Dear Faculty Relations - I am an associate professor, and I have been at this rank for over a decade now. In my case, I have been asked repeatedly to serve in administrative roles, such as the department’s associate chair and later as the department chair. I haven’t had enough time to pursue my research. I suspect other faculty members, particularly BIPOC and women faculty members, are in a similar boat with increased service loads or other responsibilities and circumstances, which prevent them from meeting the standards for promotion to full. Are we all destined to be career associate professors? – Stuck in Associate Land
Dear Stuck in Associate Land - Our campus and the Office of Faculty Affairs are committed to making sure associate professors don’t fall through the cracks. It is common for universities to focus mentoring primarily on newly-hired and early-career untenured faculty members. While this focus is important, we recognize that a group of tenured associate professors is not going up for promotion to full. A quick look at our campus numbers suggests more than 40% of associate professors have been at that rank for over six years. This could be for various reasons, including being overstretched with service or administrative responsibilities. We are making a concerted effort to address this issue.ÌýÌý
One valuable source of support we provide is access to mentoring. Research shows mid-career faculty benefit from multiple mentoring models; no one size fits all as departments and individuals have different needs. We are developing a multi-pronged approach recognizing mid-career faculty benefit most from having multiple mentors, peer mentoring, and involvement in mentoring circles. Peer mentoring can especially help faculty in different disciplines develop relationships with and support each other. Mentoring circles can provide a sense of belonging, greater connection, and mutual support.ÌýÌý
Women and BIPOC faculty are more likely to benefit from more than one mentor. We already offer a cross-campus mentoring program for pre-tenure faculty, which will be expanded next fall to include post-tenure faculty. We are developing a new mentoring circle program, one of which will be just for the associate professors on our campus. Be on the lookout for more details and the call for applications for our pilot program, going out to all faculty members in the next two weeks. In addition, the growth grantsÌýfor tenured associate professors, deadline March 1, 2022, are explicitly designed to help associate professors who are in your or similar situations. Lastly, OFA offers workshops for associate professors on topics such as , and we are planning to offer Writing a Great Research Statement, Are you ready for promotion to full?, and Being an Administrator at Associate Rank, among others over the course of this year. Please keep an eye out for these in the FDS newsletters.ÌýÌýÌý
If you have ideas for workshops or any feedback on how we can help associate professors reach their goals, please contact the Faculty Development & Support Team at OFAFDS@colorado.edu.