I was recently at dinner with my husband (Squid) to celebrate the news that I have been granted tenure at my university. As we were looking at the menus, I was pleasantly surprised when the waiter arrived at the table with a very tasty bottle of sparkling wine and the message, “Your mother and sister say congratulations on tenure!” (Unbeknownst to me, my sister had contacted Squid to find out where we were eating and ordered the wine for us–I should have known something was up when I noticed he wasn’t looking at the cocktail menu.) As he opened the bottle, our waiter asked where I was teaching and in what discipline. And then he said, “I’m an adjunct, actually, so I know how important tenure is.”
Squid and I heard that comment somewhat differently. For me, it was a quick reality check, a reminder of how messed up everything is in academia. While I feel like I have done the work to deserve tenure–I publish in my field, take my teaching very seriously, and have been an active participant in service roles at my university–it was entirely likely that this man standing next to me had also done the work to earn tenure, or would have be perfectly willing and capable of doing that work if given an adequate opportunity. And there we were, both (probably) deserving of tenure: but I was out for a semi-lavish celebratory dinner with my spouse, and he was serving me wine because his academic job doesn’t pay him enough to get by.* I can’t think of a better metaphor for the inequities of academic employment. I heard his words as a statement about what he is denied–something that is important for him, something that would put him on my side of the table. My survivor guilt kicked in immediately.
Squid, on the other hand, heard a statement about the importance of tenure generally. Though this man has to this point been shut out of the tenure system, he recognized, so Squid thought, that tenure itself is important to the profession, that we need tenure. Whereas I heard an indictment of the inequities of the tenure system, Squid heard support for its potential, for what tenure is supposed to offer.
All of this is of course reading too far into our waiter’s gesture of recognition: really all I think he was trying to say was that he understood why I had cause to celebrate that evening (my feelings of guilt were on me, not on him). But it was a moment that made me reflect on what receiving tenure means, both the good and the bad. The academic freedom tenure is supposed to ensure is a power: it enables those of us with it to stand up a bit more confidently for what we think is right, and to fight against what’s wrong, in our professions, our workplaces, and in the world. Even in the current climate where jobs offered with tenure are rescinded and tenured faculty are fired for disagreeing with the president, it’s hard to argue that, in most institutions, faculty with tenure generally have more security–and therefore more power–than those who don’t. But we only possess this power if we use it. If we are content to let this power be a privilege bestowed on a minority of faculty in part by luck and in part by systematic forces steeped in inequality, we both lessen our power–the more of us there are, the more powerful we are–and we cease to deserve it. Tenure is important to the extent that it gives us the power to fight for our profession. It is meaningless if we don’t fight.
With that in mind, and at the risk of going a little too Citizen Kane (because that turned out so well), I offer a tenure oath–a stab at a set of promises I think we should all make to ourselves and to our colleagues if we are lucky and privileged enough to get tenure. Those of us who get to tenure can’t be content with a system that has some of us seated at the table while our colleagues–at this point the majority of our colleagues–work, often unnoticed, to serve us. We can–and should–use our tenure to do better for all of us.
An Oath of Tenure:
- I promise I will be attentive to the conditions of all my colleagues, whether full-time or part-time, on the tenure-track, off it, or in training;
- I promise that I will never sit silently while conditions are made worse for people lower than me on the hierarchy;
- I promise I will actively guard my profession from all attacks, whether those attacks directly affect me or not, and will fight whenever possible to improve conditions for those that follow me;
- I promise that I will prioritize my responsibilities to others–particularly to junior faculty, faculty off the tenure track, and students (grad and undergrad)–over responsibilities that only serve my personal advancement or those above me on the hierarchy;
- I promise that I will cultivate a personal awareness of how my privilege colors my opinions, try to correct for that privilege, and own up to my failures when I fall short;
- I promise that, when I am in the position of making decisions that will affect others, I solicit and weight heavily the views of those who will be affected;
- I promise that, when I am in positions of power, I will treat that power as a responsibility to those I have power over, not as an opportunity to exercise my will;
- I promise that I will remember that the most important work of the university is done by the faculty and staff lowest in the hierarchy, and accordingly work to enfranchise these people and value their work;
- I promise that I will use what job security I have to support those in precarious positions;
- I promise I will always punch up, and never kick down;
- I promise I will treat tenure as a benefit I must continue to earn.
