Promotion and Tenure Confidential

Folks thinking of going on the teaching market this year may be interested in taking a look at David Perlmutter's new book, Promotion and Tenure Confidential.  It may also be of interest to those on the tenure track.

While this book is not specifically geared towards law professors, many of the insights apply to those thinking of embarking on a law teaching career and those who have recently embarked on such careers.

One of the nice things about the book is that it's very up-to-date and has lots of great information about the impact of social networking (blogging, Facebook etc) on promotion and tenure prospects.  It also gives good advice on things like learning to write letters of recommendation for students and dealing with faculty politics generally.

There are also some good suggestions about time management in terms of balancing teaching, scholarship and service.  And some very good thoughts about dealing with students outside the classroom.

One interesting insight about teaching involved the importance of giving feedback to students during the semester if possible - which is of course difficult (or impossible) to the extent any course/professor is locked into an end of semester or end of year examination.  Two interesting suggestions Perlmutter makes on feedback (see pages 155-156) are:  (a)  have students complete their assessment before the end of the semester and require them to talk to you about their papers as the true "exit assignment" for the course; and, (b) ask students to critique their own work as an aspect of their assessment.  There are also useful insights on managing office hours and on dealing with the work/life balance.  It's a quick read (187 pages), and certainly worth a look.

 

 

Comments

[Dan Markel]

Oh Jacqui, I'm glad you posted on this--I had meant to at some point on prawfs, and perhaps I even did there or on FB and have forgotten, but I do remember reading this book and thinking: argh, what a waste of time. It is at least a quick read, as you say.

Nonetheless, I dissent from the recommendation at least insofar as I think it will be virtually worthless to folks who read Faculty Lounge, Co-Op, and Prawfs with any regularity. Perhaps it will be marginally more useful to newbies in the prawf-world, but I don't recall anything more than banal or predictable advice or anecdotes. I also feel like it was a title that tarnishes HUP's normally exciting and interesting catalog. Perhaps they assumed it would naturally be a money-maker though. Anyway, sorry to rain on the parade here. :-)

[Jacqui Lipton]

Not raining on my parade, maybe Perlmutter's?
Obviously I don't think the book is an essential guide to career happiness - just thought it contained some useful thoughts and pointers in an easily digestible format. So I guess we beg to differ, Dan.
Anyway, for those who don't want to spend the money on a book they may not find useful, I would suggest trying to read some extracts on Amazon before making a purchase or, better yet, just borrowing a copy from the library.