Well, I Guess I Should Let It Be Known. Not My Thing. But The Materials Were Returned, So....

Yesterday, I received an email from an administrative assistant stating that my materials were ready for pick-up. In January, I received an unofficial letter and I threw it onto a pile of pine cones sitting in a tremendous basket given to me from a Somali Bantu community in Syracuse. Four months passed and an official letter came from the President of the University. I threw that letter on the same pine cones.

Today, however, collecting my container of materials that were submitted (they wanted to get rid of it), I realized that perhaps it is official.

Not sure how I feel about it, because I have a love/hate relationship with higher education (and this thing within me that uses it to set, limit, create, and inhibit boundaries for my life), but I guess another milestone was met.

I'm pregnant.

No.

Actually, I gave birth to the documents within those binders. 98 pages of self-explanation of what I've tried to accomplish since 2012 when I first arrived to the University. I suppose it can all be summarized in a paragraph from the first pages:

Since 2012, I published 9 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reviews, presented 41 times at peer-reviewed, national conferences, taught 296 undergraduate and graduate students, led 55 teacher leaders in summer institutes for teaching writing, received 25 grants totaling $504,700, served Fairfield University through departmental and university-wide initiatives and committees, was featured in news stories 53 times (see Appendix J: In The News), and received 9 awards in recognition of community-engaged scholarship.

Whatever. That's the game played. In truth, what isn't documented is much more important: the Young Adult Literacy Labs, Ubuntu Academy, hours and hours of professional development with K-12 teachers, and the relationships I've built with others.

I've reflected often that when I announced this, that I'd also quote Groucho Marx when he said, "I'd never join a club that would have me as its member."

I have to acknowledge, however, that membership has been granted. I now need to figure out what to do with it.

This is all to say that I received tenure at Fairfield University. I'm still not sure what that means or is supposed to feel like, but it is a step that one takes when they are in higher education.

I'm still not satisfied, however. I work too much in K-12 schools and I see the incredible inequities that exist. I know, too, how far removed a life in higher education is to the reality of the rest of the world. These are my demons and they are what wake me up at 2 a.m. in a panic. With that noted, I recognize my privileges and am thankful that the odd way I do the academic world was respected by campus leaders and colleagues. That means a lot (because I tend to do what I do in the Brown School way - that is, my own, quirky way).

When my bins were returned to me I said to a colleague, "Let me dress up. I guess it's time I share with others that this occurred." I think I need to let myself acknowledge it, too.

But there is so much more we all need to do....

For now, another hoop was stepped through.