Thriving as Tenure-Track Faculty
Balancing Rigor, Workload, and Building Your Record
You’re on a journey toward tenure while simultaneously developing your teaching, establishing your research, and learning to navigate academic service. This doesn’t happen overnight—it’s built through strategic, incremental effort. These resources support your sustainable development across all three areas of faculty work.
Core Principles for Sustainable Success
🎯 Think in Phases, Not Perfection
Tenure is a marathon with mile markers. Year 1 = survival teaching + research pipeline. Year 2-3 = one course running smoothly + submissions underway. Year 4-5 = sustainable teaching + visible productivity. Build capacity incrementally.
📊 Design for Your Actual Students
Rigor isn’t volume—it’s depth, transfer, and application. Design with students’ full lives in mind. This raises academic standards while being more time-efficient for YOU.
⏰ Protect Time and Document Strategically
Block research time like teaching. Say YES strategically to service. Start your P&T dossier NOW. The faculty who struggle most at tenure did great work but couldn’t document it.
🤝 Build Community Early
Don’t wait to feel overwhelmed. Teaching communities, writing groups, and mentoring relationships help you navigate challenges before they become crises.
New Faculty Mentoring Program
Structured workshops, peer cohorts, and mentoring relationships designed specifically for tenure-track faculty navigating their first years at JSU.What you’ll gain:
- Understanding of tenure timeline, milestones, and your department’s specific criteria
- Strategies for balancing teaching, research, and service across your pre-tenure years
- Guidance on documentation and P&T dossier development
- Peer support network of faculty at similar career stages
- Connection to department, research, teaching, and HBCU mentors
Key insight: Tenure is earned through consistent, strategic effort over time—not heroic bursts. This program helps you pace yourself and invest energy strategically each semester.
How to participate: Contact the Office of Faculty Development to join the next mentoring cohort or connect with individual mentors.
Teaching & Learning Workshops
Practical sessions on course design, assessment, and facilitation that help you develop sustainable teaching practices while building evidence of teaching effectiveness for your dossier.Current topics include:
- Designing assignments that reduce grading load while maintaining rigor
- Facilitating discussions that leverage student expertise (especially for working professionals)
- Scaffolding complex assignments for diverse student readiness
- Creating effective rubrics and feedback systems
- Using Canvas tools strategically for efficiency
- Documenting teaching innovations for promotion and tenure
How to access: Check your faculty email for workshop announcements or contact the Office of Faculty Development for the current schedule.
Summer Course Redesign Program
Structured support to deeply rethink one course with dedicated time and guidance. Helps you develop ONE strong, sustainable course at a time rather than struggling with all of them simultaneously.What you get:
- Dedicated time to redesign course architecture
- Consultation on assignment design that serves both students and your time management
- Support for aligning learning outcomes with activities and assessments
- Feedback from instructional design perspective
- Community of colleagues working on similar challenges
- Documentation of course development work for your P&T dossier
Strategic for tenure-track faculty:
- Year 1: Focus on courses you’ll teach repeatedly
- Year 2-3: Redesign your most problematic course
- Year 4-5: Innovate in ways that generate scholarship of teaching and learning
How to apply: Applications typically open in spring semester. Contact the Office of Faculty Development for details and deadlines.
AI-Enhanced Teaching Sessions
Learn to use AI tools strategically to handle time-consuming teaching tasks, freeing up time for research and high-impact student interactions. Designed for faculty who need efficiency without sacrificing quality.Sessions cover:
- Generating high-quality discussion prompts and case studies
- Creating rubrics and assessment criteria quickly
- Differentiating materials for diverse learner needs
- Providing faster, more targeted feedback
- Designing active learning activities
- Ethical considerations and limitations of AI in education
💡 Why this matters for tenure-track faculty: AI tools can handle tasks like generating first drafts of materials, allowing you to focus your limited time on refinement, student interaction, and your research agenda.
How to participate: AI teaching sessions are announced via faculty email and the Faculty Development website. Drop-in sessions and scheduled workshops available.
Teaching Communities of Practice
Small groups of colleagues (3-5 faculty) who meet regularly to share what’s working, troubleshoot challenges, and support each other’s teaching development. Every hour you invest in learning from others saves 5-10 hours of trial and error.What these look like:
- Informal monthly meetings (60-90 minutes)
- Focus on practical problem-solving, not theory
- Share syllabi, assignments, and teaching materials
- Discuss student challenges and effective responses
- Review and provide feedback on each other’s course materials
- Celebrate what’s working
Benefits for building your tenure case:
- Develop teaching more efficiently, protecting research time
- Build collegial relationships that matter for tenure letters
- Generate ideas for teaching innovations that can become SoTL scholarship
- Create a support system for navigating department culture
How to start or join: If the College of Education doesn’t already have teaching communities of practice in your area, we can help facilitate getting one started. Email Faculty Development to express interest or to be connected with colleagues.
Writing Accountability & Support
Structured groups and writing sessions help you make steady progress on scholarly writing through goal setting, peer accountability, and dedicated writing time.What’s available:
- Weekly writing accountability groups with check-ins and goal setting
- Silent writing sessions with structured breaks
- Manuscript development support and feedback
- Grant writing consultation and review
- Peer review partnerships
Remember: Submitted work beats perfect but unsubmitted work. These groups help you ship rather than polish indefinitely.
How to participate: Contact the Office of Faculty Development to join an existing writing group or start a new one with colleagues.
External Resources: Teaching, Workload, & Faculty Development
Curated resources from leading teaching and learning centers to deepen your understanding and practice.Reframing Academic Rigor
- Reframing Rigor to Promote Equity in Teaching and Learning – University of Michigan CRLT
- Academic Rigor – Alliant University Center for Teaching Excellence
Faculty Workload Management
- Equity-Minded Faculty Workloads: What We Can and Should Do Now – American Council on Education (ACE)
- The Future of Teaching in Higher Education – The Evolllution (2023)
Teaching Strategies and Best Practices
- Teaching Strategies – University of Michigan CRLT
- Scaffolding Student Learning and Course Design – University of Michigan CRLT
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
- What is SoTL? – Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University
- Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Guide – Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
- A Guide to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning – University of Minnesota
Quick Wins: Practical Strategies You Can Use Monday
For teaching graduate students who are working professionals:
- Use case study protocols that let them analyze their own practice
- Design assignments that serve both course goals and their workplace needs
- Structure discussions where they’re teaching each other from experience
For teaching undergraduates developing as professionals:
- Scaffold complex assignments in stages with feedback between
- Connect every major concept to field placement observations
- Use structured peer learning to build collaboration skills
Time-saving strategies that protect research time:
- Reuse your best discussion prompts across semesters (document what works!)
- Create assignment templates students can adapt rather than building from scratch
- Use peer review strategically—students learn from seeing others’ work
- Record short video explanations of complex concepts you can reuse
- Batch similar tasks (grade all of one question at once, not all of one student’s work)
For managing service strategically:
- Years 1-2: Say YES to department committees (build visibility); NO to university-wide committees
- Years 3-4: Add one college-level committee if research is on track
- Learn to say “Let me check my commitments” instead of immediate yes
- Track ALL service in a spreadsheet from Day One
JSU Resources for Scholarship of Teaching & Learning
The Researcher: Interdisciplinary Journal
JSU’s interdisciplinary journal welcomes submissions on teaching innovations and research. A venue for transforming your course development work into publishable scholarship that counts toward tenure. Contact the Office of Faculty Development for submission guidelines.
P&T Dossier Development
Canvas-based shell for organizing your teaching materials and documentation. Start building your dossier NOW rather than scrambling in Year 5. Access through Faculty Development.
The Long View: Your Path to Tenure
Year 1: Establish baseline teaching + start research pipeline + document everything + build mentor network = SUCCESS. Don’t try to revolutionize everything at once.
Year 2: One course running smoothly + research submissions underway + strategic service + ongoing documentation = PROGRESS.
Year 3: Mid-tenure review (diagnostic, not punitive) + refine another course element + visible research productivity + dossier organization begins = ON TRACK.
Years 4-5: Teaching feels sustainable + strong research record + organized dossier + clear tenure narrative = READY.
Year 6: Tenure application. By this point, you’re documenting what you’ve already accomplished, not scrambling to build a record.
Remember: Excellent teaching, productive research, and meaningful service develop through intentional, incremental improvement—not through perfection or heroic bursts of effort.
Documentation From Day One: Don’t Wait
Start these NOW (not in Year 5):
- P&T Dossier: Set up your Canvas shell and add materials as you create them
- “Wins” folder: Save every positive email, acceptance, student comment showing impact
- Service tracker: Spreadsheet with dates, committee names, roles, time invested
- Teaching evidence: Syllabi, innovative assignments, student work samples, evaluations
- Research pipeline: Track submissions, revisions, under review, accepted
- Annual reports: Use them to build your tenure narrative year by year
The faculty who struggle at tenure are often those who did great work but couldn’t document it effectively. Document as you go.
Questions or Need Support?
Office of Faculty Development for Student Success
Candis Pizzetta, PhD, Director
jsucus@jsums.edu
601-979-6951
Don’t wait until you’re overwhelmed. Reach out early and often—building your support network is part of building your tenure case.