Librarians with Faculty Status: Revisited

I’ve contemplated whether to write this post given that it will no doubt tamper with my anonymity. But this issue has been on my mind for a couple of weeks so here goes… For two weeks now my university has been an eerie ghost town. Contract faculty, teacher assistants and graduate assistants have been on strike for almost two weeks. The university administration, having learned from a previous 11-week strike, decided to cancel all academic activities (including most classes with some exceptions).

This is my first strike. I narrowly escaped a strike at this university as a student almost a decade ago (I graduated the summer before the previous strike). I have to admit that I’m still on the fence about supporting the union on strike. I feel the demands of the graduate assistants and teaching assistants are unrealistic given the current financial climate at the university. However, I sympathize with the contract faculty who do not have job security. Having been a contract employee for three years, I understand the anguish of uncertainty that hangs around you. What is unconscionable is that contract faculty who have worked for many years at the university must re-apply for their jobs each academic year. The university does rely heavily on precarious employees to teach a largely undergraduate population.

For two weeks now, the library has been eerily quiet with a few students (mostly those living in residence) dotting the library. The university is still open as is the library. Full-time librarians and professors are part of the faculty association that is separate from the union on strike. During the strike everything is expected to be status quo. The library is open. Librarians are expected to come into work. Librarians are still providing reference service in person, on the phone, via email and virtually. Cataloguing librarians are in their offices cataloguing away. Committees are still meeting. Librarians must cross the picket line to get to work. Everything is status quo (with the exception of teaching information literacy classes) for the librarians. Professors are not teaching classes. Are professors expected to cross the picket line?  Nope.

That is the difference between librarians as faculty members and professors as faculty members. We, the librarians, must cross the picket line, to serve our users (the handful that are in the library and virtually). The truth is that librarians will never truely be like professors because we are not. A strike makes that very clear. We are service providers as well as teachers (for those who do teach information literacy classes or subject-specific classes). Professors are not tied to their offices on campus. With classes cancelled their focus might now turn to their research or service committments. They are more flexible to work elsewhere. There are some tasks that librarians can accomplish from home (such as collection work and writing reports), but officially librarians are expected to be in the library during the strike. Arguably, librarians can take this opportunity to use some of their research days and not cross the picket line, but prior arrangements must be made to take a research day and work from home.

Librarians will never truely be faculty members. But that is alright. I’m personally taking the strike time to catch up on some collection work and readings. I’m not sure how long this strike will last, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. As the days get colder for the picketers outside the ivory tower, I find myself growing more and more sympathetic to their cause….

The File is Returned

The file has been in my possession now for about 2 weeks. I have not looked at it yet, but I have about a month to look at it and revise it. The chair of the tenure committee met with me a few weeks ago and we went over the file and the committee’s suggestions for changes. I have to make some changes to my CV (mostly grammatical) and add some more “evidence” of my work in the area of collections. I think the recommended changes were reasonable, but I think someone on the committee went a bit overboard with suggestions for periods and other punctuation marks (LOL)! In my opinion, the experience of having your file criticized (albeit constructively) wasn’t as terrifying as it seem a few months ago. Time has really flown by and I honestly don’t believe that I can put the same amount of energy in revising the file as I did originally in the summer. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit resentful of the deadline being in the middle of the busiest time of the year, but this forces me not to take the process too seriously. In theory, I don’t have to revise my file at all since it is only a “suggestion” from the committee, but knowing me I will be spending another Saturday in my office long after the reference desk is closed, to work on this. In the meanwhile, the file is lying on a stack of papers beckoning me to look at it. While I am working at my computer, I can feel its presence bearing down on me and silently calling me to it. I try to ignore it and so far, I’ve succeeded, but I will try to resist opening up that can of worm until I have hours upon hours of time to devote to it. I give myself one more week to ignore it and then I’m toast!

The T & P File: References

Although I’ve got 3 months to go before I need to submit my tenure and promotion (T & P) file, I am nontheless panicking. I have been so preoccupied lately with pursuing my research projects and serving on committees that I’ve neglected time to sit down and examine which materials to include in the physical file as well as contacts/references to ponder.

A seasoned librarian gave me a wonderful tip about my CV that I hadn’t considered before. She mentionned that the committee will be looking at my CV to identify potential referees (e.g. colleagues on committees etc.) to contact who can vouch for my work in the 3 areas under review (professional performance, professional development and service). This is in addition to the 3 or 4 contacts that I will include in my file. This seasoned librarian said that I should strategically drop names on my CV. The more frequent, the better. If I mention a particular name several times throughout the CV this will improve the chances of the committee selecting that person! Interesting thought.

I am a bit concerned about the 1 year gap on my CV and how this might impact the creation of my file. I am particularly worried about references. I have my own references roughly mapped out, but the committee might find a contact that doesn’t remember me! I’m thinking mostly faculty members. I am contemplating adding information in my file about an information literacy class in which I did extensive preparation for. I am particularly proud of this class because of all the hard work I put into it. The problem is I did the class a year before I went on maternity leave and was planning to work with the instructor during the summer to teach another class the following fall. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to reconnect with the instructor before I went on maternity leave (and after I returned). I am wondering whether I should reconnect with this instructor and possibly, collaborate with her to teach another couple of information literacy sessions for her students. Am I doing this for purely selfish reasons (i.e. reconnect with her this summer so that I can use her as a contact)? If I had the time, I would certainly pursue another collaboration with this instructor and teach these particular students. The problem is that I am on 3 committees (possibly 4 in the near future), working on 2 research projects, coordinating information literacy courses and supervising librarians. Plus there are a few “little” projects I would love to pursue in the fall! I need to think on this a bit more.

To address the gap in my CV, I started writing a personal statement outlining my history at my institution (i.e. contract status and maternity leave). I was unsure about how personal I should make it. Most of the people on the committee will be aware of the maternity leave, but once the file is reviewed by the t & p committee (consisting mostly of my librarian colleagues) the file will move up in the academic chain and will be read by people outside of the library. I tried to be as succinct and factual as possible. One can not help but wonder whether the maternity leave will impact how this file is received. I don’t know. It is still a draft.

The Euphoria is Dying…

It is the time of year when I find that things slow down a bit in the library. There are nearly non-existent classes to teach and the reference desk is seeing less traffic due to students studying for exams. I find that around this time of year, I miss the euphoria that comes with teaching library sessions. However, this is the perfect opportunity to devote oneself to neglected duties such as collection work, professional development (read: research) and what I call maintenance. I spent about 30 minutes clearing my INBOX of 300+ email messages and organized them in their proper folders. I also found, to my shame, a few unanswered emails from students asking for help, vendors peddling their wares and 1 or 2 faculty requests! Ooops! I’ve also uncluttered,somewhat, my desk to the point that you can see that it is in fact a desk!

I’m currently trying to catch up with some library-related blogs that I’ve neglected to keep up with during the mad academic term. There is also the two research projects that I’m trying to pursue this summer. I got an email from the research ethics board at our university. Apparently, I don’t know the difference between minimal and non-minimal risk! I have to admit I didn’t understand the difference. If a research project is potentially harmful to participants it should be labeled “potential risk” instead of “non-minimal risk”. It sounds like a double-negative to me! Anyhow, this wasn’t covered in library school! But now I know! I won’t know until end of May whether I get the grants that I applied for. In the meanwhile I’m working on my research methods a bit more. I seem to have a lot of free time on my hands these days. I’m trying to be productive, but with the warm weather I’m looking forward to a mini-vacation!

The Successful Academic Librarian

I’m currently reading “The Successful Academic Librarian: Winning Strategies from Library Leaders” edited by Gwen Meyer Gregory. As an unsure junior librarian, I’m constantly devouring books or articles relating to professional development such as this book. This book offers tips on how to accomplish job responsibilities, collaborate with faculty members, how to pursue research/scholarly activities, how to survive the tenure and promotion process etc. It also offers “tales from the trenches” by seasoned academic librarians. There are some really great tips in here and I plan to use some of the information related to building a dossier/curriculum vitae and documenting your work for the tenure and promotion process. One particular chapter that I found refreshing is “Witches Brew or Gorumet Gumbo–Tenure in the Library” by Molly E. Molloy. It is a real honest account of the tenure and promotion process (affectionately referred to as “puke and tremble”). The author is not afraid of being brutally honest and candid about her experience both as a tenure-track librarian working her way up and as a tenured librarian serving judgement on the tenure-track librarians. One section that I thought was both interesting and frightening was:

“I sat in meetings, discussing the merits and demerits of the people with whom I spent so many hours of my life. I closed my eyes at the meeting table and suddenly I could see little demons swirling around the room and landing on our heads with spidery sharp talons. They peered at us with hot yellow eyes, leaned their slimy green tongues close to our ears and spewed out raspy chatter that then magically emerged from our own mouths, sounding like our own voices, saying things like: Should these newsletter articles or book reviews be counted as publications?…What made us think that we had the right to judge people in these terms? Hadn’t we gotten beyond fraternity hazing?…Could we not stipulate that we would not judge each other so harshly, just because we can?”

My worst fears about the whole “tremble and puke” process has been confirmed, yet I was very surprised about her section on “Enforced Mediocrity”.

“The gremlins lower their voices when venturing into this territory. Professional jealousy…? Can someone really be too good to fit in at our library? Yes, they can. This is probably the most distasteful thing that promotion and tenure committees ever do or ever encounter and they will most likely never admit it…However there are always colleagues who do more than their share in all of the categories…They are most likely always busy…Maybe people who excel in this way come across as distant and prickly to others…It is hard to imagine that such super-achievers would not earn tenure…We cannot ignore or get rid of the gremlins if we refuse to see them in the first place. The only way to keep from enforcing mediocrity is to acknowledge that it happens”.

Once you are on the tenure-track you automatically have the “I must achieve, I must prove myself” mantra playing in the back of your mind. The very idea that being an overachiever is something that might be viewed as a negative by a tenure and promotion committee never crossed my mind. I’m hoping that her experience might just be an isolated one. Am I sticking my head in the sand? Perhaps…

I’m just a girl who can’t say no…

I’m in an awful fix!

As an untenured librarian I was warned not to commit to too many committees. However while I was desperately trying to plan my CV strategically to fit into the cookie cutter categories required for the whole tenure process (professional knowledge, professional development/research and service) I realized that my CV was unbalanced. The problem: I was lacking much work in the area of “service” (i.e. committee work). I decided to join a committee that, truth be told, was not exactly thrilling to me personally. Fortunately once I joined that committee my interest was piqued. Nonetheless, I would not recommend joining a committee that you are not interested in out of sheer desperation. You most likely will regret your decision later (especially if it is a long-term committee). After I joined library committee number 1, another opportunity presented itself in the form of a campus-wide committee whose mandate was what I was really interested in and a committee in which I felt that I could contribute immensely to. The problem was that I was already part of library committee 1 and library committee 2. And to make things even more complicated, I was recently (reluctantly) recruited to work on a large project with a 1 month deadline! Unfortunately I had to pass up the chance to work on a committee that I sincerely wanted to be a part of. There’s a possibility that I can join this committee in the future, but it would have been great to join now. What can you do?! I have to learn to say “no”. Being on 3 committees is over-extending myself a bit, but in the end I think that my CV will be a bit more balanced.

But they don’t understand…

I’m a pretty calm and rational person (with the exception of deciding to have a child at this point in my career, but that is another story on its own!) However, since my little one is almost two years old it seems more and more people in my life (in-laws, family, friends and even daycare workers) are urging me to have another baby. Their reasoning:

The little one will be spoiled by being an only child…
The poor little one will not have anyone to play with… (hello! it is called daycare and play dates!!)
Two is easier to handle than one because they will keep each other company (hello??! twice as many chances to get sick!)

I’ve tried explaining that I need to achieve tenure before I would even consider the idea, but to no avail. What is wrong with that? I can certainly understand why female academic librarians as well as female faculty members decide to wait until achieving tenure before having children. It is extremely difficult! Case in point: I’ve decided that I would like to be more involved in my local library association, but I have to coordinate the timing with daycare and my husband’s schedule. I’ve decided to revisit this idea next year. It is just too complicated. I just don’t have the time freedom, which is vital to pursue scholarly activities and professional development, outside of the 9-5 pm realm. I hesitate to make such a commitment if there is a chance that I can not deliver. Will this affect my bid for tenure? Most likely, but I will have to adjust and find other ways to contribute to the profession….

Fear, Tenure and All that Jazz!

The Oxford English Dictionary has several definitions for fear:
1. In OE.: A sudden and terrible event; peril.
2. a. The emotion of pain or uneasiness caused by the sense of impending danger, or by the prospect of some possible evil.
c. An instance of the emotion; a particular apprehension of some future evil.
d. A state of alarm or dread.

However, I think they should add “tenure” to this list. I am in a state of alarm about going through the first round of the tenure process this year. I dread the thought of putting my file together and bearing my working soul for my colleagues to judge. The whole idea of the tenure process is scary. Imagine being under scrutiny for 6 years and working at a job for 3 years before you are evaluated. In essence you are taking 6 years to prove to your colleagues and employer that you are worthy to be included among the “elite” and, as one union representative mentioned recently, become one of the “untouchables”. After the 6 years if you are not “good enough” then you are fired!

There has been an innumerable amount of blogs, lists and articles debating whether librarians should have tenure or not. I don’t want to get into the debate, but for those tenure-track librarians the process is unbelievably stressful. Last year, while I was on contract (before my tenure-track position), a library school student mentioned that he had heard that many academic librarians suffered from burnout. In my naivety, I expressed surprise by this. Yes, the job is stressful at times, but there are cycles to this madness. I was in a fool’s contract fool’s paradise. Now the realities are becoming even more apparent to see as I plan ahead for the first round of the tenure process. I have a list of projects to start, papers to write and committees to join before the Fall semester. Why? Because I don’t like how I look on paper right now. I need to build my CV as well as think and plan strategically for my first review. That “sudden and peril event” will be upon me soon!