CHICANA V ICES Newly tenured Mexican-American women model success for minorities on U of U campus.
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“These Chicana faculty have been nurtured on our campus and such was not always the case for women of color at the U,” she says in an email. “It is high time and it is something to be hailed, recognized and applauded.” While the women present unique success stories, they also share similar experiences. For this reason, the Chicana professors leaned on one another for support as they trudged toward tenure. They offered consoling shoulders at low moments; they enjoyed in each other’s victories when things went well. Valdez says they also relied on Martinez’ counsel. “[Theresa] was amazing, having been here and gone through that alone, which I can’t even imagine. She was really instrumental in checking in on us, making sure that we had what we needed to be able to get through the process,” Valdez says. “In terms of support, I don’t know if it would have been as successful without her having been there as the trailblazer for all of us.”
Activist scholar
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DECEMBER 1, 2016 | 15
On the afternoon following Donald J. Trump’s victorious presidential bid, two dozen high-schoolers of color jittered inside a Salt Lake City elementary library. The heightened racial rhetoric that both set apart and marred the 2016 campaign has lingered in the thoughts of many minorities, unsure of the real, post-election impact. The ballot results fueled commotion among these after-school program students—Latinos, Pacific Islanders and African Americans. To relieve possible stress pent up from the night before, organizers had the teens scurry outside to play kickball. Gutiérrez, an associate professor in the U College of Education, remained in the quiet room. She’s a faculty advisor with Mestizo Arts and Activism, a voluntary program designed to give youths the tools to guide their lives and their communities by creative and positive action. Gutiérrez planned to have the teens record their anxieties in journals after they’d returned from the kickball game. The MAA program was part of the body of work Gutiérrez presented to a committee in her tenure portfolio this year. She also helped create familyschool partnerships by engaging immigrant and refugee families to be involved in their children’s schooling. “Historically, particular populations have been marginalized in our school system,” she says of the family-school partnership. “This was a way to integrate families who oftentime don’t have a lot of former formalized contact in educational settings.” Raised in San Diego by parents who immigrated from Mexico, Gutiérrez continued her education at California State University San Marcos, then earned a master’s degree from Harvard and finally a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in educational psychology. She now calls Salt Lake City home. An activist scholar, Gutiérrez is proud that her work takes her into the community. Among budding students, she offers the scaffolding and encouragement that she sought but couldn’t often find in her youth. “Growing up, being told that I wouldn’t live past 21, being told I would amount to nothing throughout school, I know what not to do,” she says. “I’ve learned these hard lessons. So I always think about what are things that young people could be going through that I can support them in and make a difference. My work is about community engagement and it’s about making a difference in the everyday lives of young people versus just talking about it in theory.”
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heresa Martinez reflects on a time of dismay when a fellow University of Utah faculty member distributed to students copies of The Bell Curve, a controversial text that examines intelligence and economic class. She bristles at the memory. For Martinez, a sociology professor, the book lacked academic rigor. But beyond its dubious conclusions, she rejects the publication because it was seen as ammunition for propagators of the idea that certain races are intellectually inferior, and thus naturally fated for societal ills. Those were delicate days for Martinez, a newer face among the U faculty. She wanted support from her department, she says, which had gained a reputation for “eating its young.” Never had a Chicana earned tenure in the state, and as a Mexican-American woman, Martinez was keenly cognizant that she was a pioneer. It was the early 1990s and Martinez, too, started to develop a reputation: She was the Latina newcomer, who gutted dated premises about social injustice—theories that continued to resonate through U classrooms. “At first I tried to argue back. Some of them said, ‘Oh, she’s teaching radical ideas.’ There were people in my faculty that believed poor people were that way because they had no values. I was teaching things like, ‘No, it’s a structural issue,’” she says, adding, “The faculty at the time—some of them—were very rigid and very bigoted.” Without backing from department higher-ups, Martinez drifted to allies outside sociology, including administration. All the while, she forged on, an outcast in the establishment, with an eye on her tenure requirements and the ticking clock. After six years as an assistant professor, Martinez was up for review, an arduous quest for most professors, and especially true, one can imagine, for those feeling unsupported. Pressure mounted. The probationary period—usually seven years—allows professors time to compile an evaluative body of work, but in the interim, candidates plant roots that can be suddenly upended when they aren’t granted tenure. Those who are granted tenure are promoted and retained. “There’s this true sense of insecurity because you’re working for six years, and they can just kick you out. You’re living here, you’re raising a family, or you’re getting married or you’re buying a house, and people can just kick you out,” she says. Around 1996, the department, the chair and the dean, rejected Martinez’ tenure application. Not to be defeated, Martinez appealed to the University Promotion and Tenure Advisory Committee. Here she successfully made her case. This was followed by affirming votes from the vice president and then the president, as well. “It was a tough time. I got tenured against the wishes of my faculty,” she says. Feeling a mixture of relief and excitement, Martinez packed around her tenure letter, tangible proof of her accomplishment. This month marks the end of the U’s fall semester, as well as the 20year anniversary of Martinez’ uphill climb to academia’s vaunted tenure status. Looking back, she can track progress. The sociology department, she says, is revamped with an emphasis on social justice, for example. And the number of minority faculty has grown. This year, in fact, four more Chicana professors at the U achieved tenure, a milestone Martinez says should be celebrated. A tenure class that includes Leticia Alvarez Gutiérrez, Verónica Valdez, Lourdes Alberto and Lola Calderon serves as a fond reminder and watermark for Martinez that the university continues its course of diversification.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY DYLAN WOOLF HARRIS dwharris@cityweekly.net @DylantheHarris