Baltimore meetings went by too fast. I spent most of my time either talking to job candidates or trying to sell our book on wavelets to a publisher. CRC Press has expressed interest, and they have promised to make a decision by the end of the month. Steve and I are cautiously optimistic, but I am not as excited as I was when the MAA first expressed interest last July.

I wrote the three recommendations and sent them to the PC. This week, I have only two portfolios to look at, since the third is my own. All three of us are being considered for promotion to associate professor, although I am the only one also being considered for tenure. My wife thought I was too hard on myself in my self-evaluation ? what will the other two write about themselves?

January 13, 1998: My student evaluations from last semester arrived in my mailbox, and a copy was put in my portfolio. The comments were pretty tame this semester. The worst was probably a complaint that I didn?t silence a student who asked too many questions. Another student said that I "have trouble understanding that students have many different learning styles," but also noted that I was a wonderful instructor and that, "I would take him again." Then there was: "He was not boring. I stayed awake." So, no potential promotion-killers there.

January 15, 1998: The search committee (which includes me) met today to decide on who to invite on campus for interviews. The discussion was inconclusive, and we meet again tomorrow. Meanwhile, the schedule for election of a new department chair was announced today. Nominations are due January 30, followed by written statements from the candidates. The election will be on February 16 and 17.

You might be starting to think that all we do around here is make decisions on who to hire and who to fire. I should mention that classes started on January 5.

January 22, 1998: A slight change to the chair election: there will not be written statements, since that isn?t the way we did it last time, and we don?t have the time to vote on changing the process.

January 23, 1998: The last day for my colleagues to comment on me (and two others) was the 19^th, and today the Personnel Committee met to compete the drafts of the official department recommendations for the three of us. I heard that they?ve had "several meetings today", so I wonder what is going on. Yesterday, at the department meeting, the recommendations to renew the contracts of three tenure-track faculty were passed without amendment or comment, which must be a first!

January 26, 1998: I?ve received the draft of "The Department of Mathematics and Statistics Tenure and Promotion Report for Dr. Edward Aboufadel". It looks like they like me, as all of the comments are positive. The report is divided up into several sections: Effective Teaching Performance, Professional Achievement, Unit and University Service, Community Service, Future Evaluation Issues, Addition Comments, and Departmental Recommendation. In each section, there is a paragraph or two which is written based on the comments the Personnel Committee received last week.

The "Additional Comments" read, "Dr. Aboufadel is seen as already having made a significant impact on the Department. Colleagues are impressed with his energy, involvement, and hard work and feel he is a great addition to the Department." Under "Departmental Recommendation", it says, "The department recommends that Dr. Aboufadel be granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor."

A total of three of us received our reports today. The department will vote on the reports on Thursday.

January 27, 1998: I signed a form today waiving my right to be at the part of the department meeting where my report is discussed. The meeting is at 10AM on the 29^th, and my report is the first item on the agenda.

January 29, 1998: At 9:57 AM, most of the department headed down to the meeting room. I decided to show up near the room around 10:05 AM to wait for when they would let me into the meeting. At 10:03, I started heading down, using the east staircase. I got to the hallway near the room by 10:05. At 10:07, there was still no sign that they were done with my case. Then Paul Fishback, whose report was to be discussed after mine, came from nowhere. "There you are! I?ve been looking for you upstairs," he said. "They were done with you in a minute, and now they are discussing me." I guess Paul went up the west staircase.

Paul?s report was also accepted unanimously. The third report took longer to discuss, but was approved, too.

My next step is to put together some materials for the Divisional Personnel Committee.

February 16, 1998: Recent steps in the personnel process have been rather banal, but trying to get this book published gets more and more interesting. On the personnel front, I rushed around a bit on Feb. 11 in order to get my tenure and promotion documents to the Dean?s office. I needed to make six separate copies of my vita and activity report ? in six separate manila folders ? and my thick portfolio, which I fondly refer to as "the doorstop" was accepted as "supplementary materials."

Meanwhile, our contact from CRC Press sent us e-mail to tell us that "the review process did not go well," and that "the idea is good, but your explanations, etc., are just not up to the series standard." Steve and I did not find this very helpful, and requested more information from our acquaintance. This yielded a response about the editor of the series in which our book was seeking a home. This editor didn?t like that we started the book by describing the problem of needing to compress the images of fingerprints and that "we weave this example throughout the entire book." These things are fixable, although I believe using real applications to motivate the learning of mathematics is a good idea. However, at the end of the e-mail message, we learned the real reason that our manuscript was "not up to the series standard". Our contact wrote, "you folks are not exactly known in the field of wavelets and the series editor wants someone who is for this type of book."

Well, with an attitude like that, what are we to do? After all, our manuscript is an intuitive and informal introduction to wavelets, making the topic accessible to undergraduates. Purchasers of other wavelets books, written by well-known researchers in wavelets, seem to need a Ph.D. in Mathematics in order to read them. The well-known researchers don?t seem to want to write a book like we have written. We?re certain there is a market for a book like ours ? the acquaintance at CRC told us so ? but apparently we don?t deserve the privilege.

Well, we?ve now given Prentice-Hall some information about our manuscript, and I have a few others places in mind to contact. My department chair knows a few people in the industry, too. Stay tuned.

February 26, 1998: During my first year as a professor, I wrote a diary, and included in it were some of my defeats that year when it came to publishing and grants. The past few years, I didn?t keep a diary, and I end up publishing several papers and winning several (albeit, minor) grants. This tenure year, I?m back to documenting my career, and I?m back to struggling with publications and grants.

The latest rejection comes from the GVSU Research & Development Office. My application for a summer stipend for research, along with funds for a student helper, has been rejected. This is not the SURP (Summer Undergraduate Research) program ? I?m still waiting to hear on that ? but I applied for this as a backup for the undergraduate research project that I have planned with Amanda Peterson. The R&D office said that they received many top-notch applications. "The competition was keen." After the rejected NSF-REU proposal, this is strike two.

Meanwhile, Roger Clemens looks ready to throw that fast ball down the middle for the third strike. Char Beckmann, a colleague of mine who is on the committee to decide the SURP grants, tells me that they have received twelve excellent applications, and I believe they are going to fund five or so. I?m supposed to hear about this one next week.

A few days ago, Steve and I talked to someone at Jones & Bartlett. This phone conversation was arranged by our newly-re-elected Chair, Phil Pratt. The person at J&B was very helpful in telling us a few facts about the publishing world. For instance, publishers sign a contract with you first, and then start to work with you on improving your manuscript. If a contract is not offered, that means they are not interested in pursuing it further, even if you are. After the conference call, we sent the manuscript to J&B, along with a new-and-improved prospectus. A few other publishers have also received our writings.

I asked Keith Devlin, former editor of Focus, via e-mail, if he had any advice on the matter. He wrote: "I continue to get mixed reactions from publishers after publishing 22 books to date. It's a crapshoot for both authors and publishers." Glad to know that we are not alone.

March 11, 1998: Paul Fishback and I were chatting this afternoon, wondering when we would hear about the SURP grants. I said to Paul, "You know, that type of memo usually shows up in our mailbox around two o?clock." Since it was 2:15, we went and checked, and ? surprise! ? the memos were there.

Paul?s proposal got funded, but Amanda?s and mine did not. Neither did Steve?s. The rejection letter was, as usual, not very helpful, although it did include this comment, "We will do our best to alert you should alternate funding sources become available."

Despite being funded, Paul became more visibly upset about this outcome than I did. I went home for the rest of the day.

March 12, 1998: Paul has been working to contact the chairs of the committee that made the recommendations about the SURP?s and the committee that decided the summer stipends. (Paul was rejected for the summer stipend, too.) He has a theory that the proposals for research in mathematics are not being taken as seriously as others, because they do not feature collecting data and analyzing it with statistics. For both of these grant programs, we have been competing with ? and have been judged by ? professors from other departments throughout the university. Conducting research in mathematics is different than in other disciplines, and I can imagine that other professors might not quite appreciate the problems we study and the approaches we take. However, I did receive a SURP grant two years ago, so, at this point, I am withholding judgement on how other GVSU professors view mathematics.

March 16, 1998: Over the weekend, I found something in my New Job Diary that was eerily reminiscent of recent events. Back in late winter 1993, I was also turned down for a university-wide grant program, this time in Connecticut. Out of 64 applications that year, I was ranked 55. I had talked to the late Harry Haakonsen, who was one of the committee members who read those applications:/P>

The fourth point had to do with the fact that many of the eight committee members were non-scientists and that they had a lot of grant applications to read through. While Harry, a chemist, could appreciate the "profoundness of the questions" (his words) I was planning to explore, a historian, for example, would be harder-pressed to appreciate the scientific merit.

Elsewhere, this week we will be selecting a new "subgroup leader" for the "Math B subgroup." This subgroup is made of faculty who teach mathematics courses for mathematics majors, beginning with calculus. I have thrown my hat into the ring, as has one of my colleagues, Karen Novotny. Today, the subgroup met and peppered Karen and I with questions about what we thought should be the role of the subgroup leader and how we would lead the subgroup for the next two years. It was fun.

March 18, 1998: Steve and I received e-mail today from Joyce Downey of Wiley. She wrote: "The proposal looks very interesting, and I am impressed with the material that was sent. Before sending the proposal for review I would appreciate receiving additional chapters, if available, and some particulars on the manuscript such as an estimate on the length of the manuscript, time frame for completion of manuscript, etc. Once we receive this material we will solicit comments from our advisors and be back in touch with you within a few weeks." Well, that sounds promising, but our history so far has been for us to impress someone at a publishing firm, only to have the "advisors" turn us down.

March 19, 1998: I received a telephone call today from Jones & Bartlett publishers. They, too, are taking a close look at our prospectus. The call itself was a little odd, though. It turns out they inadvertently mailed our prospectus back to us. When we receive it, could we mail it back again?

Ballots for subgroup leader were distributed today.

Also, I talked to Char Beckmann today about the SURP grants, since I was wondering what I could have done to make the proposal better. She told me that they received sixteen application, twelve which they felt were worth funding. The process they followed was that each committee member read the applications and then they had a meeting to decide a ranking. At this meeting, they combined their initial rankings together to get a sense of things. Char noticed, and pointed out to the committee, that all of the proposals ranked at the top were ones of "greater human impact" (her words), such as ones pertaining to health or water resources, while the more "theoretical" proposals (read: mathematics, computer science) were at the bottom. Paul?s proposal, which was funded, was ranked eighth, while mine was eleventh. Char argued with the committee that they were not being fair-minded about the "theoretical" proposals, and a professor of geology agreed with her, but the others, professors of biology, physical therapy, and chemistry, were not swayed. (This committee was made up of faculty from the Division of Science and Mathematics.) Char, who ranked my proposal third, felt that a different committee would have funded Amanda and me. (Two years ago, a different committee did fund another student and me.)

Since "human impact" was not a stated criterion of the grant program, I decided to ask our department chair, Phil Pratt, to bring this issue up with the Dean. If, looking into the future, mathematics proposals are going to be handicapped going into the process, why should any of us bother to apply ever again? Phil was rightly alarmed about this, and I believe that he will make the Dean think seriously about what seems to be happening.

to be continued ?

Go to...

Tenure-Track Diary

• Ed Aboufadel's Diaries -- main page
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V

Edward Aboufadel teaches at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. This is the fourth in a series of diaries relating to his professional experience. His first diary dealt with his job search. The second explored his experiences in his new job. The third focused on his work as part of a search committee. All three were first published in FOCUS, the print newsletter of the Association, and are now available online.

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