~~~~~ “She has supported me during my uncertainty and confusion with my own research, and has helped me clarify the questions I wanted to ask, as well as the methods I could use to answer them.” 2011 Entering Graduate Student, R1 University, Sociology
I’ve spent a career doing the hands-on, job-focused career advising that most academic advisors, however well intentioned, almost invariably neglect.
My advising philosophy?
We all know that there are not enough jobs for every qualified candidate, and the numbers are declining yearly, with the turn to adjunct labor and online course delivery. I cannot promise tenure track jobs when there aren’t tenure track jobs to promise.
But I can promise to make you competitive on the market for the jobs that remain. I fill in the gaps in your knowledge between your narrow dissertation topic and graduate school blinders, and the qualities of the multi-facteted, engaged and articulate colleague that search committees are seeking to hire.
Every piece of writing in an academic career has a formula, and I can teach it to you. Right now, there is virtually no technical advising available on effective scholarly professional writing and speaking. Graduate advisors *should* provide it, but most of the time do not. Graduate students and junior faculty are mostly neglected, left to their own devices to decipher the secret codes of academic self-presentation, oftentimes without knowing that there are codes in existence. They are operating under a massive deficit of knowledge.
Meanwhile, effective and assertive speaking skills and body language are indispensable. Yet too many graduate students and young faculty are excessively hesitant, diffident, and verbose, and routinely sabotage themselves the moment they open their mouths.
Women suffer from the greatest deficits of knowledge in these areas. Life-long training in self-effacement prevents women from communicating assertively their true skills, talents, contributions, achievements, and potential, either in writing or speaking.
My advising goes directly to this deficit, and is oriented around a core principle: that you must comport yourself from day one as a powerful, fully-adult contender for the job of professor–the real, full-time job of an authority in your field, with benefits and a retirement package. No I can’t guarantee that you’ll get one. I can’t guarantee that there will be one to get. But you will learn to communicate why you deserve one.
You will never find a stronger advocate for your professional success.
My guarantee: no b.s., no wasted time, all content-dense advising and editing dedicated to your professional goals, whether the job market, grants, publishing, networking, or seeking tenure and promotion.
Contact me at: gettenure@gmail.com
I definitely believe that proper advising is very important, if not tantamount to success in the modern job market. Our professors and advisers do not seem to agree with this, and I have first hand experience of poor advising, if not no advising from the Masters degree to the PhD. which I am now currently working on.
In my early experience I would shake down anyone I could for information because I was so determined. I got support from some very generous faculty, but in the current market I find that many faculty are dealing with so much pressure from increased teaching loads, class sizes and/or non-teaching responsibilities that it is often just too much for them offer much help.