Blogging and Tenure
[By Bill Henderson, crossposted to the ELS Blog]
Over the years, a lot has been written about the risks of bloggingduring your pre-tenure years. See, most recently, Verity Winship, “Blogging without Tenure.” Well, I blogged quite a bit as an untenured faculty member. And fortunately, earlier this week I was recommended for promotion and tenure by my Indianacolleagues. It is unlikely that blogging damaged my career because (Iam told) the vote was unanimous.
As a blogger, I want to publish the following section of my P&Tpersonal statement, so that others that come after have at leastone concrete data point to consider:
3. Writingsfor the Legal Professions and Empirical Legal Studies Blogs
My inclusion of blogging under thescholarship heading is not meant to test the proposition that blog posts arescholarship. Rather, blogging has generateda wide range of professional opportunities for me and enhanced my visibilityamong legal academics. Since the springof 2006, I have been a regular blogger with the Empirical Legal Studies (ELS) Blog. In June 2008, I also joined the LegalProfessions Blog. Collectively, I have morethan 200 blog postings, a substantial number of which discuss issues related tomy legal scholarship. Many of my ideasfor scholarship originally appeared in some form on the ELS Blog and werefurther refined by reader comments. Severalreferences to my work in the mainstream media were the result of reporters perusingthe blogs. I believe that blogging hasbeen a very good investment of time and has generated increased visibility forIndiana Law. A complete list of my posts is located in Attachment 7.
Sothere you have it. I blogged because I wanted to be fully engaged inthe world of ideas. I also followed a few simple principles, which Iwill continue to follow: (a) don’t post half-baked ideas that attackserious ideas — bake them fully, and then post; (b) blog about ideas Iwant to specialize in (with a few exceptions), which creates synergieswith serious scholarship; (c) treat other people will respect and beready to concede when someone else has the better of the argument orevidence — getting it right is more important than being right.
Ofcourse, Dan Drezner remains a cautionary talethat goes in the other direction … though Dan came of the processwith his self-respect and a tenured job at another school within fewshort weeks. Despite the folklore, intellectual timidity is notnecessarily the best strategy for getting tenure or, more importantly,being comfortable in your own skin.
Two of my valued colleagues at Indiana who joined the faculty withme in 2003 also got the good news this week — we went 3 for 3!