About fifteen years ago, the Georgia legislature decreed that every
tenured
professor had to go through a post-tenure review process and would go through
such a
process every five years henceforth. It was not greeted with hosannas by
faculties in the
University of Georgia System. "Bravos" and applause didn't echo through the
halls of
ivy for the second part of that decree which provided a probation period for
those who
didn't pass muster. This year is my fourth such review. I have to admit that
at this
stage of my career I initially found the process of putting together my resume,
student
evaluations, annual evaluations, and personal statement a bit of a pain. A lot
of
colleagues agreed with me. As someone in another department said in response
to my
smirking of having to endure this paperwork, "Heck, Louis, It's a laugh.
You've been here
42 years. Just slap a few pages together and get it over with. It's no big
deal. It
doesn't mean anything."
I have to admit that I thought likewise when I began the process. But,
as I got
into it, I stopped laughing. It became less and less tiresome and more and more
meaningful. As I went over my resume, highlighting my activities during the
past five
years, as I stopped to look at recent "official" departmental student
evaluations, as I
gazed as the additional end-of-semester student evaluations I require, as I
glanced at the
one or two annual evaluations I had thrown in my desk drawer, as I put down on
paper my
personal professional statement, I found myself looking more and more at myself
in a
mirror; I was talking more and more to myself and caring less and less about
anyone who
might read it. In fact, I found myself reading and re-reading and re-reading
ever slower
and deeper what I had put together about who I am and what I have been doing.
Maybe that
is because coincidently I put it all together during the ten day period known
as the Days
of Awe, when we of the Jewish faith, are subject to the unyielding demand for
reflection,
admission, articulation, contrition, and self-improvement. Maybe walking the
road when I
touched the holiest part of myself in synagogue took me to a place to touch the
sacredness
of my inner academic self. Then again, maybe it wasn't such a coincidence
after all. I
won't ask.
Anyway, though I welcomed the paperwork needed to go through this
process as much
as I welcomed the appearance of a bothersome gnat or smiled at an attacking
South Georgia
mosquito, I think I was prepared by and drawn in by the period beginning with
Rosh
Hashanah and ending with the solemn Yom Kippur. Slowly I acknowledged how this
process of
post-tenure review has been perverted as a perceived tool for spying on the
faculty. Too
many of us academics feel, though few will say it, that it is an assault on our
professionalism, a questioning of our integrity, and a distrust of our
authenticity.
Those feelings are not wholly unwarranted since the original motive of a
disparaging
Georgia legislature and submissive Board of Regents was based on the myth that
we
professors went into stasis, stopped dead in our tenured tracks, didn't care
how little we
did, that moss began immediately gathering on our stone and grass started
growing
instantly under our feet, once we got tenured. The post-tenure review process
was the
first shot of answerability and accountability across the academic bow. But,
it was fired
in the most cynical, intimidating, judgmental, insulting, and threatening
terms. It was
initially greeted with anger, pessimism, disdain, and a heap of defensive chips
on a lot
of faculty shoulders. It is, admittedly, an academic distortion based on a
"we versus
them" chasm of distrust. It is a negative perception that pessimistic
legislators,
suspicious regents officials, vengeful colleagues, and angry administrators are
out to get
us, just waiting around the review corner filled with a rage and a sense of
"getting even
with us." That is not totally hyperbole, but the process has never really has
been
publically--and believably--pronounced as something other than the sharpening
of fearful
Sword of Damocles for someone else to arbitrarily and threateningly wield
against the
faculty.
And yet, wasn't it Socrates who talked about the unexamined life is not
worth
living? He roamed the public places of Athens asking relentless questions of
people that
challenged assumptions and beliefs. He wasnt trying to make people feel bad;
he was
encouraging them to be better. It is the same with the Jewish Days of Awe; it
should be
the same with the post-tenure review process. We professors shouldn't tremble
thinking
that wrath and punishment are imminent, that we are judged guilty before a
verdict of
innocence is handed down, that we have to defend and make the case whether we
are to be,
to put it in Yom Kippur terms, inscribed in the academic Book of Life or the
academic Book
of Death for the coming years. To the contrary, we can find in the process, if
we wish to
look forward rather than backward, an uplifting sense of optimism about our
capacity to be
better in the coming five years than we were during the last five. This review
process,
like each annual review, can help us become soul-searchers, struggling to see
what goes on
inside so we understand what we see on the outside, to take an unflinching look
at past
conduct, and admitting to thoughts and feelings and actions we would rather not
talk
about. It is a reflective starting point for deep recognition, awareness,
acknowledgement,
and action. It's a place that offers space to feel deeply, to think clearly
and boldly,
and to decide how mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to change.
During these Days of Awe, we of the Jewish faith are expected to pause
from our
daily lives, peer into our hearts and minds, evaluate our conduct during the
past year,
see that we can reach our deepest goals and achieve our more sincere dreams,
and examine
the state of our souls so we can hold ourselves accountable for any gaps
between the
standards we profess and the actions we perform. It should be no different
with this
post-tenure review, for, be it in a religious or academic context, when we
examine our
conduct and character, hold ourselves accountable for any gaps between the
standards we
profess and the actions we perform, acknowledge our faults, and seek to improve
and make
amends, we reach for our deepest dreams and goals. This is the time of honest,
vulnerable, and conscious listening to ourselves. If we can overcome our own
egos and let
go of self-serving justifications, drop our defensive rationalizations, shed
our jaded
suspicions, we most certainly can engaged in an academic, intellectual, and
spiritual
quest for a worthiness that enriches beyond measure our lives and the lives of
those
around us.
Make it a good day.
--Louis--
Louis Schmier
http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/
Department of
History http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp
Valdosta State University www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
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