Our first networking event of the Women Academics Change Agents (WACA) Network took place on Mon 16th Dec. Being the first working day since term finished, it was a good time for people to pause and think about “Getting started with promotion”, the theme for this first event. Also being the first working day since term finished, the room we had booked in Chancellor’s Building was locked! Not to be deterred we set up in adjacent rooms which were open.
Twenty six women academics attended to hear from Felicia Fai on ‘It begins with a single step’. Felicia is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management and a Co-Chair for WACA Network. The proverb, attributed to Lao Tzu, is actually "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Felicia outlined that the first step, on a journey that might take up to two years before submitting an application, was to read the University's Career Progression in the Education and Research Job Family document. The second step is to read it again, carefully! Felicia detailed her own career and lessons she had learned along her ‘journey of a thousand miles’. In particular, Felicia highlighted the need to be able to evidence your own contribution against the criteria. Felicia recommended updating your PURE record every time you do something – it’s a great way of keeping your CV up to date but also documenting all the things that you do in a busy academic career. She also suggested keeping emails from students or colleagues and other forms of recommendation that can act as evidence, alongside more traditional metrics of online unit evaluations for teaching or publication citation information. Importantly, Felicia emphasized the benefits of finding support to help you navigate the promotion criteria – this could be your Head of Department, a mentor, somebody who sits on Academic Staff Committee or Departmental promotions committee, or perhaps your reviewer for your annual appraisal, SDPR.
The second speaker was Stephen Pavelin, Deputy Dean in the School of Management and long-standing former member of the University's Academic Staff Committee (ASC) which is responsible for decision making on career progression. Stephen began by outlining the current composition of the Academic Staff Committee . Stephen highlighted the importance of recognizing the different voices that are involved in decision making about any case for promotion. In particular, he highlighted the cross-disciplinary nature of ASC and the importance of articulating your promotion case for a non-specialist audience. He also spent some time considering the importance of identifying external referees who are the subject experts and play a very important role in the decision making process. Stephen’s key recommendation was to create a narrative that evidences your contribution to addressing a particular problem, its importance and to consider what actions have been taken and reflect on whether that was successful. It is not sufficient to say “I have had this role” – you must say what impact or contribution you made in that role.
The two ‘short talks’ ended up taking an hour with a lively and engaged audience asking many questions of the speakers along the way. There are some challenges in identifying external referees particularly for teaching only staff, who will need to consider how best to identify external colleagues that will understand their role and their contribution to the discipline. There are also challenges in getting good quality advice – successful promotion applications from others, as exemplars, can be useful and ensuring that any advice is grounded in the published career progression criteria.
The session finished with an opportunity for coffee, biscuits and networking. People often face similar challenges in getting started with promotion and the uncertainties about how the process works. One thing that the WACA network can help with, might be finding somebody supportive from outside your discipline to read your promotion application – after all, if you can write a convincing narrative that is easily understood by a non-specialist, that is half the battle!
Sarah Bailey, Co-Chair WACA Network
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