Some Thoughts on Getting Tenure

Yesterday I got the most exciting voice mail of my professional life. Geoff Garrett, the Dean of the Wharton School, called to tell me that the provost approved my promotion to tenured Associate Professor. I'm not erasing that voice mail, ever!

I share a few thoughts on what this means to me. My overriding intention is to publicly celebrate and appreciate the students, colleagues, and friends who have helped me make it to this point. I recognize something like this could come across as self-serving or boastful. It could also dig up negative feelings among colleagues for whom tenure didn't happen or whose careers have had more setbacks than mine. I'm aware that my experience is only one of many varied paths in this profession, and that some of those paths aren't happy ones.

The Meaning of Tenure

For those who aren't in the academic world (i.e. most people), getting tenure means that you have a permanent appointment as a professor at a university. It means job security, which is especially poignant during this pandemic that will claim the livelihoods of so many people. It reflects a recognition by the university of past performance as a teacher and researcher. But it's also a forward looking bet: I've been given the freedom and resources to pursue whatever intellectual interests I want. This last aspect of tenure means the most to me.

Ben Franklin is one of my heroes. He was a renowned scientist, but he never settled into the ivory tower. He pursued knowledge because it was useful to improve meaning and quality of life. He was eminently theoretical and practical. With this vision, he founded the University of Pennsylvania in 1740. I'm proud to be part of the institution he started. I walk by this statue of him every day on the way to my office in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall. I know that I'll never come close to being like Ben Franklin. But seeing him daily reminds me to work on ideas that are rigorous and relevant. Tenure is the privilege to be able to try to do that kind of work every day for the rest of my life.

A Statistical Improbability

I've had two overwhelming feelings about getting tenure at Wharton. The first one is that there had to have been some kind of statistical error for me to end up here.

I often tell my MBA students the story of my mother, who was raised in a remote farming community in Uruguay. There was one small schoolhouse in the area, where children would gather from miles away (after a long horseback ride) to learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The idea was for children to get the equivalent of an elementary school education and then become farmers. My mother, sensing that there was more to life than farming, wanted to continue going to school. Her parents pushed back, arguing that education was for the rich. Somehow she prevailed, and at age 11 moved hours away to the nearest town to start 7th grade. Being away from home was hard and traumatic, but eventually she completed high school -- the first in her family.

My father was raised by an illiterate young widow in the poorest neighborhood of a small town, also in Uruguay. Grandma was herself raised by a single mother and couldn't go to school because, as the oldest child, she had to care for her siblings while her mother worked. She married young, had eight children, and lost her husband to cancer before she was 40. Going to the movies, of all things, exposed her to the idea that there was more to life than toiling to feed a family. She determined that her children would be educated. My father benefitted from that determination and finished high school. He eventually got a bachelor's in business administration by going to night school while working full-time to support our family.

I don't know how to calculate the odds that someone with illiterate grandparents, parents who came from real poverty, and no pedigree would end up with the opportunities I've had. But I'm sure those odds are pretty low. Statistically speaking, I should be a farmer with a rudimentary education in my home country. Whatever helped overcome those odds is a testament to the unfathomable sacrifices of my parents and of many other people along the way.

I can think of no better way to measure the value of knowledge and education than the price paid for it by my parents. To be a professor who develops and communicates knowledge... well, it means more than I can say.

Gratitude

If a sense of "this shouldn't have happened!" was my first reaction to the news, the second reaction was one of profound gratitude for people who helped make it possible. Words are always awkward and incomplete means of expressing appreciation, but here's an attempt to at least list some of the key people involved.

• To my parents, for reasons that should be obvious by now.
• To my wife and children for love, laughter, and support. To my siblings for lifelong friendship and belief in my potential. My feelings for family are more appropriately expressed in private.
• To my professors at the University of Minnesota, where I got my PhD. I had the best advisors in Aks Zaheer and Myles Shaver, plus several other professors and mentors among the faculty of the Strategic Management and Organization department.

• To my coauthors, who have molded my research skills and made me a better scholar. Publishing is arduous (Reviewer 2, you know who you are!). The company I've kept throughout that process has made all the difference. In somewhat chronological order, thank you to Gerry Sanders, Anja Tuschke, Aks Zaheer, Gurneeta Vasudeva, Sanjay Banerjee, Anoop Menon, Sarath Balachandran, Myles Shaver, Yong Li, Sun Gwon, Elena Kulchina, Mauro Guillen, Emilie Feldman, Jason Lee, Raj Choudhury, Dan Wang... and hopefully more to come.
• To my colleagues at Wharton and Washington University in St. Louis, for believing that I was worth hiring and for countless hours of feedback, advice, and socializing.
• To my students, who have taught me more than I have taught them. My first love and motivation for becoming a professor was teaching; only later did I fall in love with research too. Students are the best arbiters of the usefulness of knowledge. So many of them have gone on to do amazing things!
• To my professors and mentors at BYU, who prepared me well for graduate school.
• To all the anonymous donors of scholarships, fellowships, and research funds that paid for my education and research.

To everyone listed above, and to anyone I may have left out because I'm forgetful, THANK YOU! I feel like the luckiest person alive.