Beyond the Academic Gateway

Cecile Badenhorst (Contributor) 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 (Contributor) 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 Chambers (Contributor) Joan Chambers is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University.Cam Cobb (Contributor) Cam Cobb teaches in the Faculty of Education and Academic Development at the University of Windsor. His research focuses on such topics as social-justice issues in special education, co-teaching in adult-learning contexts, and narrative pedagogy in the arts.Frank Deer (Contributor) Frank Deer is an Assistant Professor and current Director of Indigenous Initiatives in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. Frank holds an earned PhD in Educational Administration from the University of Saskatchewan and is published in the area of Indigenous education. Frank has been awarded funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for his work in ancestral languages. He is the current President of the Canadian Association for the Study of Indigenous Education.Timothy Sibbald (Editor) Timothy Sibbald is Associate Professor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. His primary focus is on mathematics education. He is also Editor of The Gazette, a publication for teachers produced by the Ontario Association of Mathematics Educators.Victoria Handford (Editor) Victoria Handford is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at Thompson Rivers University where she is also the Coordinator of Graduate Programs. Her research interests include school and school district leadership, as well as trust.

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.