Faculty Advice on Scholarship
If producing scholarship is an expectation, you'll likely encounter lots of people who want to give you advice. Some will be good and relevant, some less so. Identify a scholarship mentor who had early success meeting their requirements and discover their habits and behaviors. Some practices are actually evidence-based approaches and described in webinars in the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity, to which your CSUN credentials grant you access this year.
5.4 RESEARCH AND SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY
Scholarship and Creative Activity in Your First Year and Beyond
Amanda Baugh
Associate Professor in Religious Studies, Faculty Developer
You can achieve excellence in your scholarship/creative activities at CSUN, and you don’t have to do it all in your first year! Your first year should focus on building a foundation for success in your scholarship and creative activity. Set moderate research and writing goals for your first year (in consultation with your department chair) and forgive yourself for not meeting them. Build a foundation now that will set you up for future success.
You can attend Amanda Baugh's workshops on setting and achieving your research goals, where discussions will focus on carving out and protecting your research and writing time. You can also sign up for the Faculty Writers Listserv Links to an external site.to get notifications of writing-related programming at CSUN.
In the meantime, Amanda's advice to you in year one is to not so actively protect your research and writing time. Instead, Amanda recommends attending New Faculty Foundations and other CSUN events, making coffee dates with colleagues, and trying out different things to get a sense of where and how you want to spend your time at CSUN. This is because enjoying ALL aspects of your job (as much as possible) and knowing that you have great colleagues will support your future writing productivity by keeping you happy and balanced. You will feel validated when you see others also are adjusting to new teaching demands—which may feel overwhelming at first—and relief when you see that these demands will become less intense and stressful. Keep in mind that you probably need to spend much more time on your teaching in Year 1 than you will later on.
Select the presentation below to read through Amanda Baugh's tips on how to make the most of your writing time:
Go to the next page for more advice on Scholarship specifically related to Research Labs and STEM courses.