A Whole Different Level of Evaluation

I turned in my Tenure Notebook for my first-year tenure review. The tenured faculty in the department get to review it for a month, at their leisure, and then they meet with me to criticize (er, critique)...

Truly, I'm not too worried about this. First year reviews, I am told, are done to set things in the right direction. People always get 'passed' to the second year unless there are gross incompetence issues, or other major problems.

Nevertheless, turning in this tenure notebook, after having tried to compile stuff that I have been told to compile after only ONE semester here, was intimidating. Didn't help when the department chair made a sarcastic crack about how she color-coded hers. She was just trying to be funny, and it was funny, but I of course -- being the borderline OCD case that I am -- couldn't help but think how the thing could have been better.

The whole exercise, for the first year review, as far as the notebook goes, is mostly about getting the notebook set up. So in subsequent years, all I have to do is add to it. The categories are all set up, so I don't have to organize the whole thing next year.

It was still stressful, and I put more time on that than I did my spring classes (so far). Later this month, I'll update you on the tenure review meeting.