The Tenure Present

As many of my readers may know, Kathy Leavitt and I have been acquaintances since elementary school and close friends since high school. After a brief hiatus in early adulthood, Kathy and I re-initiated our friendship in our mid-20s and we have been in near daily contact, primarily via email, for the past 14-15 years. Kathy has been a constant source of support for me. She has heard about all of my woes, successes, and concerns. She is almost more knowledgeable about my career and life than me. In addition to sharing dog stories and tips, gluten-free eating, and our childhood, Kathy has listened to endless stories about my profession and been a constant, positive, source of support. I suffered many failures in my four-year-long search for a tenure-track job before I landed at Bridgewater. Every time I was turned down, Kathy exclaimed, Those idiots! How could they not hire you? You don't want to work for someone who wouldn't hire you anyway, right? It's their loss, not yours! A keen eye for organization and grammar, she has read and edited my papers before submitting them for publication, chapters of my first book, grant proposals, my annual reappointment portfolio, and my 25-page, single-spaced application for tenure last fall. Here's a picture of Kathy and me in 2009, when Drake was 4 months and her dog, Bacchus, was 1.5 years old.

Kathy is also very generous with me. She constantly looks for opportunities to support my running, dog interests, gluten-free eating, and other general interests by sending me presents, magazine subscriptions and the like. I usually take every opportunity to thwart these efforts...at first because I was embarrassed for not being as generous in return, and then because a bit of Neil Boyer has rubbed off on me...I find humor in upsetting other people's plans to give me gifts. But, when my tenure letter from my provost came through this past spring, Kathy declared her intention to celebrate with a gift and I decided to move out of the way. It was a wonderful idea - a true reason to celebrate, after 10 years of laboring in the field, not including the 5 years of graduate school labor.


Neither Kathy nor I enjoy shopping, but strangely enough we both love the store, Appalachian Spring, in Union Station in Washington, DC.  This weekend I visited Kathy when I presented at a child maltreatment conference in DC and we made a bee-line for this store (after we got gluten-free pizza at the District of Pi). I love everything in this store and some of the pottery caught my eye. Kathy asked if any of these pieces could be The Tenure Gift and I obliged. I am now the owner of the beautiful new platter, shown below. I can't wait to have company, grill up some Meat House and use this wonderful serving platter. It's true that achieving tenure has been the result of my own hard work, but Kathy has supported every bit of it. Thank you, Kathy. You're the best.