Cheryl and Kristin asked for brief thoughts on professional development for an upcoming online C & C segment. I did up a quick video (8.1mb) to share some ideas. The notion of professional twine involves thinking less of teaching, research, and service, and instead conceptualizing academic work as transversing a self/private and other/public continuum.

With this in mind, I suggest that upon arriving at a job, somewhat counter-intuitively, it makes sense to focus some energies outside of the self, establishing a small program, set of classes, computer lab, or other initiative that will give you a presence and create connections with colleagues and decision makers. Of course, these efforts should not be completely other-centered--when I arrived at UNC, there were no computer-assisted classrooms, so creating such a space was needed to facilitate my own work, but the project had a public face.

Clearly, also you need to transition in the early stages of a career to a self-interested mode, probably working up dissertation materials into publications. Having established a public presence initially, any retreats into a work cocoon are likely to be revealed in a positive light--willing to reach out, but committed to research and able to hunker down to perform.

Over time, you want to move back into public realms, this time likely extending to work in the institution as a whole. This work is likely to be service oriented, but the larger point is you are networking now beyond the department level, sitting on campus committees, organizing events, maybe co-teaching.

With this movement (actually all the time in an academic position), you are likely to find that you need to operate in both self- and other-interested spheres simultaneously. Here is where learning to commingle your personal areas of interest with the public work you do will pay off. If you do technology, perhaps say no to the curriculum revision and yes to the distance education committee. If you participate in a large-scale campus initiative, see if you can present or publish on institutional decision making. A progression in which you extend yourself publicly should eventually translate into connections on a level outside your institution, working on advisory boards, reviewing or editing submissions to journals, perhaps organizing conferences.

Ultimately, the transition to tenured professor should, in my mind, bring the personal and public interests into closer alignment. The rationale for aiming for such an alignment is not to be more productive. You will no doubt have to continue doing work in both areas, but these activities can lap over each other. The rationale is to emphasize your personal interests, even as you willingly apply them to helping others and make them public. You need to aim for a place where you can do what makes you feel good, share that work, and get attention for it.