GUEST COLUMN: 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning'

Gregg Camfield knew tenure atGregg Camfield knew tenure atPenn wasn't a sure thing. He'sGregg Camfield knew tenure atPenn wasn't a sure thing. He'sbenefitted from being here anyway. Gregg Camfield knew tenure atPenn wasn't a sure thing. He'sbenefitted from being here anyway. If tenure is this academy's equivalent of the Oscar, then I'm an also-ran who should keep his mouth shut. Only the winners get to make maudlin speeches. But since I've made a big hit at the box office, I've been offered a certain amount of space in which to have my say -- and what professor, full, associate or soon-to-be absent, ever turned down the chance to say a few words? I don't want to break precedent; academic traditions must be observed. At conferences, we hear colleagues from other schools tell us the stories they know about current Penn professors (and former Penn professors), and we grow painfully familiar with the gag about how if one were to make a university out of scholars who had been denied tenure at Penn, it would be one of the finest universities in the world. We tend to be bright people; the academic job market being extremely tight, Penn always gets the best new Ph.D.s and quickly teaches them that Penn cares enough to send the very best. We know what we are up against. As painful as it is to lose the game, most of us learn much in the playing. We learn early to take advantage of what Penn offers us in exchange for the way it treats us. The light teaching load has given me time to write two books, present 16 papers at conferences and publish six articles and seven reviews. My work is growing in visibility; my first book came out of Penn's own press, while the second is going with Oxford and the third, now under contract, was solicited by Oxford. Consequently, my job search this year was extraordinarily successful; with 14 jobs squarely in my field, another seven marginally appropriate and 500 applicants per job, I had 16 job interviews. Like most jettisoned assistant professors, I will do fine in that other world beyond West Philly. While I have been able to develop professionally at Penn, I have also taken great pleasure working with some wonderful people. The majority of my colleagues in the English Department have been supportive of my work, and have admired my ability to balance scholarship and teaching. Many praise what I have written, letting me know that, while my work is controversial, what I have to say is important, valuable, powerful and worthy of Penn. In my committee work, I have met distinguished scholars and fine human beings from many other departments, most of whom have encouraged my development in ways too numerous to mention. Much of what I've learned here about the ins and outs of higher education will serve me wherever I go. And while the School of Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee, in its blank-faced refusal to explain itself, casts aspersions on the quality of my work, one dean who publicly disparaged my scholarship to support the committee's decision nonetheless encouraged me, in private, to resubmit my case. With such behind-the-scenes support, it is hard to take the committee's decision as a justified assessment of my scholarly worth. Penn has worked me hard, but much of the work has been enjoyable. The most pleasure I've taken from working here has been in the classroom, where Penn students make the work remarkably easy. All I have had to do is trust student abilities, ask the right questions, indulge the ham in me on occasion -- and classes have thrived. The University's Admissions Office is brilliant at bringing together students who can take advantage of what Penn has to offer. I have never hesitated to see students as Penn's greatest resource. So even though Penn is giving me the grand bounce, I can't say I wasn't prepared nor that I go uncompensated. I took advantage of Penn while it took advantage of me. It's an association of reciprocal use, and as long as that goes understood, what do I, as I leave, have to complain about? Nothing more than what I had to complain about all along: That so many at Penn want it to be so much more than an institution of mutual convenience. I hear again and again that people want Penn to be a community. Yet certain institutional barriers impede that community, and my experience suggests that Penn's tenure process is a significant barrier. I don't understand how a place with so much to offer can tenaciously defend a tenure process that does so much harm to the community that senior faculty, admissions officers and students all want and have within easy reach. An arbitrary and capricious reward system damages faculty morale, damages the sense of stability and predictability that students need for their growth, damages a sense of collegiality among faculty themselves and encourages isolation and distrust. If I were among those students who have expressed anger that Assistant Professor X has been axed, I would want to know everything I could about the tenure process. I would want to know why anyone would defend the process as it has evolved, I would advocate the development of clear, discipline-specific, publicly articulated standards for tenure and I would want students to have representation -- non-voting at least -- on personnel committees to make sure that student voices are heard, directly, when personnel cases are decided. And I would grieve for what has been lost so far. I guess my valediction does not forbid mourning, but mourn for Penn, not for me.