I received the official word this week that I have earned tenure (and promotion to associate professor).  As I learned not too long ago, the awarding of tenure doesn’t just happen unexpectedly with someone coming into your office with a fancy plaque, but rather is a year-long process from submission of application for tenure to departmental and college level decisions and so, by the time the official word comes from the Provost’s Office, you are fairly certain of the outcome … needless to say it is a bit anti-climactic.  And there isn’t even a plaque.

However, I do feel honored by the privilege that comes with such a level of job security and I have spent many hours thinking about how I can best use that privilege to better the world.  Here I commit to myself and the world to not simply continue doing what I know how to do and try to be strategic with my time and position.  Hopefully I will share more on that front later.

In the meantime, I will follow through on a commitment made to myself years ago.  I have 8 posts that I wrote and did not make public but promised myself that I would release them once I got tenure (or didn’t).  The reasons why I didn’t make these public vary and now seem a little silly.  I suppose I didn’t want to be branded as being thankless, critical or lazy, but perhaps the fact that I didn’t publish these thoughts speaks volumes itself.  So stay tuned as I roll those out over the coming weeks.  For lack of a plan, I will do so in the order I originally wrote them.