The women in my graduate-school cohort dream about catering. That was our fallback plan, the fantasy career if academe didn't work out. We were so experienced in both realms. When we weren't feverishly collecting data or revising manuscripts (again), we were planning parties, baking cakes for visiting professors and departmental potlucks, and "volunteering" to wash dishes at the department head's house afterward. I was so good that the department commended me as "an unfailingly good citizen" and formally awarded me honorary faculty status in recognition of my contributions. At least, we reasoned, nobody will call us uncollegial.
Ten years later, we're talking about catering again. Kath is disenchanted with the grants-and-publications process, coupled with the lack of institutional support she's faced. Shalini spent a year as associate dean and can't believe the politics she saw. Amanda discovered she hated grading enough to abandon the academy when the two-body problem arose in her household. Ellen made it to the tenure review, only to be denied for supposedly fiscal reasons. But those of us having the worst time were waylaid by what some call "the weasel clause."
That's the often hidden clause in the university handbook that specifies that tenure and other appointment decisions need not be based on articulated criteria that can be objectively measured -- usually teaching, scholarship, and service to the college. Sometimes, the weasel clause implies, mysterious other reasons emerge for a negative appointment decision. And the clause usually contains some combination of the phrases "interests of the department," "institutional considerations and needs," and "subjective judgments."
It's hard to interpret the weasel clause as anything other than the equivalent of "We will overlook the fact that you are good at your job if we don't like you." Professional organizations such as the American Association of University Professors as well as academic and legal advocacy groups decry its use because it blurs the line between being discriminating and being discriminatory, but it's apparently quite common these days -- just take a look at the recent spate of articles focusing on the unspecified and ill-defined "criterion of collegiality." Yet those articles focus largely on professional standards and institutional liability, and there's very little guidance for those of us who have fallen victim to it. I have an opportunity now to fill that gap: Here's what you do when your tenure-track career is derailed by the weasel clause.
Upon notice of nonreappointment, you appeal. You can't believe the institution values petty politics over performance. You loved your classes and had great relationships with most of your colleagues, you're invested in your students and your lab, and your domestic partner doesn't want to move. But talk about a longshot. Successful appeals are rare, usually based on incomplete information or procedural violations during the review process. More information certainly isn't going to persuade anybody that they really liked you after all, so you decide to go the procedural route.
Logically, however, you're destined to fail, because the weasel clause is the loophole that ultimately allows deviations from established procedure. You were, unfortunately, that rare instance. Despite your strong portfolio, you just don't "fit" here, they tell you. You're talented, well-spoken, they say; in time, you'll find "the job that's right for someone like you."
You consider filing suit. Suing someone (everyone?) appeals to your sense of justice, but it's expensive and all-consuming, and frankly it's not likely to lead to tenure. Even if you "win" at trial, is any sane judge actually going to sentence you to life at that place? If key people at the institution didn't like you before, they're really going to hate you after you've sued them. Not to mention that every bad thing anyone ever said about you privately will be revealed during the discovery process, and you can bet it's way worse than anything they had the guts to say to your face. It'll drag on for years, and by the end you won't want to go back; in fact you'll wonder how you managed to survive there for as long as you did. The best you can hope for is a cash settlement, most of which belongs to Uncle Sam and your contingency lawyer. Unless you're independently wealthy or close to retirement, you still need a job.
Looking to industry has its appeal. Less political, and you just can't deal with another tenure review. At your first informational interview, an executive asks why you'd want to give up your "cushy" career as a college professor to work at her company, and you don't have a credible answer. You can't exactly say you're leaving academe because someone didn't like you. And you don't truly want to give it up -- after all, you've planned for this career as long as you can remember, maybe since junior high when you won the American Legion Auxiliary award recognizing your "honor, courage, scholarship, leadership, and service." Amused by the prescience, you frame it and hang it over your desk.
You meet with your graduate students to discuss the challenges facing women in academe, and the 9-year-old daughter of a colleague proudly offers her perspective: "The other kids, they say their mom stays home, or is a doctor, or a real-estate agent, but I just think, well, you know, my mom is a professor." You start to cry.
Disheartened, but not yet entirely lacking in motivation, you send out your CV in response to advertisements for assistant- and associate-level jobs and get back a mountain of rejection letters. Your application folder contains impressive teaching evaluations, a hefty stack of reprints, and glowing reference letters about your contributions to the campus, but it's painfully evident who didn't write on your behalf. There's a huge white elephant in the envelope, and you don't know how to get rid of it.
You send out e-mail messages to your friends. Give me some advice on how better to advertise myself, you ask. The first responses come from sympathetic female faculty members who were, you learn later, the (no-longer-anonymous) outside reviewers who had strongly recommended tenure and promotion. One suggests that you have a well-established colleague make discreet, unsolicited calls to politely but candidly explain that "it wasn't you; it was them." Another ruefully acknowledges that many departments prefer to hire from the currently large crop of newly minted Ph.D.'s because they like to "mentor junior faculty" to become the "kind of person they want to have around." If you come in with tenure, or close to tenure, they simply don't have enough time to decide if they like you, and, well. ...
You want to talk to someone who doesn't know you so well, so you request a meeting with a former college president who's recently moved to your neighborhood. He's already heard about you from mutual friends and asks to review your vita. A few weeks later he invites you back to his office. Your problem, he pronounces, is that you're "too productive." Senior faculty members at all but the very top colleges will feel threatened. Great, you think. The very things that should have earned you tenure are now holding you back. Your graduate adviser recommends law school. So do your parents.
Not knowing what else to do as the school year ends, you hit the adjunct circuit. Friends at neighboring institutions find part-time and visiting positions for you. After all, you're an excellent teacher who is now cheap labor. They offer the title of associate professor, but not a lot of cash. The rates vary; you do the math and discover you'd need to teach between 6 and 12 classes every semester to equal what would have been your nine-month salary, not counting benefits. Not much time for research. You accept as many as you reasonably can, hoping for a foot in the door if a tenure line opens. You keep an eye out for the powerful people with the sharpest teeth, and you ferret through the faculty handbooks to find the weasel clause.
Classes start. You've read all their publications, but your new colleagues want to talk about your past. Their first question is where you came from, and their second is why you left. You still don't know the right thing to say, but you want them to like you. You fill your candy dish and start baking for the departmental potlucks.
There's always catering, you think. And at least nobody will call you uncollegial.
