![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingIf you’re wondering how I’ve been handling the pandemic, last week was rough. I got an official letter from my university stating that my tenure case has been denied on the afternoon of the day that the city of Washington DC sent out an emergency warning declaring a month-long citywide quarantine. Even though I’d already given notice in January that I wouldn’t be renewing my contract, the university decided to let the mechanics of the tenure process continue to run so that my position could be terminated. On the day a national emergency was declared. Which is totally what a classy place like my school would do.
This was petty and unnecessary. To make matters worse, my department chair added a turd cherry to the top of the shit cake by forwarding me the university’s letter along with a smug email. If I took my position seriously, I would have already gotten my second book under contract. He knows that this decision is “disappointing” to me, but I should do my best not to allow the anger and fear of the times to “affect my behavior.”
For the moment, let’s set aside the fact that this ridiculous clown has tastelessly used a state of national emergency to exert dominance over a junior colleague by suggesting that a normal emotional response to the situation would be immature. Instead, I want to emphasize that it’s absurd for this decision to be based on my second book project. This might be different in different fields, but the sixth year of a tenure-track job is a normal time for people to get a contract for their second book, especially if they (like me) entered a tenure-track position directly after getting a PhD instead of spending several years in postdoc positions. My plan was therefore to get my first book out and then, during the Spring 2020 academic conference season, start talking to academic presses about my book on The Wind Waker, which already has a prospectus and 20,000 words of sample chapters. My department chair should have known this, because
(1) I told him about this plan directly, to his face, during multiple meetings;
(2) I outlined this plan in all my tenure documents; and
(3) he reiterated this plan in the supporting documents he wrote himself.
As it turns out, I did not talk to representatives from any presses. In fact, most of the conferences I was scheduled to attend this spring were cancelled because of, you know, a global pandemic. Yet here is my department chair, writing me an email to say BUT YOU SHOULD’VE.
What an asshole. I didn’t respond to him, of course. Instead, I set up an email filter to send all of his messages directly to my spam folder. Problem solved.
Still, this hurt, and the silence of my colleagues during my prolonged illness, subsequent harassment, and resulting decision to leave has also been difficult to process. There’s never a good time to have to go through something like this, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.
So how am I doing? I guess the answer is that I’m not in a good place, but I’m doing the best I can to support my students and my friends while being kind to everyone going through this mess alongside me.
Next week will be better. And the rest of my career will be better, honestly, because I’ve learned to recognize the red flags of unprofessional academic behavior. There will be no more of this nonsense.
And fuck neoliberal capitalism, seriously. Our labor, experience, and expertise are valuable and should be treated with respect. Our lives are valuable and should be treated with respect. A lot of us are struggling right now, but I hope we’re able to come out of this crisis filled with all the frustration, fury, and demands for justice that insecure people with small minds think it’s “immature” for those of us in marginal positions to express.
A global pandemic should not be used as a means of punishing individuals for failing to deliver “a competitive performance report.” As for the institutions that have failed to perform, however, maybe it’s time for a radical reevaluation of priorities.
This was petty and unnecessary. To make matters worse, my department chair added a turd cherry to the top of the shit cake by forwarding me the university’s letter along with a smug email. If I took my position seriously, I would have already gotten my second book under contract. He knows that this decision is “disappointing” to me, but I should do my best not to allow the anger and fear of the times to “affect my behavior.”
For the moment, let’s set aside the fact that this ridiculous clown has tastelessly used a state of national emergency to exert dominance over a junior colleague by suggesting that a normal emotional response to the situation would be immature. Instead, I want to emphasize that it’s absurd for this decision to be based on my second book project. This might be different in different fields, but the sixth year of a tenure-track job is a normal time for people to get a contract for their second book, especially if they (like me) entered a tenure-track position directly after getting a PhD instead of spending several years in postdoc positions. My plan was therefore to get my first book out and then, during the Spring 2020 academic conference season, start talking to academic presses about my book on The Wind Waker, which already has a prospectus and 20,000 words of sample chapters. My department chair should have known this, because
(1) I told him about this plan directly, to his face, during multiple meetings;
(2) I outlined this plan in all my tenure documents; and
(3) he reiterated this plan in the supporting documents he wrote himself.
As it turns out, I did not talk to representatives from any presses. In fact, most of the conferences I was scheduled to attend this spring were cancelled because of, you know, a global pandemic. Yet here is my department chair, writing me an email to say BUT YOU SHOULD’VE.
What an asshole. I didn’t respond to him, of course. Instead, I set up an email filter to send all of his messages directly to my spam folder. Problem solved.
Still, this hurt, and the silence of my colleagues during my prolonged illness, subsequent harassment, and resulting decision to leave has also been difficult to process. There’s never a good time to have to go through something like this, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.
So how am I doing? I guess the answer is that I’m not in a good place, but I’m doing the best I can to support my students and my friends while being kind to everyone going through this mess alongside me.
Next week will be better. And the rest of my career will be better, honestly, because I’ve learned to recognize the red flags of unprofessional academic behavior. There will be no more of this nonsense.
And fuck neoliberal capitalism, seriously. Our labor, experience, and expertise are valuable and should be treated with respect. Our lives are valuable and should be treated with respect. A lot of us are struggling right now, but I hope we’re able to come out of this crisis filled with all the frustration, fury, and demands for justice that insecure people with small minds think it’s “immature” for those of us in marginal positions to express.
A global pandemic should not be used as a means of punishing individuals for failing to deliver “a competitive performance report.” As for the institutions that have failed to perform, however, maybe it’s time for a radical reevaluation of priorities.
