TENURE!

[HigherEd7]

I have heard colleague of mine say when you finally make tenure it is a lonely feeling. Some people will congratulate you, some could care less and those that did not make it will talk bad about you etc...  seems like a very stressful process and not the return you thought you might get. :(

[polly_mer]

Yes, this is well known among people who know how higher ed works. 

Tenure is a successful conclusion to an up-or-out process, but it's not then a fairy tale-like 'and they all lived happily ever after' ending to annoyance, frustration, and strive. 

Tenure means there's a formal process to being fired, unless the institution has significant financial problems and then all bets are off.

Earning tenure is a job action, not a magical state that fixes everything.

[mamselle]

Is this because you're working on tenure, or have just earned it (congrats, if so), or...??

Just wondered what prompted the question/exclaim.

If this has been discussed elsewhere, please forgive my ignorance.

:--}

DL

[mythbuster]

For me, earning tenure was the anti-climax to a very stressful process.
You get an email, or maybe a real snail mail letter from the administration, and you get to keep doing your job.
If you are lucky you get a pay bump with it.
It took a while for me for the stress level to come down, as I realized that I had more breathing room than I did before. Doing research on a timer clock has never been my forte.

[ergative]

7, buddy, I clicked on this link with blow-toots ready to toot and balloons ready to drop in celebration, and instead I'm faced with this?

Anyway, I certainly remember a feeling of let-down when I submitted my dissertation--they didn't even give me a lollipop at the office, when I was assured that they usually did!---so I can imagination that tenure is similar.

[Vkw10]

If you don't enjoy your work before making tenure, you won't enjoy it afterward. You may feel a bit less pressure to publish and secure grants, but that tends to depend on your discipline and your institution. You're likely to be expected to do more service to institution. If you participated in pre-tenure support groups, you may find yourself missing that supportive group.

Earning tenure means your chair doesn't walk in your office and say, "I'm sorry that you didn't make tenure. Good luck finding a new job. Now, since you're on a terminal contract, ...." It means a brief personal celebration, possibly feeling a bit more secure about buying a house, and continuing to work at the same job. Most days, I like my job and the other days I like knowing I have a steady paycheck and benefits.

[Ruralguy]

Its nice not to have to think about "Uh..should I use Mayflower or North American?"
Stability is a good thing.

[clean]

In the old forum, I wrote a little essay about the let down that came with tenure.  I dont remember it too well, now, and I dont think that it can be found anyway.

The bottom line is that you work for years, and then spend a lot of time putting together a binder by the start of classes in September. Then you wait and wait and wait, hearing only a time or 2 from the dean that the file is again passed over to the next in line.  Then you get a note that it is being evaluated by the state legislature.  Finally, after much time, you get a note from the higher ups, signed with an auto pen, not even an actual person, that you have been granted tenure. 

So a full year after, the file is submitted, you hear something about it coming to an end.

Very much a let down, and long drawn out in the process.

[mamselle]

Also, on this forum as well as the old one, it did involve a party.

But the past two announcements have not netted many attendees.

Not sure what that's about...we were trying to made amends for the real world in that sense.

M.

[apl68]

Yes, this is well known among people who know how higher ed works. 

Tenure is a successful conclusion to an up-or-out process, but it's not then a fairy tale-like 'and they all lived happily ever after' ending to annoyance, frustration, and strive. 

Tenure means there's a formal process to being fired, unless the institution has significant financial problems and then all bets are off.

Earning tenure is a job action, not a magical state that fixes everything.

Which I'm sure people here understand.  However, when one spends years in a long, hard slog toward a goal, it's hard not to become so invested in that goal that reaching it feels like something of an anticlimax. 

[polly_mer]

Yes, this is well known among people who know how higher ed works. 

Tenure is a successful conclusion to an up-or-out process, but it's not then a fairy tale-like 'and they all lived happily ever after' ending to annoyance, frustration, and strive. 

Tenure means there's a formal process to being fired, unless the institution has significant financial problems and then all bets are off.

Earning tenure is a job action, not a magical state that fixes everything.

Which I'm sure people here understand.  However, when one spends years in a long, hard slog toward a goal, it's hard not to become so invested in that goal that reaching it feels like something of an anticlimax.

I'm not sure people do understand, based on years of reading these and other academic outlets.  There's a lot of magical thinking in many areas of academia.

Why is tenure so great?  After all, I have a job where technically I can be fired tomorrow for no reason as an at-will employee and yet we've bought a house and taken many actions consistent with a long-term future here. Tenured people can end up with no job when their program is cut or the institution closes, as many people are finding out.

Tenure is great only if one is on the up-or-out path and ends up on the up conclusion.  The changes in many places to have far fewer people on the up-or-out path makes the hoops for tenure look like a sucker bet, especially since tenure doesn't guarantee a job for life or even necessarily a job next term any more.  It never really did have an iron-clad guarantee, but it's well below near certain now.

[Hegemony]

"Expectations are premeditated resentments." I didn't expect anyone to get terrifically excited when I got tenure — why should they? I guess other people perceive it as more of an ordeal than I did, and therefore more of a relief when it goes well. I figured I'd probably be fine either way. So nobody threw a big party, but a couple of people sent me nice emails, and that was fine. I think keeping expectations reasonable is the key. There doesn't seem to be a lot of point in anticipating how anti-climactic getting tenure will be, or how miserable one will be when it is — ?

[Wahoo Redux]

Huh.  My wife's done tenure twice.  Neither time was it a surprise.  We went out to dinner and were very, very happy.

[fizzycist]

Maybe tenure isn't great, I dunno. But tenure denial seems pretty fucking bad and everyone I know who has gone through it seems to have had real trauma.

Of course from the outside it all seems a little overblown. People get promoted and laid off from jobs all the time, but I I bet getting publicly rejected hurts bad for them too. 

[Vkw10]

Maybe tenure isn't great, I dunno. But tenure denial seems pretty fucking bad and everyone I know who has gone through it seems to have had real trauma.

Of course from the outside it all seems a little overblown. People get promoted and laid off from jobs all the time, but I I bet getting publicly rejected hurts bad for them too. 

Tenure denial is traumatic, especially when for people who worked hard then received a split vote before an eventual denial.  Earning tenure is an achievement to celebrate, even when you are confident you've done more than enough to qualify. The process is prolonged and stressful. I've known people who expected to be much happier once they earned tenure, only to be disappointed to learn that the job doesn't really change much.