How to Start Strong as a New Professor

I​n many of my 30 years in academia, I loved helping graduate students, post-docs, and new faculty get started (or to get back on their feet after a fall) and moving in a confident direction.   Even though I didn't know very much, I still had some perspective or experience that was useful.  In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King.

One of purposes of this website is to pool together a lot of wisdom from a bunch of us one-eyed Kings and Queens so that that our graduate students and new faculty don't have to learn it by falling off of cliffs.  This website tries to pull together helpful "tools and tips on how to graduate, get tenure, teach better, publish more, and have a super rewarding career."

The first step was to begin curating some of the more credible insights and experiences from all sorts of people in academia. This way, a person could get substantive advice instead of the top ten things that popped up on a Google search.  Collecting these insights ongoing process and I love it when people share things (see the footer below for all of the types of examples of things you could share if you have them).

One comment I was given a while back was that it would be even better if I turn some of the insight pages into infographics.  There are a few infographics that have been made that highlight some of the insights on a page and at least give a road map of where to click for more.  One example is the infographic at the top of this post, which outlines the content on the >New Professors >Start Strong page.

Someone also suggested, "You should turn some of the infographics and blog posts into Youtube videos," so people don't have to read them.  "I don't like to read," is probably something a person shouldn't put on their PhD application.  Still, this is an important point to consider.  

I'd love to know how this website and it's related content could be most useful to you.  You can either email your insights at [email protected] or to my personal email.  We can then schedule a call if that would work best for you.