there but for the grace of Matt go I

This is an interesting academic year for me in a number of ways. It was five years ago that I joined UK as an assistant professor and ten years ago that I started at MSU as a new PhD student. It’s my first year as tenured faculty, and there are leadership changes in my unit and college that are—by the inherent virtue of any change in leadership—inviting opportunities to think about what the future of both look like. All of these things are mixing together as I think about the privileges and obligations of tenure and what I want to do with myself and for my institution as my career moves forward.

While thinking about all of this today, a memory came to mind that must have happened almost exactly a decade ago. In a meeting, my advisor made an off-handed comment about reviewing applications for new PhD students, and something about the timeline seemed off. Wasn’t this earlier than when I had submitted my own application a year before? Long story short: This is how I learned that I had mixed up the application deadline for my grad program and submitted my application to MSU late. Not late by an hour, or even a day, but at least by a couple of weeks. I am normally a very organized person who is attentive to details such as deadlines, but this time, I royally screwed up and submitted my application much later than I meant to. The only reason I got into MSU is because Matt, my advisor, took the time to go through some of the late applications and see if any of them had any promise. It was Matt’s grace—and Matt’s belief in me despite my late application—that got me into not only MSU but also grad school in general. My other three PhD applications didn’t turn into acceptances, and if Matt hadn’t given me a chance that I arguably didn’t deserve, I would certainly not be in the professional position I currently am and might not even be an academic at all.

I’m happy to be a tenured faculty member, and I’d like to think that the privileges and status I now enjoy have been granted in recognition of hard work, my skills, and my accomplishments. And yet, I think it would be the highest form of hubris to think that I somehow deserve these privileges and status—that meritocracy has succeeded and that my hard work, skills, and accomplishments give me the right to more privileges and higher status than others I interact with in the academic system. If not for grace shown despite a royal screw up nearly eleven years ago, I would demonstrably not be in the position that I am, and that makes any hypothetical claim of merited superiority over others so tenuous as to be laughable. I believe that I have a professional obligation to both show grace to others and use any additional status and privilege that I have within this system on behalf of others—especially those who demonstrate the same hard work, skills, and accomplishments, but are not granted the same privileges. I hope that I will live up to this belief this year and in the years to come.

• tenure
• academia
• privilege
• grace
• meritocracy