stability

[aryanhwy]

Long-time readers of this LJ will know that I am not a big fan of change (pity Joel when he upgrades some aspect of my computer that CHANGES HOW THE ICONS LOOK or WHERE THE MENUS ARE LISTED. I use the old LJ post mechanism AND friends feed. Ditto for Wordpress), and it seems like dealing with it only gets harder, rather than easier.

One of the things that sometimes still catches me by surprise about our current situation is how stable it is. It isn't just that I know where we'll be in another year or two, or what we'll be doing, I have a good idea where we'll be in another twenty years, and who I'll be doing it with. And when I realize that, it still takes my breath away.

Joel's birthday was yesterday, and Thursday we went out to eat to celebrate (we were going to go on his birthday, until we realized we had no groceries and nothing in the freezer...). In the morning, I told Gwen we were going to the Queen's Head for supper, and her comment was, "Is Thomas going to be there?" (not an unusual request, since we basically go to the Queen's Head for birthday dinners or to meet up with Thomas), and I laughed and said no, and thought about how quickly she has integrated the new people we've/she's met since moving into her life.

I remember my first few times going to ESMLS, how the senior scholars seemed so delighted to see each other, and not for academic reasons but for social reasons -- they were asking about each other's wives and kids and grandkids, and it seemed so...it's hard to describe it, it was both incredibly friendly and a bit exclusive, simply because as a young junior scholar you stand on the outskirts and realize that these people have been attending the same conferences, seeing each other every other year or so, for as long as you've been alive, and you know that by the time you've been around as long as they have, they'll be dead, so you'll never really be able to enter their circle, at least not in the same way.

And then it was maybe the very next one that I went to that I realized -- there are people at this conference that I only see every other year or so, but whom when we meet up with, we aren't just academic colleagues, we've become friends, and suddenly I realized that these were the people that 30 years from now would be the senior scholars chatting about our partners and children and grandchildren. And I've also found, over the years, that the generational difference isn't quite as big as it seemed when I was more junior. Depending on the constellation of people, I know these senior scholar's partners, and know of their kids and grandkids, and they know mine, and know or know of Gwen, so we have the same non-academic conversations.

One reason that it's always a bit sad going back to Amsterdam is that so few of the people we knew while there are still there. Most of them were students, and they arrived around when we did and left around when we did. The academic life is so transient that you really can't ever go back -- it is the people, not the place, and the turnover of people at any given place is 4-6 years.

Gwen asks if Thomas is joining us for supper, and I laugh in part at how easily she has slotted him into our social circle. And then I marvel at the fact that she is right to do so. The people that we meet here are for the most part people who will be here for good, just like us. When we tell Gwen she might not be going to the same school as her best friend at nursery, Thomas C., there is a point to suggesting that we can still invite him over to her house to play, and that he might invite her over. After we move, he'll be about a 15-20 min. walk away, and his parents are also full-time, non-fixed-term (essentially, tenured) university faculty. They're unlikely to have to move or to have reason to move, especially while they've got a young child! There is no reason that they couldn't still be friends 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 25 years from now. And that's just not something you can even contemplate at many stages of the academic life. There was no point in trying to keep in touch with her friends at daycare in Heidelberg (even without the language barrier): They're unlikely to ever see each other again. Even if we go back to Heidelberg for a visit, the chances that their parents' are still there are so low.

It's just really nice to be able to think in terms of 5, 10, 15, 25 years rather than in terms of 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, especially when you're one who dislikes change as much as I do.

Comments

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

The sole reason for tenure from the university's perspective, I suspect, is that it ties the professor more closely to the institution.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this since you posted it last night.

If this is true, then why don't other types of institutions have tenure? Businesses and other companies attract employees who are happy to stay for a long number of years, and they don't provide tenure (and not all of them do it by providing huge salaraies/lots of benefits). People take non-fixed-term contracts at these companies and don't worry about undue early termination; that seems to be more what tenure gives academics than closeness of ties with the university.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

What I wrote sounds more absolute than reality. Part of what I meant was that the person who the job attracts tends to value that sort of stability. I know that financially*, universities *hate* tenure. That's why they're going with adjuncts as much as possible.

*not straight salary, but benefits and also not being able to "adjust headcount" as they say.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, the university when conceived of as a business is almost entirely antithetical to tenure. :(

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Another side of this: if you are along the path of tenure, and you leave for another university - does that effectively transfer, or do you start over? Airline pilots effectively had tenure through seniority and lost it if they changed airlines, so they never did.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

If I ever left this position, it would almost certainly be for something of equal or higher rank. I'm not sure if there'd be a probationary period; I don't actually know exactly how the UK system works.

In the US, I'm pretty sure that if you had obtained tenure at your current position, you could take that tenure with you, or maybe you could get fast-tracked?

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

My co-worker the longtime professor says that it's all negotiable and depends on bargaining power.
I think that people who want these jobs (and stick with them) are drawn to the stability tenure promises. That also applies to govt employees, which I experienced firsthand when working for the city.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Nowadays, people who go into academia for stability are crazy. :( There's the uncertainty of funding for the PhD. There's the innumerable post-docs. There's adjuncting. There's what the State of Wisconsin is doing to its previously excellent university system.

So depressing. I've had to start actively advising students not to go on to do PhDs unless they have a robust plan of what they will do with it outside of academia.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Long-term planning is such an odd feeling. For me, it isn't so much about colleagues as about gardens. I still remember back when I was first seriously thinking about doing grad school (remember I was starting in my late '30s). Right around the same time, I'd moved from the upper front unit in my triplex (which I owned with my parents) to the back unit that opened onto the main part of the yard. One line of thought was, "I shouldn't put too much effort and emotional investment into planting a garden because my goal is to move to an academic profession and that will require selling this house and moving." Another line of thought was, "But if I do continue living here, I don't want to be that many years behind where my garden could be if I started now."

And then, of course, eventually I ended up moving anyway and left a very nice yard and garden behind. But I'd settled firmly in the camp that you have to plant your garden *as if* you'd be living there forever. Otherwise you'll never plant at all. It works well as a metaphor too.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we haven't ever invested much effort in gardening since...what's the point? (Also, in rentals, not much space/place for them, often). I am looking forward to making use of the small(ish) space that we have, to grow annual vegetables. I think it's a good thing for a kid to experience.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

I still can't wrap my head around the whole "long term planning" concept, never mind that we bought a house and are already three years into what will be at least a four-year earth cellar building project. I still kinda expect that something will require me to just pick up and move, with not much notice, any day now. Yet, there are no outside agencies in my life likely to do that anymore...

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

It is a very special type of stability to have the freedom to move when and where you choose!

[(Anonymous)]

I agree--it is lovely to settle into a feeling of permanence. I moved SO MUCH as a kid, and I am glad to be able to offer my children something different. Glad you guys have found your nest. About the old senior faculty thing--a junior person I've know forever revealed that she was intimidated by me because I'm a scary old senior person, while to me she's just a little younger than me. Which makes me think those scary senior people probably felt the same about me. The shrinkage of the generational gaps thing is totally true. --Bunny

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had a weird moment at the most recent biennial conference in my field (the one referred to in my post) when I looked around and realized there was a bunch of junior scholars that I didn't know -- which suddenly meant that I had now moved into the "middle-aged" band. Seeing as I still feel closer to 25 than to 35, despite what the calendar says, it's hard to wrap my head around!