ABSTRACT
At Williams College (Williams), the authors found that the competing demands weigh heavily on mid-career faculty. Yet, even as the literature broadly characterizes these demands as a potential place where faculty may become stuck, the notion of a “hump” is one that dominates the literature but does not play out in quite the same ways as the literature suggests at Williams, which we detail later. Nonetheless, the concept of the mid-career hump is one that the Office of the Dean of the Faculty is especially mindful of, and to which we have paid preventative attention. In all, we have developed the following strategic responses to support mid-career faculty: shifting cultures; focusing attention; clarifying policies and expectations; making the most of collegial partnerships; and streamlining available resources via “suite programming.” Taken together, these strategies are designed to accompany the self-directed goals of our faculty and to foster a productive and exciting scholarly trajectory at all stages.
