After the offer, before the deal: Negotiating a first academic job

Academe, Jan/Feb 1999 by Golde, Chris M

Other Questions. You might want to consider the following questions in addition to those posed above. Will there be an orientation for new faculty? What mechanisms exist for learning about the institution and your department? Can you get an e-mail account right away? How soon can you start to get routine departmental information forwarded to you? Will you have a formal mentor? If so, whom? If you must finish your dissertation in your first months on the job, what kind of support will you receive to ensure that you complete it? Is there a time limit for doing so? Will you have secretarial support? If so, what kinds of tasks will the secretary perform?

Finding Out About Resources

INFORM YOURSELF ABOUT the resources available to you to help you carry out your job. The norms and policies for access to supplies and equipment vary enormously between institutions and fields. Particularly in the sciences and at larger research universities, faculty members must pay for their travel, supplies, and equipment from their research grants. Faculty members who must do this usually receive start-up packages to pay for these items in their first years.

Research and Teaching Assistants. If you will oversee research or teaching assistants, here are some questions to ask. Will the assistants be graduate or undergraduate students? Will they be assigned, or will you select them? What responsibilities do TAs and RAs usually assume? How are salaries determined? Are graduate assistants unionized? If you are in a field in which graduate students are funded by their advisers, will you have to recruit graduate students to work with you, and does their quality affect your prospects for tenure? Will you have to compete for students with your colleagues? Will you get research assistants in your first year? Must you use grant or start-up funds to pay them?

Supplies and Equipment. You will need to tell your department what supplies and equipment you will need to be productive. If the department has not hired a new faculty member for a while, you may have expectations based on your experience in graduate school that differ from what your new department imagines to be the norm. Will you need special pieces of equipment; space for your office, lab, project, or storage; or computer hardware or software? What kinds of office supplies are provided, which are restricted, and which must you pay for from grant money? Does the department limit supplies or access to photocopiers and telephones?

While research grants may eventually pay for the expense of running a lab, start-up funds are often provided to launch the research until grants come in. Your doctoral adviser should be able to help you construct a list of your needs. How many years of start-up funds are typical in your field? How soon does the institution expect you to fund your lab from outside grants? What are the consequences if tight funding precludes doing so?

TraveL Will travel to scholarly meetings, research trips, and pedagogical conferences be covered, or will you have to subsidize your travel out of your own pocket? Are funds available for your students to travel? Often, little travel money is available, and it may be allocated competitively.