In the previous chapter, we introduced the scholarly publishing system and stated that it is embedded in academia. What, exactly, does that mean? Why is this important?

Certainly, scholarly publishing exists to birth and share new knowledge so that it might lead to discovery, innovation, and improvements in society — advancements in everything from agriculture to healthcare to second language acquisition and beyond.

But scholarly publishing also exists because it is expected of faculty members at colleges and universities. It’s part of their job. In fact, if they neglect it, they may risk losing their career. You may have heard the phrase “publish or perish,” which refers to the pressure that faculty members face to produce and publish scholarly material in order to maintain their position. This is especially true of untenured faculty members. 

So: what is tenure? What does it mean?

According to the American Association of University Professors, tenure is:

When a person first lands an academic faculty position, they are usually appointed to the rank of Assistant Professor. Then, typically over the next six years, they are “on tenure track,” meaning that they are working toward achieving tenure by making substantive contributions to both their institution and their field/discipline through three primary areas: teaching, research/scholarship, and service. At periodic points throughout those six years, they must show evidence of their progress, receive feedback from their peers and tenure committee, and respond and adapt accordingly. There are many factors that shape the outcome of a tenure decision, but conducting research — and publishing that research — is vitally important.

Ultimately, if a faculty member successfully secures tenure, they are (usually) promoted to Associate Professor. In some universities, faculty members continue to be reviewed post-tenure, and they may choose to pursue appointment to Full Professor through additional accomplishments in teaching, research/scholarship, and service. The rank progression commonly looks like this:

Although individual institutions’ criteria for awarding tenure and promotion vary (as do the specifics of their review processes), one near-universal commonality is the emphasis on scholarly publication. Faculty members need to do research/scholarship and publish their work in a scholarly venue, typically a scholarly journal. And in order to do their research, they need to be able to access and read the existing published scholarly literature, to understand what others in their field have already done and to engage, build on, or interrogate that work in some way. (Students too, of course, must use scholarly literature to understand course content, complete assignments, write research papers, etc. throughout their academic career.)

In summary, because faculty members must both consume and produce scholarly knowledge, often in the form of published scholarly journal articles, academic culture is inextricably tied to the scholarly publishing system. One cannot exist without the other.