Designing a Life While Waiting for Tenure: Advice to Young Faculty
Tom Rishel
How can we balance our need to teach, research and
serve the college, all at the same time? Where can we find an older, wiser
colleague to mentor us as we go through the process of trying to be the
best faculty members we can? How can we remain active when the line of
students outside our door stretches to the next building? How do we have
a personal life in all of this? And how do we convince the powers that
we deserve tenure? Tom will discuss these and other burning issues, even
if he doesn't have all the answers himself. Tom Rishel received his PhD
from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970; his thesis was in topology,
written under the direction of Jun-iti Nagata. After a post-doctoral fellowship
and a year as an assistant professor at Dalhousie University in Canada,
Tom came to Cornell for one year. That year was 1973; he has yet to leave,
except for sabbaticals. Tom serves as a Senior Lecturer in the department,
and also as the Director of Undergraduate Teaching. In addition to his
teaching duties, he also trains TAs and junior faculty. Tom has won two
teaching awards, one at Cornell, and a second from the Seaway Section of
the MAA.