I Hate Merit Evaluation Day

Like the title says, I hate merit evaluation day. I am ALWAYS on the committee that evaluates faculty performance in my department.  Raises, if there are any, are based upon this evaluation.  (We've had two years without raises).

I mostly hate it because the other tenured faculty in my department have been racking up lines on their research accomplishments through publishing edited volumes or readers or through publishing in low-profile journals.  (Untenured faculty definitely cannot take that route here).

So I'm resentful because I'm taking a different track--going for top journals (mostly) and also working on a book.  This is a very slow process, with increased likelihood of rejections.  And I'm embarrassed because I don't have much in the way of publications this year.  Actually, I have NOTHING published.  But thank goodness, I just had an article accepted at the top journal (though that won't officially count for my merit raise until 2012, when it comes out).

I have two more articles that I really, really should send out soon (even if they aren't perfect), just so I can go back to working on my book for a while.

Will I actually follow my own advice?  Maybe, maybe not.

Manuscript reviews--sometimes worth ignoring

The recent acceptance of my article has been a nice and needed boost.  With my new confidence, I finally went back to a paper that had been rejected at a big-name journal.  Rejected 5 years ago!  The reviewers were not at all encouraging; one was dismissive.   Since the journal accepts less than 10% of submitted papers, I wasn't surprised by the rejection.  But the tone of the rejection was discouraging.

In the meantime, I had a baby.  Opening up this document after so long, I had forgotten the specific time-line:
July 5, 2005, 9:49PM:  send final draft of paper to big name journal and close document.
July 6, 2005, 4:00AM:  water breaks, go into labor, have a baby.

Yup, I got that paper out in the nick of time.  And the journal took 5 months to get back to me with a decision.  I wasn't in a big hurry at that point.  But still, I could have really used reviewer comments that were a bit more constructive criticism and less destructive criticism. 

So I just tucked it away and never got back to it.  A month or so after receiving the reviews, I got a job offer for the job I have now.  And with the whirlwind that followed, I never really brought myself to read the paper again. 

I should have just sent the same paper out to another journal.  That is what an ex-colleague (who published tons) used to do.  He'd print out, say, 3 copies of the paper, along with 3 cover letters addressed to different journals.  Then he'd address 3 envelopes.  He'd send the first one out.  If it was rejected, he'd just reach over to the pile, grab the next envelope and pop it into the mail.  He wouldn't make any revisions based upon the reviewer comments.  (I don't even know if he read the reviewer comments!)  He told me that the next journal would just want different revisions anyway, so he didn't waste his time.  Hardcore.  Thick-skin.  But apparently it works.  He published his way to early tenure and then a new and better job.

Anyway, now I finally did read through that paper, and it isn't bad!  I'm NOT going to read through the reviewer comments.  Why bother.

From cool R&R to forthcoming!

Back in mid-December, I wrote about being in "revising jail" and finally submitting a revise and resubmit to the top journal in my field.  My manuscript had been branded a "cool R&R," as opposed to a warm and inviting R&R..

So I wasn't hopeful today when I saw the journal's email sitting in my inbox.  I braced myself and opened it quickly to not prolong the pain (like pulling off a band-aid quickly). 

My eyes scanned for relevant words and settled on "congratulations"!  So it is accepted! It seems like there won't even but much final revision required on my part.

It has been a while since I have had a major acceptance like this.  I was on a great roll in the early-to-mid 2000s.  Then I got two big grants, which entailed very time-consuming fieldwork plus other gathering and analyzing and supervising of grad students (that's the good thing and the bad thing about grants).  Then I had a 2nd child and got tenure.  Then I went on the job market.  Then I got a new job and we moved.  Then I helped repopulate an extremely dysfunctional department (very stable and healthy now). 

And in that time of major transitions, my publications have been slim.  I have had a few--three.  But not big ones.  And I have two book manuscripts slowly coming along--very slowly.

This paper acceptance makes me feel back on track.  I can do this!  Even with two kids!  Even with a ski-day or two a week!  That is, even with a life outside of work!

Why I've been a bad blogger

I haven't been a great blogger in the last few weeks.  There's a couple of reasons for that.

First, I have a new course prep.  It takes a long time to write each lecture from scratch.   I teach Tues and Thurs and have been getting to sleep at 11:30pm the night before and then waking up the next morning at 5am to finish.  Yes, planning ahead, starting earlier would help.  But I feel like if I did that, I wouldn't get any of my own research and writing done.  So I let the adrenalin kick in and then power through at the last minute.

Second, lately I'm not as stressed out about university budget cuts or about my kids or about finances (my usual three).  I'm sure that will change soon enough!  Lately, I've been most stressed about my publishing.  I've been concentrating on writing a book, that morphed into two books.  And then one of those two got so unwieldy that I had to split it in half also.  So I have hundreds of pages, but scattered across three book projects.  And then I sent off an article to the journal with the highest rejection rate. It is still on R & R there, but I'm not optimistic.  So, I have been spending more time writing up my research and less on blogging.

Third, it is ski season!  Fall is a dud around here.  Summer and winter are where (that is, when) it's at!  So I bet Sept-mid-December will be my blogging season.  That said, now that I'm settling in to courses, I am getting back to more regular blogging.

Switching jailers: from revising jail to grading jail

I just completed and submitted a bear of a paper that has been killing me.  It was a revise and resubmit for the highest profile journal in my field, which also has the highest rejection rate.  I was happy to get the opportunity to revise.  But when I uploaded it, I saw that it had been tagged as a "cool" R&R, which I'm assuming means--fat chance but you may as well try again if you want to. 

I already knew it was going to need extensive revision to have a chance.  But somehow the word "cool" doesn't sit well with me--like the journal is giving me the cold shoulder or being "cool" toward me (not warm and inviting).  I could have gone for a kinder euphemism today, as I submitted this monster that I'd been working to revise for two months.

So, while I all my colleagues plus the academic bloggers have been in "grading jail," I've been in R&R jail to make the Dec. 17 deadline.  Usually, I would go have a nice lunch--or if later in the day, I'd have a glass of wine.

But nooooooo!  I am just switching jailers, and you can now find me in grading jail. 

But this blog post helps.  She call herself the "Worst Professor Ever"--but right now some of her advice makes me think of her as the "Professor's Best Friend" (at least in the blogosphere).  If you don't follow this blog, you really really should give it a try.

A publishing contract is not a contract

There's a shakeup at one of the university presses that has tenure implications for people in my area.  I have reviewed several books for the editor at Biggish University Press.  I respect his work.  Plus, I wanted to support that press because it has been so good about publishing books by tenure-track faculty in my narrow area.

He told me he was retiring.  I was disappointed, but I assumed the press would continue its interest in this line.

I sent in my latest review about 6 weeks ago.  He contacted me last week.  It seems that even though he had extended a provisional contract to the book I reviewed, the press was reneging on that contract now that he was gone.  The book had gone through two revisions, and I had reviewed three different versions!  And the university committee had also approved it.

My old advisor from grad school had his edited volume canceled late in the game by the same press.  The editor is now working with another press (part-time, semi-retirement), trying to get these books published there.  Problem is, while this second press is pretty good (and getting better), it is not a university press.

It probably won't matter too much for the edited volumes.  But several of my friends got tenure based upon their monographs being published by Biggish University Press.  And one of my colleagues here at my Univ. had sent his manuscript for review at the beginning of summer. I'm scared to ask him about it.  He needs publication by a university press.  And it needs to happen in the next 18 months.