I've been thinking about this thread for a while. I got tenure -- and a lot of credit is due to institutional support, prudent policies for work-life, and a supportive department/colleagues.

I owe a lot to @sts_vt, @VT_LiberalArts, and @VTProvost.

I had 2 kids pre-PhD, am a spousal hire, became multiply disabled, had cancer 3x now.

I also have an NSF CAREER Award, 1 book, 2 edited volumes, the co-editorship for the flagship journal of my main professional society ( @TechneAnd), and some public scholarship.

I want to highlight the policies, support, and departmental/collegial culture that enabled someone like me to look/be successful.

I would love to see other universities/fields foster cultures and policies like the ones that have so benefitted me.

My department took me as a spousal hire, while knowing I had a 6m old and a 2.5 yo when I started the job. I wanted to be *part-time tenure-track*, a policy that women w an ADVANCE grant made. I was the 1st person to use it.
3.3.1 in the Faculty Handbook: https://faculty.vt.edu/faculty-handbook/chapter03.html

My department chair worked through to make PTTT happen for me, and I was part-time for 2 yrs before I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in Sept 2013.

My chair at the time told me not to worry about work. My colleague Jim took over the class I was teaching (1-1 w PT).

My colleague Phil took over the seminar series I was co-running. I didn't even have to ask.

My chair handled the paperwork for my stop-the-clock as I went through 11months of very terrible chemo+amputation, a lot of it in-patient/hospitalized because of its dangers.

Dept members and others I knew through @RegenerativeVT and CLAHS depts signed up for "Meal Train" through my year - feeding my family while I was sick. My sister took time off from her univ to stay with us, so often ppl brought meals to her and my kids while I was inpatient.

These colleagues/friends meant so much, keeping me in the loop without expecting a lot from me. I got jokes in my inbox, nice notes saved with meals, ridiculous amputee memes from phil-tech colleagues far away, updates without asking for things from me.

I came back very different, glad to be PTTT so that I could work for about 2 days and then sleep wo guilt the rest of the week. My chair let me pick what I wanted to teach for my 1st semester back, just a month after my last chemo. Chose a grad class so I could sit down for it.

Being asked about how to set things up best was so important -- my dept still does this. They moved my office to 1st floor. Our admin person still asks me abt classrooms and which buildings I'd like to teach in (since I have hearing and mobility disabilities, it's not trivial).

My dept didn't set a high bar for explaining my new body configuration or scrutinizing me. My new-then chair and administrators for the dept just ask me how to best set things up. This is huge for a disabled person, btw, and really a rare approach unfortunately.

When I was ready to go full time, two years after STC, my chair worked with our dean & provost. I only had to write a letter w the request and wait to hear back. He cleared the way. Both my kids were in the same school at this point, which meant I had a lot of hrs/focus back.

During this, interests were changing - wanted to work on disability &technology, not animal studies. But a phil-tech friend cornered me: what had I done with all my dissertation research? With his help and urging, I finished my book -- with help in editing w startup funds.

I received start up funds a few years late bc my spousal hire did not include them, but the next spousal hire to our department did. So, my chair made sure I knew, and we requested after-the-fact for me to get what my other colleague had gotten! Amazing!

I was also assigned a faculty mentor through all of this that really helped me understand what was expected, helped me get my research organized. Every department chair should be checking that each new faculty member has this link, and that it's done well.

My college hosted workshops about grants. I attended a lot of interest sessions. Book mostly-done (waiting on proofs), I could now turn to what I wanted to work on - and @EThomasEwing, my college's Associate Dean of Research, was a huge booster.

My college has grant-writing incentive grants to encourage people in the humanities to learn abt and apply for extramural funding. I applied for one for a course reduction in order to write the CAREER grant proposal.

The semester of my course reduction (so I was teaching one only), we found my 1st lung recurrence in Feb 2017.

I did sob in my chair's office at one point.

But this was a best case worst case scenario - 1 operable nodule, surgery that wouldn't involve cracking open my chest.

Jim and Phil had my back again when it came to covering the 2 weeks I needed class coverage. My grad student @CyborgApologist too.

I recovered, but was shaken, but weirdly, also okay and back to work. I write more non-academic things sometimes during this time.

By May, Associate Dean for Research had my proposal for CAREER committee formed - with different practice panelists, fake deadlines, and readers. He got models of successful proposals to show me. I was institutionally supported in this writing.

He read many drafts too.

I made a 5 year research-teaching-service plan just after a recurrence of an aggressive cancer, which in part seemed like fantasy to imagine being alive that long because I was and am a morose Debbie Downer.

I remain humbled by the colleagues who took time out of their own schedules to help. I did not expect to get the grant.

It's after this point that I could relax a bit -- 2017 included my book coming out, being awarded a CAREER for 2018-2023, and a lot of existential fear.

There's a lot that's missing here, and I'm cutting short bc already long, but

tl;dr:
-part-time options!
-ask people what they need/want
-support + mentor at dept and college levels
-be flexible, open, transparent abt planning
-work in my dept bc the best.

I know not everyone works in supportive places. I hope in sharing some of this that people can talk about institutional policy and departmental cultures that can help people succeed.

We know disabled scholars often don't "make it" onto the tenure-track or into jobs that match their talents.

I'm not an exemplar for my own success here, but for a really wonderful departmental home, prudent provost-level policies, and practical college support.