Elife. 2022 Nov 15;11:e79892. doi: 10.7554/eLife.79892.
In a two-page tenure letter, senior faculty can make or break a career. This power has an outsized impact on Black academics and other scholars with marginalized identities, who are awarded tenure at lower rates than their white colleagues. We suggest that this difference in tenure rates is due to an implicit, overly narrow definition of academic excellence that does not recognize all the contributions that Black scholars make to their departments, institutions and academia in general. These unrecognized contributions include the (often invisible) burdens of mentoring and representation that these scholars bear disproportionately. Here we propose a set of practical steps for writing inclusive, anti-racist tenure letters, including what to do before writing the letter, what to include (and not include) in the letter itself, and what to do after writing the letter to further support the candidate seeking tenure. We are a group of mostly non-Black academics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) based in the United States who are learning about and working toward Black liberation in academia; we hope these recommendations will help ongoing efforts to move toward an inclusive academia that appreciates and rewards diverse ways of doing, learning and knowing.
在长达两页的任期信中，资深教员的意见可以成就或毁掉一个人的职业生涯。这种权力对黑人学者和其他身份边缘化的学者产生了巨大影响，他们获得终身职位的比例低于白人同事。我们认为，终身职位比例的差异是由于对学术卓越的隐含的、过于狭隘的定义，这种定义没有认识到黑人学者对他们所在部门、机构和整个学术界的所有贡献。这些未被认可的贡献包括这些学者不成比例地承担的（往往是无形的）指导和代表性负担。在这里，我们提出了一系列编写包容性、反种族主义任期信的实际步骤，包括在写信之前要做什么，信中要包括（和不包括）什么，以及在写信之后要做什么，以进一步支持寻求终身职位的候选人。我们是一群主要来自美国科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）领域的非黑人学者，我们正在了解和努力实现学术界的黑人解放；我们希望这些建议将有助于正在进行的努力，以建立一个包容的学术界，欣赏和奖励不同的做事、学习和认知方式。
