Danielle Thomsen

Associate Professor of Political Science

I received tenure in 2021. I came to UCI as an advanced assistant professor, and I was an assistant professor at another institution for three years. I felt like I had a fairly good understanding of the research expectations in the discipline more generally, and those expectations conformed to UCI’s so that aspect was less unknown. I wish I had known more about the teaching and service expectations – basic questions like how many honors theses should I advise, what is the typical range for course evaluations, and how many department and School committees should I be on?

I also wish I had known more about how the step system can matter for the timing of promotions. For faculty who join as advanced assistant professors, it is important to have a very strong advocate in your department to help initiate the tenure process in light of the framing around accelerations. I was incredibly fortunate to have the support of a senior colleague to initiate the tenure process, but I was unaware of this and it could’ve easily been different without their support.