It has been a year since I began my appointment as a tenure-track assistant professor at York University’s Environmental and Urban Change! For those of you who are not familiar with academia and you somehow found yourself on this page, let me clarify something. Assistant professor does not mean teaching assistant or assistant to the professor. In plain words, it simply means someone who is in the early years of their career as a professor.
Now back to my main point. It has been a year packed with many experiences. For many, the first year in a faculty position may not be easy – it is a transition period. Mine was not different. I have had my share of setbacks. But I had many positive experiences too, and I am choosing to hold on to them. I did research work, teaching, writing, and university service. I even attended my first Convocation ceremony as a faculty. That was fun!
Here are the highlights of the first year.
Research
I began a brand new study with a colleague from another university. This has been a research topic I had had in mind for a very long time. I was excited to find a collaborator equally interested in it. Currently, I am finishing two other studies I began as a PhD student. One of them has two collaborators that joined recently: my colleague above and a doctoral student at my current institution. The other is solo work, but I have a master’s student assisting me with some of the data collection. The topics are on disability, transportation, and technology. These are my passion topics!
One of the exciting parts of my research work has been working with graduate students. I have worked with four thus far.
Publication/Writing
I published four: a peer-reviewed research paper, policy brief, perspective piece, and another perspective piece. Lastly, I finished drafting a manuscript on a study I did during my postdoc. One of my papers was rejected from more than one journal. It was very painful given the amount of time I spent last summer preparing it for the initial submission. Mind you, I am fully aware that rejection is common in academia. That did not help ease the disappointment. To give me perspective, my former advisor even told me about his colleague whose paper had been rejected six times before it was finally published. That did not help either. My paper is currently under review in another journal. I will feel better when it is published, and I can share it.
Teaching
I taught two courses in my first year, including my first transportation course in the winter semester. Teaching transportation was one of the highlights of my first year on the job. I had 25 graduate students, nine from engineering and the rest from my home faculty. I designed the course to be very interactive, and my students did not disappoint. In every class, there was not enough time for discussions and comments. It was such a nice problem to have.
I designed two courses and developed a full syllabus of an existing outline of a course. I also began developing a fourth syllabus for a course that I will be teaching next winter. It is on smart city infrastructure, and I am looking forward to designing and teaching it. I find the process of course design very enjoyable, but it is incredibly time consuming. Soon, I will be heading to Portland State University for a workshop on integrating pedestrian/bike topics into transportation courses. My plan is to be able to integrate bike/pedestrian topics into my other courses too – as appropriate.
Grants
In total, I was awarded $12,000 in conference travel and small research grants from my home faculty. This is incredibly helpful for an early career scholar who does not yet hold large grants. With these funds, I was able to hire graduate assistants to help me with my work and to cover my TRB conference travel. Last spring, I began preparing a grant application as a primary PI with a colleague in another university in Toronto, and currently about to submit another application with another colleauge. Exciting!
Supervising
My plan for the first year was to focus on settling in my new job, and as a result I had to decline supervision requests from students. Even for the coming year, I plan not to take supervisory roles. However, I am a member on PhD committees of two doctoral students, one from Lassonde School of Engineering and another from Science and Technology Studies. I am also a graduate examiner for a third PhD student at another university in Canada.
Appointments
These are my graduate school appointments.
Science and Technology Studies – Full Member
Environmental Studies – Full Member
Geography – Full Member
Conferences
Last but not least, I presented at the following four conferences: ACSP , TRB, AAG, and UAA. Other than the TRB conference, the three conferences were being held in-person for the first time since Covid. It was great to see colleagues in person after a hiatus of a few years.
In a non-academic note, this is what happened in my first year in the faculty position: I missed the Montreal International Jazz Festival ! In fact, made a U-turn from Kingston, ON, halfway between Toronto and Montreal on the way to the festival. Inexplicable, isn’t it? I guess chalk it up to my first year in this job. But I did see Herbie Hancock and George Benson at the Toronto Jazz Festival. I guess all is OK in my first year.
Mahtot [Mah-tote] Gebresselassie, PhD 