Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
5-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Major
Educational Psychology and Research
Major Professor
Mitsunori Misawa
Committee Members
Dr. Mitsunori Misawa, Dr. Gary Skolits, Dr. Joel Diambra, Dr. Lisa Baumgartner
Abstract
According to recent literature on academia, early career academics (ECAs) face complex challenges in the liminal space of the tenure and promotion process (T&P) to become tenured scholars in the current neoliberal climate of higher education. These challenges include workload, work-life balance, uncertain and changing expectations, and collegiality. Thus, ECAs experience negative impacts, including reduced satisfaction, productivity, belongingness, identity salience, balance, career development, and overall wellbeing. Moreover, there is a gap in the literature surrounding how and why ECAs survive, adapt, and reconstruct their identity to achieve tenure in this climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the narratives of recently tenured professors' experiences as ECAs during the T&P at public universities in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Three research questions guided this study: 1) How do recently tenured professors experience and navigate their journey of becoming tenured in R1 institutions? 2) How do they author their identities in the journey to tenureship? 3) What stories do they tell about their strategies for traversing the liminal space between pre-and-post-tenureship? Narrative inquiry was chosen because it offers a unique means to study the development of ECAs identity, adaptability, and wellbeing. Through purposeful and criterion-based sampling, five recently tenured professors participated in two 90-minute semi-structured narrative interviews about their time in the T&P. The study used Riessman's (2008) narrative thematic analysis for data analysis. The findings revealed three themes: a) Fitting in and finding voice, b) And I realized and found what matters, and c) Playing the game. These findings displayed that ECAs owned and embraced the liminal challenges, actively sought meaningful connections for support and belonging, balanced personal and social demands, and used intentionality to create pragmatic strategies to become tenured. The study’s insights provide adult learning and higher education with implications for practice, policy, and future research by adding more situated evidence around mentoring, work-life balance, whole-person professional development, support and networking, and a toolbox to navigate the liminal journey. The participants’ willingness to take ownership of the vulnerable, uncomfortable, and daunting journey to tenure fostered authenticity and transformational conditions that reconstructed their identity within the sociocultural context.
Recommended Citation
Willis, David Austin, "“Plotting a course” through the tenure terrain: A narrative inquiry into recently tenured professors’ tenure and promotion process navigation.. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2024.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/10185
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