Mimi Lijeholm

Associate Professor of Cognitive Sciences

Letters, letters, letters! I knew there were letters involved in the tenure review process, but I didn’t realize that it was basically up to me to identify pretty much all the letter writers. My department asked for a list of ppl with whom there were obvious conflicts (i.e., previous mentors/supervisors), but even for the “non-conflict" list, there was an opportunity for me to identify ppl that I knew would be supportive.

However, since I wasn’t aware that I would get to weigh in heavily on both lists, I hadn’t thought about ppl with whom there was no obvious conflict on paper, but from whom I could count on solid support. Not only had I not thought about it, I hadn’t really developed those relationships the way I could have, had I been aware. You hear about networking, but this is a very concrete outcome that I hadn’t considered. My only other semi-regret is that I wasted a lot of time trying to get papers published in great journals, pretty much knowing it wasn’t going to happen. I figured there was no cost to trying, but eventually it starts to impact your output and, as we all know, the road to tenure is paved with publications.