Beyond the Academic Gateway: Looking back on the Tenure-Track Journey (Education)

Tenure is a pivotal decision for the academy. If it is earned, it provides security and permanence, creating further academic freedom to pursue research and interests important to the institution and to society. If it is not earned, then the peer review process provides clarification for why it has not been earned. This book brings together lived experiences of academics around the time of the tenure decision. While the book is stand-alone, it has the same collection of authors who wrote about their tenure-track experiences in The Academic Gateway, making the pair of books a remarkable longitudinal collection. 

The authors explore the complex relationship between academics, the academy as an ideal, and universities as an enactment of that ideal. Personal growth is evident and shows diversity of experience, as the maturing relationships with the role and workplace unfurl. Where tenure track is a very personal journey, the period around tenure is necessarily a form of engagement with peers. Yet it has challenges, particularly in a milieu where academic freedom is being nurtured. Individual authors negotiate their choices between their personal objectives and institutional mandates and policies. Simultaneously, after years in the tenure-track, they continue to be evolving as academics, whether through personal growth or by seeking changes in the academy itself. 

Published in English.

Timothy Sibbald is a tenure-track professor with the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. His transition from secondary education to the school of education built on many prior experiences, but also posed unique challenges that inspired the idea for this volume.

Victoria Handford is a tenure-track professor with the School of Education at Thompson Rivers University. She has spent her career in multiple roles in public education at the local level.

Cecile Badenhorst is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education in the Adult/Post-Secondary programs at Memorial University. She teaches courses on academic literacies and adult teaching. She has published three books in this area: Research Writing (2007), Dissertation Writing (2008), and Productive Writing (2010).

Lee Anne Block is a teacher educator at the University of Winnipeg. Her research and teaching are focused on how we name and engage with difference in educational locations and on cultural sustainability. She recently completed Gandhi, Globalization and Earth Democracy, a course on sustainability with Vandana Shiva, in residence at Navdanya, India. For twenty years, she was a classroom teacher in Winnipeg.

Joan M. Chambers is a professor in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University. She teaches elementary science and environmental education to teacher candidates in the BEd program. In the graduate program, Joan teaches introductory and qualitative research-methods courses; science, technology, society, and environment (STSE); and science curriculum.