A guide for tenure-track faculty on preparing external reviewers to write the letter your file actually needs. Key takeaways Most institutions require 3–6 arm’s-length external letters. Candidates usually can’t choose reviewers or see the letters, but they almost always control which of their own works reviewers focus on. That selection is the real leverage point: 2–3 focused, representative pieces outperform a comprehensive but unfocused packet. The strongest external letter

A guide for tenure-track faculty who received mixed or critical feedback at their mid-point review and what to actually do in the years that follow. Key takeaways Third-year reviews are institutionally designed to be developmental, not punitive. They exist specifically to give candidates time to course-correct. Separate structural feedback (publication pace, grant activity) from softer interpretive feedback (“fit,” “collegiality”) and push your chair for concrete specifics on

A step-by-step guide to turning a fragmented CV into a coherent case for tenure for assistant professors, department chairs writing letters, and anyone coaching faculty through the process. Key takeaways Tenure committees evaluate for a coherent story, not just a list of accomplishments. Keep in mind that files that read as fragmented underperform regardless of output. A tenure narrative lives in three places: your personal statement, your CV’s framing, and the story your let

A practical guide for tenure-track faculty whose student evaluations don’t reflect their teaching, and how to frame a teaching record so a committee reads it fairly. Key takeaways Student evaluations are demonstrably linked to bias (gender, race, perceived attractiveness) and show little to no correlation with actual teaching or research performance. Naming the bias in research isn’t a strategy on its own. Committees respond to triangulated evidence, not disclaimers. Peer ob

Quick answer: Yes, much harder. Tenure-track positions have nearly halved as a share of U.S. faculty since the late 1980s, PhD competition per opening has grown, and 2025–2026 hiring freezes have tightened an already tight academic job market. Below is the data, plus where an academic coach or tenure consultant tends to move the needle most. Key Takeaways Tenure-track faculty share fell from roughly 53–57% in 1987 to about 32% in 2021 (Higher Ed Today, analyzing AAUP data). T

Disciplinary discourse refers to the field-specific conventions—how arguments are framed, evidence is presented, and significance is signaled—that directly influence whether a manuscript aligns with a journal's expectations and gets accepted. Recognizing these norms matters because methodologically strong papers often get rejected because of tone and structure mismatches rather than substance. If you're a tenure-track faculty member staring down a rejection letter from a top-

How Tenure-Track Faculty Can Learn Their Field's Unwritten Publishing Rules Every discipline has its own unwritten rules for what counts as persuasive academic writing— what researchers call disciplinary discourse. (For a full breakdown of what that means and how it varies across fields, see [What Is Disciplinary Discourse? The Hidden Reason Strong Research Gets Rejected] The harder question for academic writers isn't what these rules are in the abstract. It’s how to learn th

For many of us who teach writing, we often think about the rhetorical triangle: ethos, pathos, and logos. Although, when speaking to our students, colleagues, or peers, we tend to use the more colloquial terms of speaker/writer, audience/reader, and message/content, and then in terms of genre and purpose. Through these terms, I teach writers what good academic writing is and how it works: about how and why we cite sources, use first- or third-person, active voice, even adverb

Years ago now, when I worked at the Sweetland Writing Center at the University of Michigan, we hosted a large conference called, “Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism,” to place “plagiarism in dialogue with notions of originality and imitation” (3) [1]. In the years since, as I work with departments to integrate writing across the disciplines and with graduate students and faculty to publish in their fields, I find myself continuing to think about how we can do a better job

We often think of the December-January holiday break as the midpoint of the academic year. Faculty need recuperative time to gear up for the semester or term, for course planning, fine-tuning, or writing syllabi. But, what about your own writing projects? In early December, many of my clients need to step away from their daily writing practice to dive into their grading, with final grade deadlines looming. We talk about scheduling for the first week of January, and then we ta