Recently, I received an email from a good friend, a tenured professor on another campus, complaining about the latest indignity he had suffered at the hands of administrators.
He had made a routine request for a minor adjustment to his teaching schedule — essentially, swapping one course for another — only to have it denied for no apparent reason and with no explanation. He later learned that a junior faculty member, a “rising star” in the department, had been given the course my friend had requested, despite the department’s longstanding tradition of basing such decisions on seniority.
“I’m sick of this (expletive deleted),” he wrote. “After all I’ve done for this college and this department, all the loyalty I’ve shown over the years. Well, no more. I’m done.”
My reply was even more succinct: “What took you so long?”
You see, I came to the same conclusion several years ago, after a particularly harrowing experience in which a few of my “colleagues” ganged up on me and tried to damage my career. As I wrote at the time, they very nearly succeeded, and probably would have if I hadn’t taken certain steps to protect myself. When push came to shove, all my years of service to the institution, all my outstanding teaching evaluations, all my publications and presentations, apparently meant nothing to the college’s corporatist administrators. They showed me no loyalty whatsoever. In the aftermath, I came to realize that I, therefore, owed no loyalty to them, to the institution, or to the department.
That was an incredibly liberating epiphany. Since then, I have shifted my focus away from those few bitter colleagues and from faceless abstractions like departments and colleges. Instead I’ve focused on people and ideals that actually matter, and in the process have re-created myself as a professor and a human being. Nowadays, my loyalties lie elsewhere:
My family. The new Speaker of the House, Rep. Paul Ryan, took some heat for saying that he hoped the job wouldn’t interfere too much with his family time. As one commentator noted, at that level of government, being away from your family is just part of the job. I understand that argument but I also sympathize with Ryan on this count.
Early in my career, when my children were little, I spent a lot of time at work, away from my family. I can’t say I regret that, exactly, because I mostly enjoyed the work and, more important, it enabled me to earn tenure and establish a stable home life. I don’t know that I would go back and do things any differently.
But at this point in my career, my priorities have changed. I simply decline to do anything for my department or institution that: (a) interferes with my family life, (b) isn’t strictly required by my contract, or (c) does nothing to benefit me or the people I care about most.
I’ve focused on people and ideals that actually matter, and in the process have re-created myself as a professor and a human being.
I’ve been fortunate, as a scholar, to acquire a modest national reputation in my area of specialization. That has opened numerous doors for me in terms of publishing and public speaking. I no longer need to do those things just to keep my job. Now I do them because I enjoy them, and because of the perks they offer (which occasionally include money).
The truth is, as a young faculty member, I didn’t do my academic work just because I hoped it would lead to tenure (although that was a big part of it, of course). I also did it because I believed in my college, and I hoped that my success would in some way be the institution’s success.
I don’t believe in my college the same way anymore. But I do still believe in myself.
My profession. Don’t think that, just because I’ve stopped feeling any sense of loyalty toward my college, I’ve stopped trying to do my job to the best of my ability. If anything, I work at it harder — especially the teaching part — than ever before. I just do it for different reasons now: I do it, not because the college or my “supervisors” expect me to, but because I expect me to.
I entered this profession believing that teaching is a calling. But I have to admit that, for many years, it became a job — one I liked, to be sure, and one that was all-consuming, but still just a job.
Far from making me more jaded and cynical, as you might expect, shifting my focus away from my role as a college employee to my role as a teacher has enabled me to reconnect with my earlier ideals. Today I once again view teaching as a calling, and I feel a deep sense of loyalty to it.
My students. Hand in hand with my renewed focus on teaching has come a rededication to serving students. That’s why I’m in this business, after all, even though for many years it didn’t seem like it. It felt like I existed to serve the institution, which occasionally put me in the uncomfortable position of having to put the college’s interests ahead of students’.
No more. I no longer care about my college’s interests, or my department’s. And that gives me the freedom to do what I believe is best for students, even if it means ignoring some silly policy or administrative edict.
My discipline. My mother once told me that you should never love something that can’t love you back. For many years, what I felt toward my college could accurately be described as love, until I learned the hard way that it definitely did not return my devotion.
In the process of re-evaluating my loyalties, I came to realize that I loved my discipline — long before I’d ever heard of my institution, thought of a career as a professor, or even recognized it as an academic discipline. Eventually, of course, through graduate school and my early years in academe, I did come to see it as a discipline, as something I studied and taught, not something I loved.
Now that I no longer care what some committee decides, or which campus faction advances what agenda, I have rediscovered my earlier, almost childlike love for my discipline. And I have come to understand that, if love can be defined as providing a sense of joy, wonder, and belonging, then my field has always loved me back.
My colleagues. A handful of vipers notwithstanding, most of my colleagues are good, decent people just trying to make a living while doing their best for students. I might not feel a sense of loyalty to my campus anymore, but I do still feel some loyalty toward them.
What that means: Even while opting out of certain activities that don’t mesh with my new priorities — like pointless, make-work committees — I try not to create more work for my colleagues unnecessarily. Of course, junior faculty do often shoulder more of the burden for certain types of committee work, just as I did when I was in their shoes. It’s necessary to their advancement, and I wouldn’t want to deprive them of those opportunities.
But I’m always prepared to accept my share of real work, especially tasks that can only be done by senior professors. To do less would be to punish my colleagues for the failure of the institution.
After reading this essay, some of you might conclude that I’m simply bitter about what happened to me a few years ago. Not so. I’ve actually never felt happier or more fulfilled in my professional life. In my 2011 column, after detailing my career crisis, I closed by saying that it was important to keep perspective in the face of career difficulties. I believe I’ve done that — or rather, I’ve gained a new perspective, and focused on what’s most important.
I predicted back then that the ultimate “revenge” would be living well, and moving on with my life and career in a manner consistent with my deepest convictions. That has definitely turned out to be the case.
