Ugh, still so sick. At the tail end of this thing and yet Nora's fever returned tonight and so did mine...what is this bug? February blows.
Our department always tells us that we will get tenure, because people who are in trouble in the tenure area are counseled about that ahead of time, years ahead of time. So that there are no surprises. Except...we have had a surprise. A big surprise. So something went wrong. And if something went wrong this time, how confident am I supposed to be when everybody tells me that my case will be fine?
4 comments:
oh my god... that's a nightmare. I am so sorry for your friend and colleague. I hope that your department learns from this case and sees future cases as an opportunity to handle the process better rather than seeing this as a case of something that is appropriate enough to continue. In the meantime, this is someone's career that they're messing with. Ugh. I would imagine that places would love to hire her, but in the meantime, what an impossible situation -- it came right out of the blue.
I hope you feel well soon.
Also, it is possible that the department's decision would be overturned to be a positive decision up the line?
Unfortunately no, because the way it works here is that it goes through the dept. first, then up to the divisional committee (across the entire social sciences part of the university). If you get denied at the divisional committee level, then the dept. can decide to appeal and sometimes the dean may overturn the negative decision. But if the department itself doesn't even pass the case up to divisional, then you're screwed. No chance for appeal.
The other thing that kills me is that it's mid Feb -- so many searches are closed now. How is she going to find another job at this late stage in the game? Can you imagine having to actually stick around for the lame duck year and search for a job while the whole community didn't get tenure? Ugh. There is so much that is depressing about this.
I agree that this story is depressing on so many levels. I wish that your friend would have at least received some sort of indication ahead of time that this could have been coming, to mentally and emotionally prepare herself and to try to find a job. You're right, that last terminal year would be emotionally difficult (almost impossible) to withstand.
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