Being a Professor in higher education is a privilege bounded by our inextricable responsibilities to engage with our communities.
I was sincerely honored to be among NIU’s first Presidential Engagement Professor Awardees in 2012. I’m also pleased to be the Chair of the Department of Anthropology, home to four of the ten Presidential Engagement Professors named since 2012. NIU should be commended for recognizing the importance of engagement alongside teaching and research.
To be a Professor is to be engaged; I cannot imagine it any other way. The separation of faculty responsibilities into separate research, teaching, and service spheres is perhaps a necessary structure for institutional culture, but it need not -- and should not -- define who we are, what we do, or how we think. The common denominator underlying these spheres of responsibility is the obligation to be engaged.
In the Fall of 2015, the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences changed our personnel policies to formally recognize engagement as a significant measure of accomplishment toward tenure and promotion.
Being engaged means working with community partners in an equal and reciprocal manner. We have a particular obligation to work with marginalized, disenfranchised, and disempowered communities.
To be engaged means connecting solidly grounded research to the needs and challenges of the greater community. It also means providing students the opportunity to reach through and beyond the challenges of learning a discipline--to find a sense of self-esteem and confidence that they can make a difference for and with others.
As a Professor, I can’t imagine it any other way.
I’m Kendall Thu, and that’s my perspective.