Editor’s
Note: This following is the first of the presentations from the second FA New Member
Discussion Series event, hosted in cooperation with the Office of
Faculty and Professional Advancement (and written by yours truly), titled "The Long View: Anticipating and Planning Your Career at SCCC," on November 14, 2014. Over
the next few weeks, I'll be posting the text and talking points from
the other presenters, too, so that even if you weren't able to attend
the session, you'll still have access to some of the insight and advice
offered at this professional development workshop. -- SKG
The Long View: Anticipating
and Planning Your Career at SCCC
by Sarah Kain Gutowski, Associate Professor of English, Eastern Campus, Department of Humanities
I’m good at dreaming and
planning. I come up with marvelous ideas. Putting these ideas into action,
however, is another less-easy and more-challenging feat.
That’s really the impetus for
this workshop today. It’s one thing to anticipate a career: to hold its opportunity,
to hope, to imagine the depth and breadth of its possibility. It’s another to
plan a career, which requires action in the form of decisions. Choices must be
made.
One thing my career at Suffolk
has made clear is the connection between choice and perspective. There’s a lot
of literature out there about higher education, and about being part of the
machine of higher education: it’s easy to become lost in it. A link to one
article leads to another leads to a rabbit-hole of research and opinion about
“shaping our nation.” But it’s almost impossible to sincerely, whole-heartedly
subscribe to a belief in the system of higher education and its role in the
lives of our fellow citizens unless one feels real satisfaction with, and
honest acceptance for, the choices one has made within that system.
 |
| Plotting, I mean, preparing, before the presentation. |
I’m a poet by trade. I write from
a visceral, intuitive place inside my psyche. But systems – inorganic, exterior
constructs -- are what I’m here to praise. They are not, by any means,
intuitive; but the best ones allow for intuition, for choices based on
gut-feelings, and for forgiveness if that intuition proves false.
Today, I’d like to help you come
up with your own system, or plan, for your career at SCCC.
Your Ten Year-Plan (Or, A Letter to Yourself in Ten Years’ Time)
When you were younger, you may
have been asked to write a letter to your future self. You were encouraged to
ask questions of this future self, all along imagining this person and their
likes, dislikes, and accomplishments.
Because no one – ever – is likely
to ask you to do this again during your time here, please take a few minutes to
pause and do something similar to that elementary school project. Before you
groan, remember that I said similar, not the same. Ditch the “Dear Future Self”
greeting. Don’t waste time with the questions about your predilections and
peccadilloes. Instead, pick up one of the pens at the table, and a notepad, and
with your most concise and no-nonsense words, create a verbal sketch of where
you see yourself, in terms of your career, in ten years time. What is it that
you want to do with your next decade?
Congratulations on what you’ve
just done. It takes imagination and critical thinking skills to conceptualize
one’s projected career. To use your imagination and critical thinking skills
after the semester has beaten all your working brain cells into a fine pulp is
no small accomplishment. You should feel a tiny sense of pride. Good job by
you!
What you hold in your hand or
lap, or on the table before you, however, isn’t a plan. It’s anticipation.
Planning requires steps. Tiers of action. So now, let’s talk about those.
Tiers of Action (Or, Buckets of Service)
Years ago, a rather hapless
administrator stumbled into a department meeting with thirty faculty members
who trade in metaphor and symbols for a living, and reduced our promotion
process to a series of “buckets” into which one could drop the ephemera of one’s
job here. Imagine, he said, that each area of service to the college
(Department, Campus, and College) was a bucket. When it came time for
promotion, no one bucket should be more full than another. You could win a
Nobel Prize, he said, and if your “campus” bucket was empty, there wasn’t much
he could do to promote you.
You are right to laugh. Said
hapless administrator was rightly mocked (not to his face, of course) for his
oversimplification, which was devoid of lyricism and nuance and akin to that other
elementary-school preoccupation with do-goodery, “Bucket-Filling.” Also, his
allusion to buckets and a balance between them had the misfortune of producing
the image of a yoke, reducing faculty to peasants – or worse – servants – or
even worse -- oxen.
Sadly, the clumsiness of his
words masked a more-or-less realistic view of our promotion process here. He
was, in fact, on to something. Balance. (And by the way, he eventually took
back what he said about the Nobel Prize. I’m not sure anyone on the Board could
argue with giving that person
promotion.)
Go to the FA’s website, and visit
the “Professional Life” tab and scroll down to the “Promotion Information”
link. Download the “A” form, which you’ll need to fill out in order to be
promoted, and scroll through it. Note that on this form you’ll be describing
yourself – and evaluating your own performance -- in the following areas:
- Teaching and Other Duties (Other duties being
the rather poor term to describe the daily lives of those who don’t teach)
- Service to the College and Community (which is
described, in the paragraph that follows, as encompassing your department/area,
campus, college and community. We
often forget this last one. Community Service isn’t widely stressed, but it’s
important!)
- Personal and Professional Growth (Or, in other
words, Research and Scholarship)
Now hold up that “Future Self”
sketch. Compare it to the form here. Do they look anything alike?
Probably not. But they probably
should.
 |
| Sharing (hopefully) useful tips for creating balance |
Practicing What We Preach: Revision and Reflection
First, Revision:
Be patient with me, please, and
take another sheet of paper out. Now, revise that original “Future Self” sketch
by breaking it down into the following categories:
Daily Duties
(Teaching/Non-Teaching)
Departmental Service
Campus Service
College Service
Community Service
Professional Development
Six areas. Our jobs here at SCCC
are not simple – they are multi-faceted and complex, sometimes overlapping and
working in tandem and sometimes in opposition to one another.
We’ll talk more about the latter
in a moment. For now, let’s be positive: What – and try to be as concrete as
possible – do you see yourself doing ten years from now? Think truly “big
picture.” Be ambitious and idealistic. You have room to do that right now, and
it will not serve you to think small.
Hint One: if you entered at the
rank of Instructor, and you do everything “right” and “on time,” you will be
nearing – but not quite at -- the end of your promotion cycle. If you enter at
the rank of PA or Specialist, around 7 years from now you’ll be applying for
your final promotion.
Hint Two: Under the “service”
categories, you may find yourself a little stumped. You may not know what kind
of service you CAN provide. You have lots of options, and this is also your
chance to think bigger and better. Sure, most of us participate and contribute
by being on committees. But you can contribute also by starting a department or
campus newsletter or blog. You can contribute by leading a TLC presentation on
your campus. You can contribute by organizing a professional development
workshop for the college. You can
work with community partners inside and outside your classroom on unique,
meaningful, and curricula-related projects. This is your moment to imagine lots
and lots of options, so that you don’t feel limited when it comes to making a
choice.
Now, Reflection, Part I:
After you’ve maybe taken that
“Future Self” and divided him or her six different ways in this revision, sit
back and reflect on what you’ve imagined. And take note – what area holds the
most challenging or ambitious “Future Self”?
That most challenging or
ambitious part should not be, necessarily, your highest priority – but it’s the
area you want to be most conscious of and careful about. This is the area that
will, most likely, lead to the highest amount of job satisfaction if you meet
your goals.
And frankly, your highest goal
should be to come out of this process without bitterness and resentment, or
feeling cheated or roadblocked. How does one do that? Through a careful plan.
Through pragmatic choices.
Then, Reflection, Part II:
This next part is not intended to
be stressful or panic-inducing. Simply answer the question, where – in each of
these areas – do I stand now?
I know you just arrived here. You
may believe that you haven’t done more than attend department meetings and lead
your classes competently, at best. But you may have done a tiny bit more than
you realize. For instance: You’re attending this Professional Development
Workshop. You know where that goes? Under Professional Development. You may be a pack leader for your local
boy scout troop. That’s Community Service, which really means demonstrating
you’re an active and positive part of the local community.
If, after these past two months,
you’ve got about two items to divide across this list – good. You’re right
where you need to be. If you don’t have anything other than this workshop,
you’re still right where you need to be, because where you need to be at this point
is at the beginning -- but at the beginning with open eyes, with an awareness
of where you’re headed.
Remember, too, that your timeline
is your own timeline. You’re not racing anyone but yourself to that final
promotion – and if you arrive at that finish line exhausted and depleted,
feeling bitter and used, it will diminish your victory.
Your Action Plan: Tips
1.
Make
Rules for Yourself. Follow Them. Try Again if You Mess Up.
You are going
to be asked to do lots of things. My advice, particularly if you’re
enthusiastic about almost everything like someone else I know **cough **
. . . is to give yourself a rule
like: I must take a week to consider
before beginning any new projects or commitments. If someone asks you to
join a committee, say thanks, ask questions about the time commitment and the
charges and tasks of the committee, and then take a few days to reflect. Answer
only after you’ve taken stock of your other commitments and surveyed whether or
not, realistically, you could handle the responsibility. If you can, great. If
not, don’t feel bad saying no. There are lots of us at this college. They will
find someone to do the work.
2.
Maybe
You Have Two Careers, Not One. Plan Accordingly.
At a community
college, research, publication, conference presentations, and other
professional development is not the primary focus of faculty. In fact, in that
list of six categories, taken directly from the A form, Personal and
Professional Growth comes in last.
Some of us are
just fine with that, and don’t feel a need to perform in this area beyond
what’s required for our promotions. Most of us, though, came to higher
education because we were interested in learning, and we specialized in very
particular subject areas, and as scholars and true academics, we would like to
continue to specialize, and publish, and excel, in our particular areas or
fields.
For years now,
I’ve answered the riddle of being a Teaching Artist at a community college by
thinking of myself as having Two Careers. Two callings, intermingled at points,
but that require their own separate focus. If I want to get anywhere with my
writing, I need to give it time. And I have to give it time that is sacred, and
set apart from my grading, my committee work, my email correspondence, office hours,
and meetings.
For years now,
it’s been in the mornings. Alternately – and ideally – I wake before my
children and use the dark, quiet hours to write, read OR do the boring, painful, necessary work of submitting
to journals and book publishers. Since I began this practice of
compartmentalizing my “twin careers,” I’ve seen a drastic increase in my
productivity, as well as in my publications and presentations. Also, I’m just
happier, because I’m one of those annoying people who’s happiest when I feel useful.
I try –
emphasis on try – to keep these hours separate from everything else in my life,
and sometimes it’s possible. Sometimes it isn’t possible. And sometimes it’s
possible, but the other areas of my life suffer; I fall behind in my committee
work, perhaps, or with my grading.
Generally, I
forgive myself if this happens. It’s a necessary evil. If you perform perfectly
in one of these areas, chances are you’re going to be failing (or flailing) in
some or all of the others. There’s just too much to do, and too many demands on
our time to do everything perfectly 100%, or even 25% of the time, frankly.
But as most
therapists would agree – this is a good problem. There’s too much good stuff!
Having a career as an academic, after all, is not a bad lot in life. What
matters is that you’re being pulled in different directions by aspects of your
life that you care about genuinely, and that you see the good and positive
effects of your work on a regular basis, despite the chaos and stress of a
fully-packed schedule.
This is, I
hope, the key to a long and happy career at this college, or any college:
ambition, a pragmatic approach, a willingness to forgive yourself for missteps,
and the awareness that you can and will choose the direction and momentum of
the events in your career. A career isn’t something that just happens to us. We
build it.
