BY CHAVELLA  T. PITTMAN

Imagine a world where our campuses are…

…incubators that birth a bounty of intellectual ideas that are fully pursued, investigated, taught, and disseminated.

…celebrated because academic freedom is not only protected, but how it is protected has become an example to other endeavors.

…reflections of a full range of ideas pursued with a commitment to expanding ideas that have traditionally had less airtime.

…staffed with faculty who have a pep in their step because they are securely employed and compensated enough to take care of themselves and their families.

…places where faculty of color are rightfully tenured for their numerous innovative and positive contributions to scholarship, service, and teaching.

…havens of safety for its constituents, students, faculty, and leaders—physically, emotionally, economically, mentally.

You’re probably wondering, How do we make this vision of a joyful, fulfilling campus a reality? What must be done to ensure that all faculty thrive? What we know from our colleagues in the behavior sciences is that in pursuit of our goals we must focus as much on what we want as what we don’t want. When was the last time you allowed yourself to dream of what’s possible—what you most want?

When I wrote “Achieving Racial Equity in Promotion and Tenure” in the winter 2023 issue of Academe, this was my goal—to focus on what action is possible in order to achieve what we say we want. I hoped to go beyond what has been said many times, to put forward something new, and to inspire people to stop forcing a “square peg in a round hole.” As my fellow women of color faculty know well, it can be difficult, tiring, and sometimes seemingly futile to sustain this positive focus. Nevertheless, it is my chosen position and one I stand by. Little did I know that soon after publication, I would receive emails, including this one (details changed to preserve anonymity):

Hello Dr. Pittman,

I am reaching out about your recent article “Achieving Racial Equity in Promotion and Tenure” in AAUP’s Academe.

Wow! A powerful read! Thank you so much for this excellent new higher-ed publication! A much needed publication. This quote from your article says it all:

“What is lacking seems to be the institutional will to take necessary actions. If we ignore institutions’ stated diversity values and priorities and pay attention only to their behaviors, the message is clear: institutions aren’t interested in doing the work necessary to retain and promote tenured faculty members of color.“

Thank you for this article Chavella- it prompted some new commitments in my department to revisit norms of promotion and to take action to change them — your work is having an impact already!

Associate Professor & Department Administrator

Medium-sized, public university in the Midwest

Personal gratification aside, this campus—like others I’ve worked with—realizes that to reach the campus future we desire, we each must take action. To reduce threats to tenure and academic freedom, we must all take more action each day, even if it be just something small. Ensuring the equitable tenuring of faculty of color is the litmus test for sincerely and deeply supporting tenure and academic freedom.

I know it may be tough for some readers to understand the connection between increasing tenured faculty of color and protecting tenure and academic freedom overall. The connection is significant. The easiest way to explain it is to say this: Faculty of color are the canaries in the coal mine. They are the early warning system for threats to tenure and academic freedom for everyone.

If you haven’t noticed, faculty of color are unfairly and systematically punished for teaching, researching, and providing service to intellectual ideas that disrupt the status quo. They are routinely denied or stripped of tenure and academic freedom as a result. Their experience means that the warning siren is going off for everyone interested in protecting tenure and academic freedom.

As Fannie Lou Hamer said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” So if you want to protect tenure and academic freedom, jumpstart your efforts with the actions I describe here. As I continue to hear from campuses that they are meeting to review and update their tenure and promotion standards based on the four key points I outline in my article, come on and join the club of those taking action! The faster you begin, the sooner we can get closer to the joy-filled and truly possible glorious campuses of our dreams, where scholarship, service and teaching are flourishing unfettered, and reflect the ideals of equity in regard to labor and diversity.

Chavella T. Pittman is a professor of sociology at Dominican University (Illinois) with expertise in higher education, marginalized statuses, and research methods. She provides consultation, coaching, and workshops to remove structural obstacles to the success, tenure, and promotion of diverse faculty members.

Articles from the current and past issues of Academe are available online. AAUP members receive a subscription to the magazine, available both by mail and as a downloadable PDF, as a benefit of membership.