Plan for the Future: Purposeful Service and Your Career at Suffolk

by Sarah Kain Gutowski, Chair, New Member Mentoring Program 

Happy Spring Break, New Members. I hope everyone withstood the snow and rain yesterday and that your recess has been peaceful, productive and restful.

This week I received a significant letter from the college, one that we spend much of our academic career working toward at SCCC: a letter from the president of the college informing me that he'd approved my "promotion in academic rank from Associate to Professor," effective at the beginning of our next academic year.

Yay! Finally!

This was a joyful moment, and also a kind of underwhelming one. Underwhelming simply because not much is going to change in my academic/work life after this point -- there will be no magical shift or transformation that signals the end of an era or a dramatic end to my involvement at the college. For the most part (with one or two exceptions), my career post-promotion is going to look very similar to my career over the past few years. This is because for the second half of my career here, I've been trying to practice deliberation, and be much for mindful, before accepting service opportunities.

Service to the college comprises a large part of our responsibilities as faculty, and -- sometimes practically, sometimes theoretically -- also helps the college function. You're probably already familiar with some aspect of service through conversations with your mentor or departmental meetings; however, your first year as a faculty member is not supposed to be one that's heavy in committee work or meetings. Your eligibility for your first promotion, though, is going to arrive much faster than you expect -- so it's good to begin, particularly when you have some down time during spring recess, to plan your career and what that might look like.

I spoke about this kind of thing last semester at our FA Discussion Series event titled "What You Need to Know In Your First Year (and Beyond)," but if you missed it, and if you were to search The Undercurrent's archive of previous New Member Discussion Series events, you'd find many posts on this topic -- most notably, "The Longview: Anticipating and Planning Your Career at SCCC" and "On Purpose." Reading through those posts might help -- hopefully will help -- you create a long-term plan that will guide you through the next few years. 

I write "the next few years" because we need to allow flexibility in our planning. We need to know that aspects of the college are going to change, committees will come and go, opportunities to be on those committees will come and go, and you'll have to revise your perspective, both short-term and long-term, accordingly. But being aware of what is possible at this point in your career, and being mindful of your interests and values, your level of expertise, your available time, and your goals for the future can help you avoid dedicating time and effort to committees that aren't the right fit (for you or them). 

Granted, sometimes you don't know that a committee isn't a good fit until you've served on it for a semester. If this happens to you, don't be afraid to gracefully and expediently excuse yourself from the group. There are always new service opportunities that will arise. There will always be faculty members who can take your place while you find a better way to serve your department, your campus, and the college.

So to that end, as I am happily, officially, and finally at the end of the oft-dreaded promotion cycle, I am pleased to share with you these highlights from "What You Need to Know In Your First Year (and Beyond)":

Create a Plan from a Vision or Desire 

1. Answer this question: Where you see yourself in ten years? (OR, What do you want to do with your next decade?)

• At Suffolk County Community College
• As a professional in your field or discipline
• Personally 

2.  Consider (i.e. write down) your various areas of responsibility at the college:

• Teaching and Other Duties (Other duties = the daily lives of non-classroom faculty)

• Service to the College and Community
• Department/Area
• Campus
•  College
• Community

• Personal and Professional Growth 
• Research and Scholarship

 3. Break down your 10-year plan by aligning it with:

• Daily Duties (Teaching/Non-Teaching) 
• Departmental Service
• Campus Service
• College Service
• Community Service
• Professional Development

 4.  Now that you've taken your "Future Self" and divided him or her six different ways, consider: Which area holds the most challenging or ambitious "future self"?

5. Next, consider: Where do I stand now in each of the following areas?

• Daily Duties (Teaching/Non-Teaching)
• Departmental Service 
• Campus Service 
• College Service 
• Community Service 
• Professional Development

6. Make rules for yourself, follow them, and try again if you mess up.

• Example: I must take a week to consider before beginning any new projects or commitments
• Take stock of your other commitments
• Consider whether or not, realistically, you could handle the additional responsibility
• If you can, great
•  If not, do not fret 

7. Make a conscious effort to think about your main goals as an educator (this comes from faculty member Jill Malik, Social Science)

• What are your main goals in the classroom?
• What are your obligations to students?
• What are their obligations as students in your classroom? 

8. Practice and Hone the Fine Art of Saying No

• It’s okay, and advisable, to reject responsibilities that don’t reflect your plan, vision, or interests
• They will find someone else
• You will be offered other opportunities

9. Make realistic expectations for yourself and your students and your colleagues (also from Jill Malik, except I added the part about colleagues)

• Slow start with committee work is the best start
• Talk to colleagues about your plans – bounce ideas off them to realize and/or prevent unrealistic expectations
• Adjust assignments according to your new number of students and/or courses

10. Meet the students halfway (this comes from Misty Curreli, Sociology)

• Commit to the idea of being transparent about the policies and procedures and why they are the way they are
• Explain to the students how to use the textbook, what purposes the assignments serve (what it evaluates and how it adds to their skill sets
• Watch for and reflect on your assumptions of student behavior and then ground yourself not in ego but in what’s pedagogically best for the students

11. Surround yourself with mentors (this comes from Jared Dowd, Counselor)

• FA New Member Program Mentor
• Academic Chairs and Deans
• Colleagues

12. Reach across departments and divisions for mentoring, expertise, and collaboration (this comes from Jason Ramirez, Communication and Art)

13. Remember the importance of networking (this comes from Teri Morales, Counselor and Adjunct Faculty) 

• Within the college
• Outside the college

14. Take advantage of what Suffolk has to offer (also from Jared Dowd, Counselor)

• Professional Development Workshops
• Monday Morning Mentor emails 
• Assisting Student Activities, and/or becoming a club advisor

 15. “Start small, end BIG” (also from Jason Ramirez, Communication and Art)

• Effective teaching flourishes with a concentration on clear goals and objectives
• Allow for new technologies of instruction whenever possible
• Allow your students to bring their classroom to the rest of the campus
• Ask yourself, “What can I share, based on my expertise, with the classroom, campus, and college-wide community?”
• Reach out to the larger community whenever possible

16. Maintain your passion(s) (also from Teri Morales, Counselor and Adjunct Faculty)

• Surround yourself with positive people and feed off their enthusiasm

17. Have compassion for yourself (also from Misty Curreli, Sociology)

• It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, unsure, and/or exhausted. 
• You should acknowledge ON A DAILY BASIS what you’ve accomplished despite any feelings to the contrary

18. Don’t neglect your own scholarly development (also from Jason Ramirez, Communication and Art)

• Keep an eye out for conference calls for papers and scholarly opportunitiesUtilize any and all grant opportunities you come across throughout the year
• Don’t forget to investigate possible publication opportunities, both in your field of expertise and your pedagogical development
• Reach out to the union if you need to (It is always important to know what is contractually expected of you)

 19. Protect your time (also from Misty Curreli, Sociology) 

• You deserve some personal, non-working time to give your mind a break 
• This takes discipline and it also requires that you be alright with keeping some uncompleted things on the to-do list until the next workday

20. Maybe You Have Two Careers, Not One. Plan Accordingly.

• Example: A teaching artist teaches students, and she exhibits, publishes, and promotes her work
• Reserve/block out time (weekly, monthly, by semester) in your schedule for duties in all areas of both careers:
• Grading   
• Committee Work
• Email
• Office Hours
• Research & Writing
• Presentations & Conference Attendance

 

The NMDS Archive: Hindsight: What You Can Learn From My First Year

Editor’s Note:  The following was presented at the very first FA New Member Discussion Series event, hosted in cooperation with the Office of Faculty and Professional Advancement, titled "Hindsight: What You Can Learn From My First Year," on September 12, 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

HINDSIGHT: WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM MY FIRST YEAR

by Dr. Misty Curreli, Instructor of Sociology, Eastern Campus

Welcome colleagues. When I reflect on my first year of teaching, there are many challenges that full-time teaching bestowed upon me.  Today I’m going to speak about three of them. Each one was a challenge of some sort, all of which are works-in-progress. But I do want to acknowledge that much of what I’ve prepared for today is grounded in advice that I received from my colleagues, which emphasizes the importance of reaching out to other people in your field.  I hope these suggestions have practical applications for others who are new to the profession. 

PROTECT YOUR TIME 

My first point has to do with time management.  Maybe it’s because I was a graduate student for a large proportion of my life, but I had really bad work vs. personal time boundaries. As a graduate student I was accustomed to working morning, noon, and especially night and I truly believe that the institutional expectation of grad. school is to do more work than is humanly possible, always with an ample dose of guilt for what is yet to be completed.  So, of course this lifestyle seeped into the way I taught and I developed bad habits.

Things that New Teacher Misty would say/do:

• Let me check my email one more time before bed.
• Sure, I’ll respond to emails I receive at 2 a.m.
• Why shouldn’t I eat my dinner at my desk while I finish up my lecture notes for next week?
• Why yes, I’ll meet with you at noon and likely skip eating lunch.
• Why yes, I’ll meet with you at 4 p.m. which is my most productive writing time of the day.

So, we’re all going to have different preferences on how to organize the day, but regardless I would highly suggest creating some rules for yourself by establishing (with some flexibility given the workload) when your workday starts and ends. You can even go as far as to designate certain hours of the day for particular tasks.   

Dr. Misty Curreli speaks about her first year experience at SCCC

For example, a former professor of mine instructed me to “Protect your mornings” in order to thrive at the teaching-research balance. He reasoned that students were less likely to come looking for you and that you’d be most fresh at that time of the day to do the hard work of analyzing data or writing up findings. 

But regardless of how you organize it, whether it’s a 6 hour or 8 hour or 10 hour day, what I’m suggesting is that you deserve some personal, non-working time to give your mind a break.  Not only do I think you deserve it, I actually think this is necessary for the long-term if you don’t want to get burnt out. But doing this, if you’re not accustomed to it, takes discipline and it also requires that you be alright with keeping some uncompleted things on the to-do list until the next workday. (Can you tell that I’m really motivated by crossing things off of my to-do list?) 

Another important and related aspect that can’t be overlooked is regulating the workload.  By this, I mean being cautious to not take on too much in your first year.   You’re going to be approached by many, many people who are looking for your participation and expertise. Don’t get me wrong – there are many, fabulous opportunities to serve the campus community, but I’m told and I’m actually starting to believe that it’s okay to say no on occasion.  This gives you the chance to invest your time wisely in the endeavors that you care most about and it keeps us from feeling like we’re spread too thin.

MEET THE STUDENTS HALFWAY

For the second point, I need to admit that I think I spent a little too much time in my first year feeling…indignant.  There were times when I would leave class and feel little bit astounded and sometimes kind of offended by the “incivilities” that I saw.  By “incivility”, I mean small acts of what I thought of as academic impoliteness. 

There are plenty of examples, but to name a few:  students blatantly using their cell phones during lectures, a quite apparent lack of textbook reading, and the famous question after a student had been absent to class, “Did I miss anything?” These “incivilities” seemed to disregard the standards and expectations that I hold about the college environment based on my too-many-to-mention years of schooling.   

After two semesters under my belt and with some time to relax and be introspective about the year, I realized that I have no business being jaded in my first year of teaching. Also feeling indignant doesn’t do anyone any good – not the students and certainly not me. I realized that students don’t (for the most part) intend to be ill-mannered and I shouldn’t take these things personally. Our students are early in their college careers and very likely not socialized into the norms and values of academic life.  

 Instead of making assumptions that college students should really know x, y, or z, I decided it would be my new goal to dissolve this apparent mismatch of expectations. To start, I committed to the idea of being transparent about the policies and procedures and why they are the way they are. This year, when it came time to talk about the classroom etiquette, I explained to my students that my no phone policy is based on several compelling pieces of evidence – some anecdotal (students have told me that they feel distracted by others’ phones) and based in research (multitasking isn’t as effective as we thought!).   

And because my subject matter (Sociology) allows me to talk about social norms, I actually asked the students to tell me what the social norms are for the classroom. I think this reinforces the classroom standards in a way that allows the more experienced students to teach the less experienced students. 

I also explain to the students how to use the textbook, what purposes the assignments serve (what it evaluates and how it adds to their skillsets), and after learning that some students were challenged by simultaneously listening to me lecture and copying information from Power Point, how to take notes effectively.  

I guess some people might consider this “hand-holding”.  After contemplating this point, I don’t necessarily think that hand-holding is a bad thing if it helps the students develop the tools to become successful students in my classroom and beyond.  In the end, academic success is more than just teaching them the substantive aspects of our professional fields.  It’s also about promoting their achievement as learners.   

So I think it’s important to recognize that not all students are going to automatically know how to be successful learners and we have the ability to intervene with the scaffolding that may get them there. My advice is to watch for and reflect on your assumptions of student behavior and then ground yourself not in ego but in what’s pedagogically best for the students.  Does my approach help them to get from A to B? I like to believe that it has the potential to make a long-lasting impact.

DON'T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF

As the last piece of advice, I will add a simple but essential phrase for surviving in this profession, “Have compassion for yourself.” There is so much going on in your first year.  It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, unsure, and/or exhausted.  You will work really hard and you should acknowledge ON A DAILY BASIS what you’ve accomplished despite any feelings to the contrary.  What I found really helpful was connecting with other new people to occasionally decompress and remind each other about of the importance of self-compassion. 

A non-teaching friend of mine recently expressed some jealousy towards professors because we get to start over every 16 weeks.  I realized how right she is and how this provides ample opportunity for change and growth.  So relax. You’re probably not going to get it right on the first try, but you’ll have plenty of time to figure it out next semester…or the next semester…or the one after that.

Thank you.

Welcome and Congratulations

First Week Cheer: Raspberries from a colleague's garden!

by Sarah Kain Gutowski, Chair, New Member Mentoring Program

When you receive this, or when you feel like you can sit down finally and read it, take a minute to breathe deeply and congratulate yourself on completing your first week as SCCC faculty.

By now, you may have begun formulating questions about your department, your classrooms, your workspace/office, your campus, the college, etc.: You may be wondering why new students keep appearing in your classroom (if they aren't on the roster, out they go!) and/or why the bookstore ran out of books for your class, even when you have a receipt in your hand that says, clearly, you ordered enough for each student. Or you may be wondering why the contractors who are finishing the soffits on your building keep trying to kill the rose bush that used to flower so prettily outside your window. (Nope. Wait, that's just me).

Some of these questions have simple answers, like the first question (many students don't read the emails the college sends them, and unfortunately, they don't always read signs posted on doors about being on class rosters, either.) Some questions, like the second, have really annoying complex answers that are more frustrating than satisfying. And some of these questions will never be answered, and even create more questions, like the last. (Aren't you supposed to be trained to operate a boom before you actually get into the lift?)

Anyway -- the point is: it's natural to have questions when you're new to an institution or even just new to your role within that institution. The FA, through our New Member Program, is here to help answer them. 

By now, most of you have been assigned a mentor. (For those of you who have not received an email notifying you of your mentor assignment, please don't fret -- we are a few days, and a few emails, away from assigning you one. This beginning-of-the-year time can be dizzying for mid-career faculty, too.) 

Your mentors may not have all the answers, but they probably have a good idea of who you can ask in order to secure one.Your mentor can be a person you can bounce ideas off of about pedagogy and classroom practices; your mentor can be a person you can call or email quickly to say, "What's the date of that event again?" or "Who's the Dean/Vice President/Person-in-Charge of A,B, or C?" (The administration and its different levels can get a little confusing sometimes.) 

Something that was decidedly LESS happy-making.

Your mentor can, and should, be the person you go to when you have a doubt, a concern, or a query. Their job -- our job -- as participants in this program is to provide a friendly, accessible, and relatively informal source of assistance during your first year as full-time classroom faculty, librarians, professional assistants, and specialists. 

As part of that assistance, we're hosting a little get-together this Friday, September 12, from 11-12:15 p.m. in the Mildred Green Room of the Babylon Student Center (for you Eastern and Grant colleagues, that's on the Ammerman Campus) as part of a new discussion series, co-sponsored by the FA and the Office for Faculty and Professional Advancement, designed to help new members shape their careers paths at SCCC with purpose, efficiency, and confidence.

“Hindsight: What You Can Learn from My First Year” will feature Misty Curreli, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the Eastern campus; Nicholas Giordano, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Ammerman campus; and Jason Ramirez, Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts at the Grant campus.

I encourage you all to take a moment out of your busy schedules and join us for this important (and hopefully insightful) conversation. 

Oh, and there will be cookies, too. You know that by Friday, you'll be needing some cookies. So come for the cookies, stay for the wealth of information and sense of community.