Chapter 3: The Research-Intensive University

On the day when I was granted tenure at a so-called “research-intensive university” in the United States some time ago, an international student from Africa in our master’s level Teaching English to Speakers of Other Langauges (TESOL) program came into my office. I was still in the process of digesting what it meant to obtain tenure and hadn’t really begun to feel excited about the news. The student, after congratulating me, told me that my tenureship was “special” for him as well. He said that “I have always thought that American universities like this one would never take foreigners and minority people seriously. But after hearing that you’ve gotten tenure, I realized that I might have been wrong. I began to think that I may have a chance as well. I just started thinking about staying in the U.S. and pursuing a Ph.D.” It was by far one of the most rewarding remarks that I had ever received as a teacher and a researcher.