Tenure Checklist

Mentor just sent me a point checklist for the tenure process. It goes like this:

1) Determine when you'll go up to divisional committee and begin to prepare the case.
2) Write the case and select the two signature pieces.
3) Determine list of external reviewers.
4) Solicit letters from external reviewers.
5) Revise the case in light of the external letters.
6) Submit the case and letters to the personnel committee. Committee will vote.
7) If the vote is positive, submit to executive committee. Executive committee will vote. Need a 2/3 majority.
8) If executive committee vote is positive, review all elements of the case for final revision.
9) Send case to the dean for approval.
10) If the dean approves, revise case again for preparation to deliver to divisional committee.
11) Deliver the case to the divisional committee.
12) Give your phone number to your dept. chair.
13) On the evening of the divisional committee meeting, after the meeting is over, the committee will call your chair on the phone and inform him or her of the vote. This may happen well into the evening because the meeting could last for hours.
14) Chair will call you to tell you the result of the vote (i.e. whether you got tenure). The decision could be "yes", "no", or "needs more information".
15) Divisional committee sends official letter to the dean with the committee's decision.
16) If the vote was yes, then it will be formally accepted by the Provost, the Chancellor, and the Board of Regents.
17) Then you officially have tenure.

We are at Step #1. The real decision happens at Step #13-14. That day, the day the divisional committee meets, is when your case is really decided (assuming you already passed the department vote). If the department decides to allow me to go up to divisional in December, then my Step #13-14 will happen in December. The meeting usually occurs in mid-December, around the 10th or so. Steps 15-17 are more formalities and will take the rest of the spring semester, so tenure isn't actually official until the following summer.

I kind of like how the whole thing goes down with this phone call. The committee chair calls your department chair and informs him/her of the news, and then your department chair calls you. So you're sitting around all day waiting for this phone call to deliver the news of your entire career future. So dramatic! So nerve-wracking! Sometimes I wish I could skip ahead to that day, to that phone call, and see what happens.

The "needs more information" option would be hell, I think. You think you're going to find out that day, with that phone call, but then they need more information and would need to meet again a month later to decide? Then you'd have to go through the drama of waiting for THE PHONE CALL twice? What a nightmare!