Promotion application progress

It was somewhere when I last spoke of my intention to apply for promotion to senior lecturer. These things take time, and there is little! So I took the opportunity of the summer lull to write the bulk of the application. In early December I sent it off to the Head of School and Dei. HR had said there would be a January promotion round. But in January they declared it would open in February, and close in March. Fine! It's a bit awkward that the deadline is about a week before the deadline for the Athena Swan application. I think I feel like how the students are feeling when they have bunched deadlines!

Both John and Dei are very busy, so it was difficult to get any feedback out of them. Until one Friday evening. I had seen John's car when I left to go home; he was clearly still at it. (I would work a bit more that evening, but at home.) And he had got around to having a look. Great! It took me a while to get him to support me, but he is doing it.

My intention had been to work on the Athena Swan application that weekend, but I only did what I needed to do in that context to prepare for a meeting I would have Monday. The rest of the time when I wasn't doing weekend necessities such as shopping and cooking and dishes and the recycling and repairs and cave rescue admin, I incorporated his comments.

That Monday I was seeing John about matters of Athena Swan. While I was there anyway, we also discussed my draft application. He said it was all very factual, but that I did a poor job of emphasising what it was I had done. Where I had taken initiative, where I had shown leadership, where I had made a difference. I do mention in the application, for instance, that I am in the University Senate. But he said that I was only the second woman in history to represent the School in that body, and that presenting the results of the Senate meetings to the School is a big responsibility. I should shout that off the rooftops! So after that peptalk I spent a few evenings trying to pump some adrenaline into my application.

Soon I will have to submit it. And then I can only keep my fingers crossed!