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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Mon 5/3/2004 12:00 AM
Random Thought: More on "I'd Like To, But I Don't Have Tenure."
Oh, did I open a lot more than a can of worms. Feels more
like a
bunch of cases. Flames have been spewing out from my computer. It's a
wonder the smoke alarms weren't set off and firemen weren't axing their
way into my newly repaired house. That wasn't the all of it. Not only
was I being roasted alive, I had to duck schools of red herrings thrown at
me. There were so many straw men erected, I almost thought Halloween was
upon us.
Without caring to learn who I was and what I might have done
before I had tenure or who I was and what I continue to do after I had
received tenure, not that any of that is particularly relevant, I was
assaulted with accusations of being cavalier, self-righteous, aloof,
uncaring, unrealistic, misunderstanding, ignorant, unloving, insensitive,
unsupportive, arrogant, and worse.
My fingers are going stiff from responding to individual messages.
Tenure, which has been denigrated to little more than job guarantee in the
name of academic freedom, is an emotional hot potato, isn't it. Well, I
can't sleep. I'm already in deep, hot water. What does a few more feet
maater. So, I'd like to put together some of my statements as
clarification of what I was driving at.
I raised this issue of tenure because the untenured faculty too
often are treated as or see themselves as, and act out, in the words of
several untenured e-colleagues, "a frightened second class" or "a silent
abused underclass." These attitudes, which are not in the minority,
reflect a fundamental distrust that permeates academia. Few feel
sufficiently safe and secure to speak out, to be honest, to follow their
vision, to experiment, to risk mistake, to risk getting on someone's wrong
side. So, I put myself on the line out of a concern for these classy
colleagues who are anything but second class. I want everyone to take off
the emperor's clothes and lay bare some truths.
Remember, that I was once there. I remember suddenly becoming
visible when I transformed from A.B.D. to Ph.D. I remember how suddenly I
was valued when I received tenure. I remember the pressures to stop
leading the protest against the Vietnam war and leading to integrate the
school beyond tokenism long before I had tenure. I remember how I was
denied promotion, though I had tenure, because all that I did on campus
with curriculum and programs was deemed by my friends and colleagues
"unprofessional." I remember the costs I had to pay for not being a "yes
man." I know that demands often are made on faculty for which there is
insufficient financial support or release time. I am well aware that
faculty and administration often speak out of one side of their mouths and
act from the other. I understand we each have to decide how much we're
willing to pay to maintain our integrity. I realize that the more mouths
we each have to feed, the harder the decision, the easier the
rationalization. I am sensitive to the fact that Washington, D.C., has
nothing on campus power politics. I know that Ph.D. doesn't necessarily
translate into cordiality, respectfulness, trustworthiness, and
collegiality.
And, as I told a few people, I was being honest, respectfully
honest. I was not judging. I know how honesty and compassion can clash,
but my words were not meant to injure. Trust and respect often require
candor, and healthy relationships have to invite, accept and withstand
hard truths. If, however, my words are taken as tough, I hope they're
seen in the spirit they were offered: in the spirit of tough love. I
wasn't trying to dress up windows. I wasn't trying to keep the emperor
dressed. I wasn't trying to coddle with go along to get along advise.
If I was trying to do any of those things, that would make me what too
many of us currently are: an enabler.
I know that candor is risky since it isn't always as comfortable
and convenient and safe as disguise. One of the purposes of candor,
respectful honesty, however, is to create and sustain both awareness and
understanding. Another is to reduce inner conflict and stress. If we are
going to make choices, if we are going to assume responsibility for our
choices, we should be honest about the choices confronting us and the
choices we are making, about what the choices we make say about us, about
what the choices we make may be doing to us, about the choices we are
asking others to make, about the consequences of those choices, and about
the roles we're modeling to those around us by the choices we make.
You know, it's pretty hard to help others with their struggles
if we've given in to ours; it's hard to ask others to look forward if you
feel you have to look back over your shoulder in order to protect your
back; it's hard to help others see challenge as an opportunity if you
treat challenge as a barrier; it's hard to ask others to stand up and
stand out if you're inclined to sit down and be quiet; it's hard to urge
others to be fearless or come to terms with their fear if you're fearful;
it's hard to ask for authenticity if you're in hiding; it's hard to ask
others to maintain self-control when you've handed control over to others;
it's hard to develop character, which I believe is critical in education,
if you're willing to compromise yours.
A lot of what I'm saying is about self-control. Far too often,
almost always, the pursuit of tenure and the other of regalia of academia
result in a loss of self control. That is, we do what others expect and
demand of us, or what we are convinced others expect and demand. Yet, we
each need self control. It's the ultimate mark of leadership. We need it
to protect ourselves from "followship;" we need it to protect ourselves
against manipulation and intimidation of the cultural pressures exerted by
others--it's called "the system"--who are around us; we need it to make
our own decisions; we need it to set our own goals; we need it to
determine our own value system; we need it to focus on who we are capable
of becoming and focus out who we don't want to become; we need it so
others don't stand in the way; we need it to be imaginative and creative;
we need it to set and manage our own purpose; we need it to set our eyes
on our own vision; we need it to overcome obstacles; we need it to use
challenges as opportunities; we need it for inner peace. That is the one
area where it all stops with you alone. If you don't have self-control,
it's nobody's fault but your own. If you don't have it, someone else has
control over you and you do their biding for their purposes to achieve
their goals. When you can exercise control over yourself, you bite the
sweet, lush fruit of your own spirit; you have the final decision that
will define your life, your purpose, your vision. It's the only way to
decide how you're going to live the only life you have to live.
My colleague, Pat Burns, sent me some bedtime reading that once
again reminded me that our worries, frights, anxieties, and depressions
over such things as getting tenure are not about tenure. Behind our
understandable concern with keeping our job, behind our willingness to
compromise ourselves is deep, inner fear. There's no getting away from it
no matter how hard we try. In this reading, the author argues that it's
not the system we should focus on. It's not someone else we should focus
on. We should focus on ourselves. In this case, the truth is that so
very few like the tenure debasing system, so many submit to it, so many
want to change the submissive system, and so few in the system are willing
to look at themselves and are willing to change--which is essential if the
system is to change at all.
As I told a few people, I think I was extraordinarily helpful by
being honest and asking my colleagues and others to stop rationalizing or
offering excuses. If nothing else, we have to be honest with ourselves.
We have to work on ourselves, not on the system. You may not have control
over the system, you certainly can't control others, but you can control
how you respond to it and to them. We have to acknowledge and recognize
our fears, our faults, our weaknesses, our egos, our insecurities instead
of the faults of someone else or something called "the system." That is
not to validate the system. That is to recognize that we are the system,
and as we change the system commensurately changes.
No, it's not tenure that's the issue. I'm not opposed to tenure.
And, as someone accused me of doing, I am certainly not promoting
submissiveness. Nor am I urging a manning of the barricades or storming
of the Bastille. I am saddened by how so many allow so many others to use
tenure as a bludgeon. The enemy is not the system. The enemy is, as Pogo
said, us. It is we who misuse and abuse tenure; it is we who allow
ourselves to be abused. Our fear is the reason we're giving others
permission to push our fear button. All the time anyone of us plays the
blame game by saying: "it's their fault" we're stuck to the tar baby. Only
when we can responsibly ask ourselves: "Why am I scared when I think
about tenure" do we begin or, at least, have the opportunity to unstick
ourselves. Only then will their control weaken. Only then will our
self-control strengthen. Only then will the power we have given to fear
begin to wane. When we gather the strength to recognize our fears instead
of some vague institutional fault, when we exercise the courage to admit
to our fears instead of blaming others, when we have the perseverance to
dig out the source of our fear, do we have a chance to come to terms with
and overcome fear's strangle hold. No, it's not really tenure. It's us
on both sides. But, it is easier and safer to blame than assume
responsibility. I'm not sure, though, as another e-colleague told me,
the deluding or lying to yourself is really more comforting.
There are two real tragedies in all this. One is how easily we
forget, how easily we lose sympathy and understanding and sensitivity, how
easily "we" the once controlled become like the controlling "them" once we
get tenure, how the bludgeoned becomes the bludgeoner, abetting the system
to perpetuate the system, doing unto those who come after us what those
who went before us did to us.
If you look around, you'll see the second tragedy in all of this.
You'll rarely see metamorphosing post-tenure breakouts happening inside or
outside the classroom. We delude ourselves into thinking that once we get
tenure, once we've learned and gotten accustomed to achieving by silently
going along, we're so easily going to rock the boat in the face of
pressures to achieve the other academic milestones of promotion, merit
pay, appointments, sabbaticals, grants, awards, post-tenure review, etc.
Most of us don't.
On so many campuses there is talk of a learning community and yet
the pursuit of and the granting process of tenure is so "uncommunity;"
it is so often seen as and used as a weapon. When we each decide to work
to be in true community with each other, when achievement and character do
not clash, when there is collegiality, when we replace the adversarily "us
v. them" with a mutually supportive and encouraging "we," when we kick out
divisive jealousy and haughty ego, when we get rid of the "they're out to
get me" attitude, when there is a web of strong connections, when there is
sensitivity and awareness and mindfulness of others and yourself, when
there is mutual support and encouragement, when we can be trusting and
trustful, when there is respect for others and yourself, when there is
love for others and yourself, there is no fear. And, when there is no
fear, the quest for tenure and all the subsequent of academic medals is no
longer fearsome.
If you say that will never happen, you're right. You won't put in
an ounce of effort or a second of time for it to come to pass. If you
say, "we can do that," you right. And, you might do whatever it takes for
it to alter the academic culture. As for me, I can assure you, that if
ever the mistake is made to appoint me to my college's Tenure & Promotion
Committee, I will put my money where by mouth is; I will not, as I have
not in the past before and after getting tenure, stay quiet in the still
night.
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