"A Review by Karen Mitchell and Bettina Fabos of Professing to Learn: C" by Karen Mitchell and Bettina Fabos

Article Title

A Review by Karen Mitchell and Bettina Fabos of Professing to Learn: Creating Tenured Lives and Careers in the American Research University, by Anna Neumann

Authors

Karen Mitchell, University of Northern IowaFollow
Bettina Fabos, University of Northern IowaFollow

Document Type

Reviews and Responses

Abstract

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s plan to solve budget problems by dramatically cutting public education funding has once again sparked heated debate over the figurative and literal “value” of education. As other state governments consider similar proposals, educators feel increased pressure to justify how they go about the important job of teaching. Never before has research on academics been more important, especially in higher education where so little is publicly known about what professors do in their day to day profession. This is true of all ranks of professors within academia, but perhaps most critically of professors with tenure. In Professing to Learn: Creating Tenured Lives and Careers in the American Research University Anna Neumann presents the results of her interviews of 78 participants from five universities in the years just following their tenure and details the many demands that are layered onto a professor’s plate as one gets into the middle ranks, “without any recognition that you already have a lot of them” (p. 31). With anti-intellectualism on the rise in mainstream public discourse, the purpose of tenure (to guarantee academic freedom) is rarely defined or defended, although The Daily Show with Jon Stewart aired on February 28, 2011 did an excellent job of critiquing the misconceptions circulated by media pundits critical of public educators.

Publication Date

2011-2012

Journal Title

UNIversitas

Volume

Issue

First Page

Last Page

Copyright

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

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File Format

application/pdf

Recommended Citation

Mitchell, Karen and Fabos, Bettina (2012) "A Review by Karen Mitchell and Bettina Fabos of Professing to Learn: Creating Tenured Lives and Careers in the American Research University, by Anna Neumann," UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity: Vol. 7: No. 1, Article 14.
Available at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/universitas/vol7/iss1/14

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