Davin Phoenix

Associate Professor of Political Science

I had clear and open communication with my dept chair throughout the run-up to my tenure process, which really mitigated the stress and uncertainty for me. Additionally, having access to the tenure materials submitted by dept colleagues who had gone up in recent years was very helpful. I had a pretty clear sense of what was expected of me, and what approach to take to completing the AP-10 and writing the tenure statements. While that clarity eased my process, I could have done more on the front end to make my process of completing the AP-10 less tedious and exhausting.

My main challenge in the AP-10 was providing the comprehensive list of students advised, committees (i.e. qualifying exam, prospectus, master’s and dissertation) I sat on, research talks I had given, and media appearances made. I wish I had kept and consistently updated in real time a log of that information in one place. Doing so would’ve saved me a ton of time and mental energy trying to search through my email archive and calendar entries to ensure I wasn’t missing a talk, a student thesis advisee, or a radio interview from however many months or years ago.

Additionally, I wish I had known that papers that are accepted for conferences do not count on the AP-10 as conference proceedings papers unless they’ve actually been “published" as part of the conference repository. I missed out on the chance to list a couple of working papers under this category simply because I had neglected to submit those papers to the conference’s preprint or online repository. Knowing in advance how to categorize—and thus get credit for—every piece of work you’ve done, above and beyond formal peer-reviewed publications, is crucial.