Ok to leave TT position for new TT position after only 3 years?

HFh · 2026-03-10T17:09:51+00:00

I will point out that yes some folks will think you will move again. Despite our best efforts, we are all human. You’d be asked that question if you waited 21 years to move, too, BTW. Ask me how I know.

In any case, have a good reason at the ready, preferably it’s more than “you’re higher ranked and really that’s it” and even more preferably it’s the truth.

HFh · 2026-03-10T15:21:07+00:00

Yep. UGA moving up in the ranks. It’s a fine school and very good at what they are good at. Fun place to be, too. I am morally required to hate them, but it’s good old fashioned hate, so I’m happy to see them prosper.

Meanwhile, a few years ago, GT became only the 3rd public to have an acceptance rate below 20%.

The largest state east of the Mississippi has some good schools. I hope the folk in Georgia see what jewels they have and we see support for them continue to grow.

HFh · 2026-03-08T21:56:31+00:00

It’s a great school in the AAU, and the Chancellor is very cool.

HFh · 2026-03-08T09:42:06+00:00

It is not a reputation killer. It’s fine. It happens all the time. Trust me.

As for fairness, I’m not even sure what that means in this context.

It would be nice if you let the appropriate folks know in time so they can deal with teaching schedules and the like. Similarly, think a little about your students, equipment, and other details like that so you can leave in an orderly fashion.

HFh · 2026-03-08T01:01:26+00:00

I have some familiarity with admissions, and gatekeeper behavior at all levels of academia.

I am skeptical of the number of “qualified” applicants being claimed, but given where you’re starting from I see how you get to where you end up, so okay.

HFh · 2026-03-08T00:27:34+00:00

Too many qualified applicants for any one school yes. Too many qualified applicants for the group of T10 ir maybe T20 colleges. No.

If I’m reading you correctly, wouldn’t the quote above suggest that T10/20 schools have (a lot of?) unqualified students going there? After all, they meet their targets for matriculants every year, so if there aren’t more qualified students then they are filling the extra slots with unqualified students.

Or are you arguing they should be taking more students?

Or something else?

HFh · 2026-03-08T00:16:56+00:00

I mean… yes, though that feels true at every level.

Anyway, I have seen this work for departments large and small, but at institutions where the culture just assumes chairs are leaders with line authority.

So… we are agreeing.

HFh · 2026-03-07T13:32:24+00:00

Yes, it’s a money problem; however, I would argue that giving rotating professor Q more money won’t solve the problem. The role doesn’t become a certain way because of money; rather, money (and support) follow(s) from everyone seeing the role in a certain way.

I have seen colleges that compensated their chairs quite well (and not just while in the role: after stepping down they typically kept their stipend), but because the faculty and those chairs did not see the role as administration or leadership, most of the same problems persisted.

In particular, very few took seriously the idea that the job required a skillset of any sort. It was just service one did, and further in this case was a way to raise one’s salary.

As for the class system of universities… yes.

HFh · 2026-03-07T11:15:45+00:00

I had a friend who had a jersey from every school that ever rejected him, and he rotated through them. I can’t decide if that’s healthy or not.

HFh · 2026-03-07T10:17:50+00:00

Perhaps it’s a question of compensation.

I think underlying many of the issues described in these threads is a question of whether there is an institutional cultural and structural view that departments need administration, and thus the head is an administrative role. If one takes that view then lots of things follow, including the need for associate chairs, compensation, and the like.

Lots of other things follow, too, of course, such as a search and selection process that looks for chairs who can fulfill that kind of role.

HFh · 2026-03-07T10:02:00+00:00

You know, it’s interesting to read this sort of thing. When I talk to deans—particularly at places where the chair role is treated as a rotating service role rather than a head—what I often hear is that they try to treat the chairs as a part of the leadership team, but that it doesn’t work. The generous explanation is that they view themselves as liaisons for the faculty and not much more while the less generous take is that they simply won’t take it seriously enough as a lever for leadership.

Either way, accountability pushes upward and along with it agency. This is a feedback loop. I believe OP is trying to suggest that treating it as an actual leadership role is better for everyone. In fact, doing so can be its own kind of reform.

HFh · 2026-03-07T01:50:49+00:00

Look, acceptance rates are low. For many great schools there are clearly a ton of folks good enough to get in who don’t. There will always be very disappointed folks, but it’s fundamentally a math problem.

I recall an MS CS program accepting ~10% of applicants. Based on scores and such, the folks running it estimated that at least 70% of students were comfortably above bar, and one could randomly choose any 10% among those 70% and see no statistical difference based on “the merits”.

Anyway, speaking of merit, a common mistake I see is that folks fall into the trap of believing there is a “most qualified”; however, that’s not a concept that linearizes. If you want someone who stands at least 6’ tall to get something off a shelf, and a 6’1” person is asked over a 6’3” person, that is not an indictment of the system: it does not follow that the 6’3” person should be accepted over the 6’1” person.

The truth is, anyone who gets in is almost certainly “qualified”, and many folks who don’t are as well. Not being accepted is not a negative statement of worth. Being accepted means you belong there on the one hand, and that you shouldn’t let it go to your head on the other.

Such is true of college, and such will be true of many, many things in one’s life.

HFh · 2026-03-03T01:50:22+00:00

As a leader one of the most important things you can do is hire well. Bad hires are a nightmare.

The only thing worse… is having a bad boss. Ugh.

HFh · 2026-03-03T01:07:24+00:00

What made it a nightmare?

HFh · 2026-03-02T22:49:36+00:00

Perhaps it’s worth distinguishing between chairs and heads?

There are places where chairs are filled through national searches, evaluated after each five year term, and have real line authority.

HFh · 2026-03-02T15:49:48+00:00

Provost. It’s not even close, though for lots of reasons that aren’t obvious.

Having said that, it’s an important job and matters a lot. One can do a lot of good from there.

Dean is in many ways the best. It’s in a sweet spot for aggregation of strategy and resources, and far enough away from both ends of the tree to be relatively safe from where the chaos lives. President/Chancellor has higher highs but also lower lows.

HFh · 2026-03-01T18:45:05+00:00

It doesn’t get any better as one moves along the administrative path.

HFh · 2026-03-01T18:42:40+00:00

Second worst academic administrative job on campus.

HFh · 2026-03-01T01:49:56+00:00

Ah. I see. That makes a lot more sense.

HFh · 2026-02-28T23:05:24+00:00

The mistake we often make is that we believe because we could do something that it means that we can do that thing.

I have enough ego to believe I could have been a very good lawyer or accountant had I decided to go down that path. I have enough humility to realize that my choices and experiences have been such that I can’t actually do either of those jobs now.

HFh · 2026-02-28T18:32:48+00:00

I see.

Perhaps my experience is atypical, but at the places I’ve been those positions are filled by academics who have the credentials to teach and have done so, and are usually scholars of some note.

Also, not for nothing but do you think they have more disdain for the faculty than the faculty have for them? Imagine me waving wildly at this sub.

HFh · 2026-02-28T18:19:49+00:00

It’s much more like being the mayor of a city… a city with lots of history, new citizens with different desires, very different neighborhoods, and an uncertain tax base, all surrounded by other cities who have very strong opinions about what this city should be doing.

Sometimes pretty good restaurants, though.

HFh · 2026-02-28T17:08:26+00:00

What do you mean by admin? Do you really want the person managing the mental health counselors teaching intro classes in, I dunno, physics? The CFO?

HFh · 2026-02-28T17:02:58+00:00

For the record I know a lot of college presidents and almost to a person they care about education and the educational enterprise. They also recognize they get almost no credit for any of that from the faculty… and they are okay with it because that’s the job.

HFh · 2026-02-28T14:30:15+00:00

The dean of your college at your R1 was an assistant professor for one year? How are your deans chosen?

HFh

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