Why Is Tenure Application So Painful?

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Clarissa

July 31, 2014

I have been discussing with a colleague why the tenure application process had to be so painful.

My explanation is that the point is to make people appreciate tenure more after making huge sacrifices to get it. Nothing I did on the tenure-track even remotely rises to the level of the complexity of compiling this dossier. The strategy helps people avoid having anti-climactic experiences when they do get tenure.

My colleague says the point is to beat people down so that they lose all of the fantasies of the “Just let me get tenure and I will finally start saying what I really think.”

And now I will let you guess the proponent of which of the two theories is a happier person.

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15 responses to “Why Is Tenure Application So Painful?”

el

July 31, 2014

I am mainly interested in guessing the proponent of which of the two theories is closer to the truth. 🙂

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  Obviously, neither. We both understand that there is no conspiracy behind these tenure dossiers. These discussions are simply a way to relieve stress.
  
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Good Enough Professor

July 31, 2014

I’m always struck by this feature of the tenure process (this may be unique to my institution): there’s no obvious moment where a person can say “Whoo-hoo! I got tenure! Party time!” Every milestone of completion/approval has another looming just beyond it. After a certain point there’s not much doubt that it will happen, but there’s always just that shred of uncertainty that forestalls any sense of closure. By the time it IS unassailably nailed down, any sense of profound relief or catharsis has long since dissipated and the faculty member in question is too emotionally exhausted anyway to celebrate. The best one can muster is a quiet drink with a supportive loved one, and even that has a cloud of “about fucking time!” hanging over it.

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AcademicLurker

July 31, 2014

I ended up submitting my tenure dossier as a searchable pdf. I won’t even tell you how many pages it was. I hope no one actually printed it out, I’d feel guilty about the wasted trees.

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 31, 2014
  
  We are using Digital Measures and if you don’t know what that is, consider yourself very, very lucky.
  
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Z

August 1, 2014

I have never seen anyone who said they would finally say what they really thought after tenure, actually say anything. If anything, this type of person is even more mousey after tenure.

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1. Clarissa
  
  August 1, 2014
  
  “I have never seen anyone who said they would finally say what they really thought after tenure, actually say anything. If anything, this type of person is even more mousey after tenure.”
  
  – EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    August 5, 2014
    
    It’s like the old saw about wanting to change the system from within. By the time such a person is in a position to make changes they’re too enmeshed in a system of mutual dependence and obligations to actually do anything.
    
    By the time a person who’s waiting for tenure to speak up gets tenure they’re way too invested in silent fuming (and self rigteous anger – the most seductive emotion in the world) to be able to actually …. speak up.
    
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musteryou

August 1, 2014

I had a dream I met Clarissa last night at a local restaurant or drinking venue and I kept behaving clumsily and tearing notes out of her notebooks, inadvertently. And then I saw her office and looked out the window and then tried to catch a bus home (but I was in Canada),and I thought, “Damn, this dream sequence. I can never find my way home in them.”

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1. Clarissa
  
  August 1, 2014
  
  I often have such dreams. I n them, I’m trapped either back in Ukraine or in New Haven.
  
  About the notebook, is the phrase “take a page out of somebody’s notebook” used in Australia.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    August 1, 2014
    
    I think the dream had more to do with my Oxford experience and how I was jetlagged and overtired, so everything I said seemed to come out wrong. I think I was reflecting on your gaining establishment in academia and considering that if I were in a similar position, I would inadvertently offend people by a kind of drunken tiredness.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      August 1, 2014
      
      Drunken tiredness is definitely there. I just had to move house at the precise moment when the tenure dossier is due.
      
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    2. Clarissa
      
      August 1, 2014
      
      When did you go to Oxford?
      
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      1. musteryou
        
        August 1, 2014
        
        http://www.financialgazette.co.zw/oxford-university-remembers-marechera/
        
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      2. musteryou
        
        August 1, 2014
        
        http://www.cherwell.org/news/2009/05/21/oxford-celebrates-poet-it-once-shunned
        
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