In the OP of the thread I recently posted asking readers to share any questions they may have about how to flourish on the tenure track to discuss in this new series, a reader asks whether it is important to '[get] to know academics outside your department (is this important? why or why not?).' These are really good questions, and I'm curious to hear what readers think. Here are a few quick thoughts.
Notice, to begin with, that the reader's query is ambiguous between two questions:
- Whether it is important to get to know academics outside of your department at your university.
- Whether it is important to get to know academics at other universities (in the profession more broadly).
My sense here is that the answer to (1) is 'Yes and no', and that the answer to (2) is 'It depends on what kind of job you are in and what your priorities are. Let me explain why.
When it comes to question (1), there are some obvious reasons to think it can be important to get to know faculty in other departments at your university. First, getting to know others outside of your department can make for a more enriching experience at your university and enable you to contribute to a good, collegial environment. I've heard about universities where departments operate largely in silos, rarely engaging with each other, and they often sound like really adversarial places to be. Second, getting to know people in other departments can result in unexpected collaborations, such as interdisciplinary research projects or events (such as conferences). Third, administrators and tenure and promotion (T&P) committees can care about service to the university, and when it comes to these things it can be a good idea to have a visible and positive 'profile' at your university. Fourth, university politics are a thing, and when it comes to important collective decisions (such as in faculty senates and other committees), it can be important to know people and cultivate good relationships with them and other members of their department. I'm sure I'm missing a few things here, and to be sure, there can be costs to being too involved outside of your department as well (such as university politics!). Further, I think it is entirely possible to flourish and get tenure while not being so involved in the above ways. But the above are some things that immediately sprung to mind.
In terms of question (2), getting to know people at other universities can be more or less important depending upon your circumstances and priorities. For example, if you are in a tenure-track position at an R1, you will almost certainly need outside letters when you come up for tenure–letters, that is, from well-known or respected academics at other universities to testify in your favor. Although my understanding is that one is not supposed to have 'friends' write these letters, getting to know people in the profession outside of your university can, in fairly obvious ways, get your work to be better known, potentially more engaged with in the literature, and so on–all of which may be helpful in terms of getting good external tenure-letters. On the other hand, if you are not at an R1 and your university does not require (or even allow) external letters in its T&P process, then getting to know people outside of your university may not be important in these regards. In this kind of case, I suspect that how important it is really depends upon your own priorities: do you enjoy getting to know other philosophers? Do you find it enriching and helpful in terms of your own philosophical thought and research? Etc.
Anyway, these are just a few thoughts that occurred to me, and I'm sure that I'm missing things (it's early in the morning!). What do you all think?
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