Taking Stock at Mid‐Career: Challenges and Opportunities for Faculty

Abstract

Beginning with a series of questions designed to peak reader curiosity and expose key challenges for mid-career faculty, the authors uncover several issues in post-tenure faculty life and work, and they reflect on images for understanding and responding to these challenges. Topics identified include midcareer as an opportunity for deeper investment in one's teaching, challenges associated with competing claims for time, shifts in research that can accompany the transition to mid-career, challenges in dealing with an increasing generational gap between oneself and one's students, responsibilities associated with being a longerterm member of a faculty, and feelings of fatigue and occasional alienation from one's educational institution and/or church.

Career Experiences of Counselor Educators: Early and Near-Tenure Experiences

“…Mid-career faculty also express frustration with the limited opportunities for pedagogical development (Baker-Fletcher et al, 2005). Most workshops for curricular design and enhancement are geared toward doctoral teaching assistants and early career faculty (Baker-Fletcher et al, Romano et al, 2004).…”

A Mid-Career Faculty Agenda

“…The lack of intentionality evident in higher education related to the middle years of faculty life, noted by Baldwin et al ( 2005 ) was echoed by Baker-Fletcher et al ( 2005 ) in their study of mid-career faculty. The authors posed a series of questions about the mid-career stage, and the accompanying responsibilities, to mid-career faculty participants attending a teaching-focused workshop.…”

“…Scholars highlighted the importance of the “middle years” professionally and personally as faculty members traversed their evolving roles and responsibilities (Baker-Fletcher et al 2005 ; Baldwin et al 2005 ; Trotman and Brown 2005 ). As Baldwin et al ( 2005 ) noted in discussing their study, “The need to study faculty in the middle years intentionally and systematically is the ultimate conclusion of this exploratory investigation” (p. 117).…”

“…This line of inquiry both featured actual programming and evaluation and assessment of that programming which served as models for others seeking to better support their mid-career faculty. The professoriate evolved with the changing environmental conditions in higher education during the 2000s, as reliance on contingent faculty increased and student bodies and faculty became more diverse (Baker-Fletcher et al 2005 ; Baldwin et al 2008 ; Feldman and Turnley 2001 ). These changes required mid-career faculty to engage in and assume vital leadership roles on their respective campuses, requiring them to expand their existing skills and competencies.…”

“…Relying on age and years of teaching experience to ground mid-career scholarship, scholars during the 2000s revealed that time devoted to teaching was greater among late midlife faculty colleagues, while administrative responsibilities were greater at early midlife (Baker-Fletcher et al 2005 ; Baldwin et al 2005 ). Overall, midlife was the most productive stage of the faculty career, when productivity was defined as publications and other creative work produced.…”