Rethinking Post-Tenure Malaise: An Interactional, Pathways Approach to Understanding the Post-Tenure Period

Tamara Beauboeuf-Lafontant, Karla A. Erickson and Jan E. Thomas

The Journal of Higher Education, 2019, vol. 90, issue 4, 644-664

Abstract: The decades between tenure and retirement constitute the longest yet least understood period of a faculty member’s career. Previous research depicts the midcareer as fraught with reduced job and career satisfaction, lowered productivity, and even stagnation. However, we suggest a reframing of this period. Drawing on data from surveys and interviews of post-tenure faculty at three liberal arts institutions, we reconceptualize the post-tenure as a period of dynamic interplay between an individual’s agency and choices and an institution’s opportunities and practices of recognition and rewards. We present a post-tenure model of four “pathways” to reflect how faculty vitality is constituted through institutional connection (belonging and fit) and career satisfaction (growth and recognition).

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2018.1554397

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