Abstract
In response to Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber’s 2016 manifesto on academic deceleration, The Slow Professor, the present article posits that the slow approach is dangerous for those seeking tenure, but is nevertheless a fruitful resistance philosophy to be adopted once tenure is achieved. For those seeking tenure, we advise an alternative philosophy, FAST professing, as a means to mediate workplace stress and offer to those on the tenure-track a pragmatic alternative to premature slow professing. We outline the nature of the stress in today’s academic climate, suggest identifying the major sources of stress, and finally, offer strategies to streamline the workday and maintain life work balance en route to tenure.
Recommended Citation
Droz, Patricia Welsh and Jacobs, Lorie Stagg
(2018)
"FAST Professor: Strategies for Surviving the Tenure Track,"
Academic Labor: Research and Artistry: Vol. 2, Article 6.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/alra/vol2/iss1/6
Publication-Ready Author Bio
Patricia Welsh Droz (droz@uhcl.edu) is Assistant Professor of Writing and Linguistics at University of Houston-Clear Lake, where she teaches first-year writing, writing for the social sciences, language & gender, and the sociolinguistics of writing. Since 2018, she and Dr. Jacobs have co-directed the UHCL First-Year Writing program. Patricia’s research interests include gender and workplace communication, first-year writing, and computer-mediated discourse. She was the 2017-2018 co-recipient of the Marilyn Mieszkuc Professorship in Women’s and Gender Studies for her corpus linguistic work on Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state emails.
Lorie S. Jacobs (jacobsl@uhcl.edu) is Assistant Professor of Writing at University of Houston-Clear Lake, where she teaches first-year and professional writing courses. She is also the Faculty Fellow on Writing Across the Curriculum, coordinating construction and leadership of faculty professional development in the teaching of writing campus-wide. She and Dr. Droz are the current co-directors of First-Year Writing. Lorie’s research interests include discipline- and profession-specific writing curriculum, labor issues in academia, first-year composition, and student persistence.