Can Tenure Be More Humane? Ethics Of Care With Dr. Shawntal Brown

Shawntal Z. Brown once wore the burnt orange blazer and bought into every part of the institution she worked for. After being laid off in 2024 amid a shifting legislative landscape in Texas, she began writing about what that experience taught her, and the result is a Substack with one of the most honest titles in higher education: Loving an Institution That No Longer Loves You Back.

In this conversation, Shawntal and Corinna explore how belonging, power, and care play out inside universities, and why the tenure system, built to evaluate and rank people, struggles to center their humanity. They look at what a care-centered version of tenure might reward, including the community service that one professor was actually criticized for doing too much of. Shawntal shares what academic freedom looks like day to day in Texas, why DEI work is quietly moving underground rather than disappearing, and how to tell a symbolic gesture from structural change. Her answer is a task force that ends in a period when it should end in a comma.

The episode closes with a question for anyone who loves an institution that has not always loved them back: what is the cost, and what would it take to make these places more humane for the people inside them?

Time Stamps By Topic 02:10 Loving An Institution That Doesn't Love You Back 04:17 Exploring Power, Belonging, And Care In Institutional Life 11:47 The Complex Realities Of Tenure And Institutional Support 19:55 The Impact Of State Legislation On Academic Freedom 37:16 Redefining Service And Community Engagement 41:22 The Chilling Effect On Classroom Teaching And Academic Freedom 50:30 Moving Beyond Performative Task Forces Into Real Action 55:25 Recalibrating Expectations And The Future Of Higher Education Resources and links

• Shawntal Z. Brown on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawntalbrown/
• Shawntal Z. Brown on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawntalzbrown.phd/
• Loving an Institution That No Longer Loves You Back (Substack): https://lovinganinstitution.substack.com/
• Ethics of Care: Can Tenure Be More Humane?: https://lovinganinstitution.substack.com/p/ethics-of-care-can-tenure-be-more
• “Are we going to have a legacy or be forgotten?”: Organizational memory in an anti-DEI era, by Shawntal Z. Brown: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fdhe0000735
• PEN America: https://pen.org/
• Texas Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education: https://www.tadohe.com/
• American Association of University Professors: https://www.aaup.org/
• Iván Chaar López: https://www.ivanchaar.net/
• Brian Evans on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-evans-58a2b76
• Diane Gifford-Gonzalez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-gifford-gonzalez-780522222
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: https://www.amazon.com/Bell-Jar-Modern-Classics/dp/0060837020

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