Hi, my name is Andrew and this
class is interesting for me because not only that I am Asian, but also because currently
I want to enter academia after I finish all my studies. Just in the first week,
knowing that colored people and especially colored women in academia has
suffered from harassment, bullying, and racism has given me a whole new
perspective of the field. Just like in the reading from the book “Fight the
Tower” I realized that I am not woke as of this moment. I still believe that
the world is a happy place and if everyone does what they are supposed to do, we
would all succeed. I came to realize how wrong it was after following the transformation
journey of our professor from being an embattled scholar to a strategic
warrior. For me, having harassment, bullying, and racism in academia is an embarrassment
to learning in general. Academic people were supposed to be intelligent and we
should know more about these kinds of stuff. We were supposed to educate the
world about how wrong racism is in hope to reduce or even get rid of it. But
instead, having a bunch of professors and deans and administrators attacking
their own faculty member just shows how its not even about education anymore, it’s
about their ego and politics. Having this behavior is problematic in my opinion
because not only it is unfair and unjust, but it creates and “okay” culture and
allows for future scholar to think that racism in academia is somewhat
acceptable when IT IS NOT!
Another
issue that I found most worrying is corporations taking over universities. According
to the reading from “Fight the Tower” the university is recruiting non-academia
people to fill in their dean spots. This is an issue as they will run the
university as a business rather than a place for research and education.
Increasing hire of adjunct and lecture professors means that there will be a
lower chance for faculty member to receive tenure because it is seen as a waste
of money, this leaves colored and multiracial academics vulnerable as they are
often overlooked and thought as unequal which leads to an even more disadvantage
for these academics to get tenure. As an international student who wants a job
in academia, this terrifies me. Because based on the examples from this week’s
reading, even remarkable individuals could have troubles with tenure due to corporate
and racism which means that more academics out there probably have been victims
of tenure denial. My personal question that I ask myself is if the culture haven’t
change in academia (which I doubt it will), how can I standup for myself when I
face these issues in the future.
References:
Student presentation from week 1
Week 1 readings (Fight the Tower)
No comments:
Post a Comment