I was able to reconnect with fellow Mellon professors at the recent postdoctoral retreat in San Diego in January.  Fellows attended sessions on tenure and promotion, transitioning to administration, book publishing, and the future of Mellon. A couple of tips I found helpful. On the tenure and promotion panel, Charles Beatty suggested that we have an editor of our portfolios. Someone who is very well organized to let you know about the presentation of the portfolio is a vital asset.  Charles also suggested that related to teaching, when handing out teaching evaluations, it is useful to instruct students to make comments about the course and that comments on your persona are not particularly helpful toward improving the course, e.g. “this is the best/worst professor I have ever had.”  In sum, for postdoctoral Mellons approaching tenure, I highly recommend attending this bi-annual conference retreat.