When I sat down to write this week’s issue, I planned to feature something on data or technology, but my brain wouldn’t have it after reading Tyler Austin Harper's essay in The Atlantic about why he left the tenure track. So, this week, I’m focusing solely on that because I think it raises some uncomfortable questions about how institutions work. After that, I turn my attention to three Sparks on building maintenance, AI cheating, and student voices.  

Confessions of an Academic 

From Why I Quit the Tenure Track | The Atlantic and The Confessions of Tyler Austin Harper | The Chronicle of Higher Education 

Tyler Austin Harper, a former tenure-track professor in environmental studies at Bates College, discusses his experiences and choice to quit his job.  

Our Thoughts  

Wait...before you move on to something else that you think is a better use of your time than reading about the experiences of a former tenure-track faculty member at an elite institution, give me the first paragraph to at least explain why I’m featuring this article this week. Harper’s essay ran in The Atlantic, and while it was featured in The Chronicle, that difference matters more than you might think. The Atlantic is a more mainstream publication, which means this story will land in front of your trustees, your neighbors, and the parents of your incoming class in a way that a piece written for those of us inside the sector never would. What he describes at Bates reads on the surface like a story about elite liberal arts colleges and campus politics, but underneath that, it describes ways in which institutions actually work and how they behave when their moral ideas run against public reality. Yes, some of his piece is hard to read, especially right now when the sector is under pressure from multiple directions. But that’s exactly why I am featuring it because the hard work of examining our systems and structures has to start with us.  

First, a quick overview of the article (even though I encourage you to read it yourself). Harper joined Bates in 2020 on the tenure-track in environment studies, and he left before going up for tenure to join The Atlantic as a staff writer. He is Black, and a significant portion of the essay describes what he experienced as being treated as a racial prop (his words) at Bates, including being assigned committee work because of his race rather than his actual academic expertise. I’m not going to dispute that part of his argument; he lived it, and I didn’t. Instead, what I want to spend our time on is the institutional machinery running underneath his experiences because that machinery is not unique to Bates nor is it unique to elite colleges and universities.  

The parts of his essay that are going to make the rounds are the ones that make good 15-second sound bites. The story that every department at Bates was required to complete a racism self-audit or a committee floating the idea for a course entitled Mathematics for Social Justice. The parts that you should really pay attention to are much duller and don’t make good network TV. A curriculum requirement moved through committees even though many of the faculty showed skepticism toward it. Departments being asked to show evidence of a conclusion already made by leadership and an action plan for addressing the “problem.” To be completely fair to Bates, these challenges aren’t endemic to their institution. I’m simply using examples from Harper’s essay to draw attention to a much larger challenge facing higher education overall.   

For example, many institutions spend enormous energy on the language of its values while also treating some of its workforce as disposable. Think about adjuncts who never have the opportunity to get a full-time role. Or that vacant position in your department that you’re not allowed to fill while everyone else shoulders those responsibilities. Now compare that against your mission or the latest strategic priority. Harper’s essay offers an explanation for how institutions ended up here. His argument is that the moral vocabulary took hold at elite institutions (I would extend it beyond just elite) at exactly the same moment those institutions were facing serious pressures over tuition and student debt, and that adopting that vocabulary was cheap. Cheaper, in his words, than lowering tuition or hiring more tenure-track professors [or staff]. When you look at it through a budget lens, it’s easier to see. Statements are free and make us feel good. Acting on those statements is well, considerably harder.  

This is where I think the essay connects to the problem the entire sector is currently dealing with. We have spent years watching public confidence in higher education erode, and we tend to talk about that erosion as though it were a communications failure—the public simply doesn’t understand what we do or they have been misled about our value. Harper’s essay is a reminder that some of what the public sees is real. An institution that talks about justice while paying its own workers poorly is not being misunderstood. When we search for evidence for a conclusion we’ve already reached, we don’t have a messaging problem. Instead, we’re doing exactly the types of things the public accuses us of doing.  

The reflex right now is going to be that this is not the moment for that kind of self-examination. Presidents and other leaders are working out how to respond to the Department of Education’s call to action. The Heritage Foundation has released model legislation to codify much of last year’s compact into state laws, so we’re defending ourselves on several fronts at once. Harper has a name for that reflex. He calls it a state of “emergencyism,” the position that a critique might well be correct, but the timing is wrong, so one should wait until things calm down. I don’t think things are going to calm down.  

So, instead of waiting for the perfect moment, I challenge you to read Harper’s essay and sit with it. Notice which parts you want to argue against, and which parts made you uncomfortable. And then in a week or a month or somewhere in between, talk with someone else on your campus about it. For many, you’ve worked on campuses long enough to know that there will always be something to deal with, so why not make it this.  

Sparks 

• Deferred Maintenance Backlog Is ‘Ticking Time Bomb’ for Higher Ed (Inside Higher Ed) -  Yes, the article is primarily about public institutions, but I know that private ones have deferred maintenance issues as well. Certainly, something to pay attention to. 
• The Next Wave of AI-Cheating Technology (The Chronicle of Higher Education) - Susan Ray looks at the newest AI powered tools that enable students to cheat. Someone is always going to build a better mousetrap. Her idea of returning to focusing on the learning itself is the right one. 
• Student Voices: Technology as a Future Learning Partner (Campus Technology) - A student and a faculty member at Bentley University discuss advanced technologies at learning partners. What? You didn’t think I would feature a positive article about AI? You have to read both sides of the discussion to better understand your position.