The First Few Weeks
With the fall semester slowly getting into full swing across the United States, we here at ALPS are starting a new column, titled “Office Hours: Year One“, that follows a group of first-year assistant professors in Political Science across the United States, as they set sail (or continue) on their journey through academia. The intention is to demonstrate the variety of experiences on the tenure-track and create a community of relatability.
I am excited to present the inaugural class of the first-year cohort: Dr. Polina Beliakova (American University – School of International Service), Dr. Jennifer Ostojski (Indiana State University), Dr. Brooklyn Walker (University of Tennessee-Knoxville), and Dr. Charmaine Willis (Old Dominion University).
As our assistant professors embark on their first year, they find themselves navigating a delicate balancing act: teaching, service, and research. These are the three pillars of academic life, each pulling in different directions. They are weighed differently across institutions, yet all are essential to success on the tenure track. Through this column, I’ll check in with our cohort as they reflect on their work, share their challenges, and explore how they manage the push and pull of competing demands.
Question: Welcome to the 2025–2026 academic year, and congratulations on your new role! By now, you’ve likely found your classrooms (with only minor detours), learned a few names, and made your office just cozy enough to feel like yours. As the semester gets underway, we’d first love to hear how things are unfolding so far. Have the first few weeks matched your expectations? Has anything surprised you? And as you look ahead, what goals are you setting this semester, or for the year as a whole?
Polina Beliakova: “The first weeks of work are going much better than I though. Though the move to DC was difficult for the entire family, my transition to teaching and research at American University’s School of International Service is going very well. I am teaching one graduate course this semester — US-Russia Relations After the End of the Cold War. Every topic we discuss in class is hot and relevant. Last week we discussed how the different origin stories of the respective great power identities in Russia and the United States lead to tension between the two states. Though I taught similar classes before at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, I am designing my sessions from scratch to incorporate new material, and my new understanding of why the United States often misreads Russia’s international behavior.
It is 2025, and I had to think carefully about what to do with AI in class. I decided to prepare my students for the time when they join the workforce and find themselves on the receiving end of AI-generated materials. To that end, I encourage my students to a) learn simple facts about the topic to be able to tell the truth from the hallucinations of an LLM, and b) to use AI to generate essays on the topics discussed in class and then grade these essays based on what they learned in class. I call it “know your frenemy” approach to AI. I can’t wait to see how it goes this semester.
I am lucky to have two sharp and professional research assistants who help me advance four research projects at the same time: two chapters of my book, one empirical note, and one new research project at the stage of data coding and literature review. I have recently gotten access to a new trove of archival materials for my book and am looking forward to digging through it later this semester.”
Jennifer Ostojski: “Now that the semester has officially begun at my institution, and I have a couple weeks of teaching under my belt, being part of the campus community in this new role feels tangible and real. Over the summer, I prepared three new classes for nearly 100 students, which was exciting but occasionally daunting. Moving into my office in late July—where just a few months prior I was rehearsing my teaching and research demonstrations for the campus interview—initially gave me a bit of mental whiplash. But now, it feels just right (probably because I installed a small coffee maker in my office).
The students and my new colleagues have been incredibly welcoming, and I’m genuinely excited to see how the classes unfold and what sort of learning communities we will build together. As someone who cares about teaching design, I’ve noticed myself spending a significant portion of my work time right now on course preparation, partially because I am teaching three new classes. Thankfully, I built a three-week cushion over the summer, drawing from my work products over the last three years first as an adjunct and VAP (Colgate University, but I’m still mostly focused on getting ready to teach three days a week. Since some of these courses will repeat in future semesters, I’m okay with investing the time now, as it’s a foundation I’ll be able to build on. Still, I already feel the pull to race ahead and deliver the greatest teaching “show” possible in my first semester. I have to actively remind myself to carve out time for writing and research—not just because it’s expected, but because I’m genuinely excited about my EU and SoTL projects (including an exciting chapter in an edited volume on civic-engagement!) and where they will lead. Luckily, I am receiving help from a graduate assistant in both research and teaching, which is both new to me in terms of supervising and mentoring but also an immensely useful resource my department provides. So far our working relationship is evolving smoothly. Nonetheless, to ensure that I don’t get lost in the teaching vortex, I have scheduled dedicated writing/research blocks in my weekly schedule. I’m curious to see how this balance evolves, considering that eventually service will also play a part in my regular work life.”
Brooklyn Walker: “I’m a month into my new position, and it’s felt like a blur. The first few weeks were full of orientations, and then classes started. I’m starting to feel acclimated- I drove to my office sans GPS this week! It helps that my department has been so welcoming. This feels less like a new job with new colleagues and more like I’ve come back from a summer holiday. I’m teaching one class this semester, and it’s one I’ve prepped before. I’m adding Tennessee-based examples, but otherwise I am not changing much until I get a better sense of what UTK students are like. So far, I’ve been impressed by their engagement and skill sets.
I knew UTK would offer extensive resources, but I hadn’t factored in the institutional complexity required to provide those resources. I’m coming from a very small institution where most people know each other and problems could often be solved with a phone call. UTK is much larger, with layers and layers of bureaucracy, administration, policies, and offices. Navigating the university feels formidable, but fortunately UTK’s various units have already developed resources to provide information and have been responsive to my many inquiries.
And honestly, another surprise has been personal. I brought a spouse, 3 preteen/teenage kids, and my parents with me to Knoxville. It’s taken more time and energy than I’d anticipated to get everyone settled, and that effort ate into my enthusiasm for research. I thrive on routine—working in the same place, at the same time, under the same accountability structure—and all of those routines shifted this summer with the move. I’m starting to feel little flickers of curiosity and excitement come back as I’ve settled into my home and work offices and have rejoined the AGT Writing Challenge, which for years has been a source of accountability for me. I focus best in the early morning, so getting myself (and my family) into a schedule that allows me to get up early is my next step.
I have a few goals for the year. I’m developing a new course for the spring and want to create a set of course materials to accompany it. I have four projects that are at a middling stage (data is collected and analyzed, an outline and some sections are written)—I’d like to push them closer to the finish line. I have a new dataset landing next week that I’m excited to explore and will field one more survey this year with startup funds. And there are a couple of grants I’ll apply for. My department purchased a 4’x6′ markerboard for my office to track my projects — it’s filling up!”
Charmaine Willis: CW: “In an incredibly competitive job market and after two years in a Visiting Assistant Professor (VAP) position (that I loved), I am really grateful to have the relative stability of a tenure-track position. During these past few weeks, I have been reflecting a bit more on the VAP experience and the differences (and similarities) with starting a tenure-track position. Being a VAP is great in many ways (such as providing great teaching experience, which can help candidates on the job market), but it can be challenging as well.
One of the struggles that I had was knowing that I would only be at the institution (a small liberal arts college (SLAC)) for a few years (and for many VAPs, only one year). In that sense, it can be hard to really feel like one is part of the institution/department and develop long-term relationships with students. Additionally, when one is a VAP, one is also on the job market and it often feels like one cannot devote as much time for teaching (or research), which is lamentable.
There is some really refreshing and energizing about knowing that my time in this position is not limited (tenure process aside), thinking about starting to build my place within the department/institution, and developing relationships with students who may take multiple classes with me down the road and/or work with me on their theses, dissertations, or other research projects. In this sense, the beginning of the semester has been really exciting so far, more than I anticipated.
Another aspect that has surprised me is how much I’ve enjoyed teaching graduate students. Although I taught previously as an adjunct at other universities, my students there were also only undergraduate students. I find teaching undergraduates very rewarding and, on a practical level, I have a lot of previous teaching materials catered to undergraduate courses. However, as I am now at an R1 institution, I am teaching graduate students for the first time. Accordingly, I spent the most time over the summer preparing for my graduate course, a field seminar on Comparative Politics. Admittedly, I was nervous about teaching graduate students at first and I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, with my first two classes under my belt, I can say I also love teaching graduate students. So far, they seem to be better at completing the readings than undergraduate students and they come to class ready to engage in discussion, often about (at least in our class so far) abstract and theoretical concepts. I’m excited to see how the rest of the semester goes with this class.
For the semester, I am trying to strike a balance in setting my goals/expectations for myself between making progress on research (again, as a new faculty at an R1, this is important) while acknowledging that I am teaching a full load this semester (3 courses) in a new position and (still) coordinating a move. Fortunately, I have a paper with an R&R decision and a few that are close to being able to submit for publication, so, I think, if I only get those under review for this semester, it should be fine. As a VAP teaching the same course load (3-2) as I am now, I find that it is really difficult for me to balance teaching and research when I am teaching 3 courses. I feel a bit better, though, after talking to a tenured colleague recently, who suggested devoting the days that I teach just to teaching and some of the other days to research. I’m also working on taking entire weekends off, but so far, I’ve only been successful at taking one day of the weekend off. I try to remind myself that a good work-life balance will not just ‘happen’ on its own; I need to devote time to not working, too.”
I will follow-up with this cohort (including myself) at the end of October to see how our work is evolving during mid-term time! Feel free to leave advice for the junior colleagues. If anyone out there would like to join the cohort, please reach out.