another thing

I need to remember this when I feel bad and crappy about myself.

We voted on tenure and promotion for someone today. We granted tenure, but not promotion (a strong message in this department) with a couple of "strong warnings" about things this person needs to improve.

And at one point, I kind of quietly said, "When I got tenure, I didn't get any notes about things I needed to improve. Is this new?"

One of the other committee members, who's been here longer than I have, quietly said to me, "There wasn't anything for us to tell you."

And another committee member later remarked he "almost didn't come" to my tenure meeting, apparently because he thought that people were only supposed to show up if they had concerns to address and they wanted to say anything other than "Give this person promotion and tenure without reservations."

So as much as I get down on myself for not getting more papers published, and as much as I berate myself for not being the "cool teacher," I guess I'm actually pretty good after all.