First publication!

One of my daily challenges at work involves being a tenure-tracked professor. That means for the next five years, I have to provide evidence of my worthiness to TAMU-CC through service to my institution and community, have good teaching evaluations, obtain external funding (grants) and be published in professional (science/education) journals. At the end of this term, I put together a complicated portfolio of evidence that is reviewed at the local (TAMU-CC) level, and if it passes muster, goes to the university (TAMU - Bryan/College Station) level and it is also reviewed by three anonymous 'outside' full professors. If I receive tenure, I am guaranteed a job here for as long as I want it - and tenure is sometimes portable. There's also a nice pay increase if you get promoted along with tenure. There are few tenure tracked positions out there -- most universities offer the cheaper route of hiring lecturers and adjunct faculty, and tenured lines are becoming harder and harder to find. Bottom line, getting tenure is a GREAT thing.

I've done well in service, have procured some funding, am working on grants and my teaching evaluations have been very good. The publication thing?? Man it's hard! Finding time outside of teaching and meetings etc. to do the research, gather and analyze the data, then write, submit and get your work published is VERY competitive and an arduous process. However...this week.... I found out MY FIRST PUBLICATION HAS BEEN ACCEPTED. I'm in! Thanks to two colleagues who co-authored with me, we are officially published in an education journal. We collected, analyzed and wrote about our family learning events that we have been conducting at two different universities (hence the co-authors) for the past two years. I will take a pic of the journal cover when it comes out. I am super pumped and ready to start writing the next one!!