Career Retreat for Associate Professors

Leaders: Cheryl Geisler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; S. Michael Halloran, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Krista Ratcliffe, Marquette University

Career Retreat for Associate Professors

Cheryl Geisler, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
S. Michael Halloran, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Krista Ratcliffe, Marquette University

The Career Retreat for Associate Professors is an initiative of the Gender Task Force of the RSA to reach out to associate professors seeking to complete a scholarly project and achieve promotion to full professor. Following tenure, many RSA members suffer from an isolation at their home institutions that can make completing scholarly projects difficult. 

With a special invitation for women and underrepresented minorities, the Writing Retreat arises, in part, out of a recent analysis that suggests that women in the RSA are far more likely to be stalled at the rank of associate professor than their male counterparts.   Following tenure, advice and support on advancement issues often disappears, and a host of new obligations often compete for our attention. 

At the Career Retreat, you will have the opportunity to work with a senior member of the RSA who will has agreed to serve as a career coach to:

• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your current curriculum vita,
• Develop an action plan to achieve promotion to full professor, and
• Join a writing workgroup to sustain you once the Retreat is completed.

Following the Retreat, your writing workgroup will be asked to keep in touch on a monthly basis and check in with your career coaches every few months.  Then, at the RSA Conference in 2010, your workgroup will be invited to meet again in person, make a report on progress to date, as well as meet with the next wave of writing workgroups to be launched at that time.  Writing workgroups are expected to continue for at least 18 months.

Participants will be asked to submit a 1-page description of the project on which they intend to work and bring notes and drafts with them to the Retreat. You are encouraged to bring your materials in electronic form.   Bring a laptop computer if you have one. 

The Career Retreat is open to all associate professors.  Women and underrepresented minorities are particularly encouraged to apply.

Questions about the Writing Retreat can be directed in email to Cheryl Geisler, geislc@rpi.edu.  See you there!