A few weeks ago, I was talking to a professor at a near-by flagship
university about how in the Remembering the Holocaust class I require the
students wear large yellow stars on their chest with "Jew" boldly written on it
pinned on their chests outside of class, 24/7, wherever they are and with
whomever they are, and daily record their feelings and the responses of those
around them. Fabulous stuff. Anyway, back to the point of this encounter, the
professor's immediate, first, unthinking, knee-jerk response was, "Oh, you must
have tenure." That one sentence has had me thinking, especially after reading
Daniel Gilbert's STUMBLING ON HAPPINESS and some other stuff, that in most
corners of academe, academics grovel at the feet of the great god, Tenure. No,
they don't offer up people to the flames. But, they often just throw people to
the wolves. After all, this deity can provide lots of safety and security, and
supposedly happiness. In fact, if Mae West was an academic, she might say,
"I've been untenured and I've been tenured. Tenured is better."
I know, tenure really isn't the problem. Threatened people who pursue
it are. The demands of that "tenure track" environment are. You can tell a
lot about people by how they pursue tenure when demand and threat merge into a
proverbial "perfect storm." The problem is that the campus are perennially
stormy. The result is that far too many academics practice a fearful
austerity rather than an heroic audacity. Cultivation of a sense of well-being
is not high on their professional bucket list. They have the fearful look of
prey being stalked. They walk around with a defeated heart, a submissive mind,
and an inner surrender that's all summed up in "what will they think" and "but,
I don't have tenure." They are thrown into a survival mode, having a tendency
to overvalue it, wanting it too much, are willing to make too many compromises,
are willing to sacrifice values and character to secure it, giving it a
priority above classroom teaching, sacrificing students, thinking it can do so
much, and thinking it can do too much.
Too many of us are rationalizing academic Tevyes, singing "if I was
tenured prof." Oye, the wonderful careers we could have and the great things
we could do if we were tenured. It's easy to think that tenure is synonomous
with "job satisfaction" and happiness; it's easy to think that habits and
attitudes formed during the years in the pursuit of tenure can be broken the
day after nailing it down. So many academics pursuing tenure believe that life
will be much, much better--and pleasantly different--once they are tenured.
They assume they can relax from the judgment of others, have the freedom they
desire to do the things that most interest them, and they will have job
security in an insecure world. Guess what. They have what Gilbert calls an
"impact bias." That makes them lousy forecasters, and dead wrong. After that
one ray briefly breaks through the dark clouds, the hole closes to gray the sky
once again. And, it is that error that makes our campuses perpetual
risk-aversion, fearful places.
A little secret that not really a secret: getting tenure will make
you "happy," but not all that much and not for that long. Deny it all you
want; rationalize it away all you want. Close your eyes, put your fingers
tightly in your ears, and make a wish for it to go away. But, it won't go
away. The protracted stalking, threatening, cowering, and withering pressures
are still there and quickly make known their predatory presence. The stifling
anxiety and fear quickly return after a momentary relieving "whew, got it." At
my University there are those ever-present, dour, prodding, chaining, and
dampening little impish devils dancing around the campus. They go by such
names of "SOIs, (Student Opinion of Instruction)," "annual reports," "promotion
application," "salary recommendations," and "post tenure review." And, there
are more.
I know. A little dash of the anxious, fearful, and threatening spur
you on and make you more creative and productive. The findings by Gilbert and
others respond with a "hogwash." But, that's the rest of the story. For the
moment, I just want to raise a red flag, a bright red flag. And, I want to
raise it high. We have to be careful, very careful, for, to paraphrase the
Talmud, if we believe tenure can do everything, we just might be willing to do
anything to get it. And, far, far too many of us are far, far too careless.
Make it a good day
-Louis-
Louis Schmier
http://www.therandomthoughts.edublogs.org
Department of History http://www.therandomthoughts.com
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\
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(O) 229-333-5947 /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__ / \ /
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(C) 229-630-0821 / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ / \
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//\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/
\_/__\ \
/\"If you want to climb
mountains,\ /\
_ / \ don't practice on mole
hills" - / \_
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