To the Editor:
Thank you, Professor Pinto, for shattering the silence (“The Aftermath of a Tenure Denial,” The Chronicle, December 12). Tenure denial is a personally and professionally devastating experience. It is the universal source of nightmares and panic attacks for pre-tenure academics. Since joining the Academy as an assistant professor in 1988, I have witnessed friends and colleagues at public and private universities experience the shock and anguish of tenure denial. They each in their own way lived an experience with emotional tones and quakes similar to Professor Pinto’s.
Granted, not everyone is going to be promoted with tenure on the first try. Yet whether the tenure decision is yes or no should have no bearing on whether the person feels intrinsically valued and respected post-decision. No one denied tenure should be simultaneously denied understanding, civility, dignity, or connection. Our community should, with a single loud voice, say “We don’t treat our colleagues like that!”
There is too much incivility and insensitivity in this world and such behavior should have no roots in the Academy. We need an affirmative community standard for how we treat each other especially around topics and situations that make us uncomfortable. Professor Pinto was spot on to equate his sense of invisibleness to the ghosting that is often experienced by people diagnosed with cancer. We can and should do better than this. We can and should deliver and respond to bad/sad news with emotional intelligence. Without it, we create wounds that never heal.
Whether the decision to deny promotion is right or wrong should be aggressively pursued through the grievance process and independently studied within and across institutions for patterns of bias. But these issues are separate and distinct from how our colleagues are treated during the process of separation. Because tenure-denial decisions indelibly impact people’s lives forever, they should be guided by principles of procedural justice, including fairness, transparency, and voice combined with emotional intelligence. Only then do we minimize harm by giving humanity through understanding and compassion. And, only then can our colleagues leave to start again with dignity and a sense of professional belongingness.
I hope that what comes out of the discussion that Professor Pinto so bravely started is the articulation and practice of standards for humane separation. As Maya Angelou said so insightfully, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.“ Too many are and too much is lost to the emotional storms of ghosting associated with inhumane separation after tenure denial. This is something we can and should change by engaging our better angels. Enough. Let’s do it!
Nancy Wolff
Distinguished Professor
EJ Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, N.J.
