[Swarm-Support] I thought of one way you can help me

[Paul E Johnson]

Now I am entering the process of getting promoted from Associate 
Professor to Full Professor.  In the US, that signals a step which 
occurs between 5 and 10 years after tenure (and an Associate 
Professorship) has been achieved.  There's a small increase in salary 
and rank. My Department will solicit formal reviews of my research from 
scholars.  Other material is being solicited from students and 
miscellaneous folk.

I hope that some of you will help me with this by writing my chairperson 
and telling him that I helped you in your research/studies. If you are 
willing to do this, please write an email to

Prof. Burdett A. Loomis
Chair, Dept. of Political Science
address@hidden

I will ask him to collect any responses for my promotion file.

Why do I need to ask like this?

Until about 5 years ago, I was not so interested in computer modeling as 
I am now, so my career trajectory shows a fairly abrupt shift in my 
curriculum vita:

http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn/vita.htm

I am now in the somewhat uncomfortable position of justifying this 
change to the faculty of my Department and my University.  They have 
trouble seeing the value in some of my work, such as the Swarm User 
Guide, SwarmFaq, RPMs for Swarm, or miscellaneous Swarm support. I'm 
contending that the support effort makes me part of an 
interdisciplinary, international research effort.  My University places 
a high value on work that is interdisciplinary and/or international in 
nature, and I would like them to see the effort to advance agent-based 
simulation modeling in that light.

It would help me if some of you from around the world and the academic 
universe would notify my superior that I have helped you on a simulation 
project or on Swarm.  You don't need to send a massive note, just 
something simple to say I helped your effort (via the User Guide, 
support email, RPMS, etc).  That way, when my promotion file is 
collected and presented to the Department, there is some way to quantify 
a statement like "he helped X people in N countries"...


--
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn
1541 Lilac Lane, Rm 504
University of Kansas                  Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66044-3177           FAX: (785) 864-5700