Advisor Denied Tenure

[queercinemabro]

Hi all, I lurked on this site during the application process and it was a help. Now I'm accepted but a recent event is causing me a lot of soul-searching: 

 

I'm a first-year doctoral student in cinema studies, and the faculty member I was expecting to be my advisor was just denied tenure. There are other profs (tenured ones at that) with similar interests that I can go too and it won't be the end of the world; i'm not completely alone. But at the same time...a lot of my application and reason for coming to my current institution was wrapped up with this person's presence here. So now what do I do! Going through the application process again seems like a nightmare, and I'm already afraid of the stigma and burned bridges if I were to leave this program after they invested in me (see i'm keeping all the info vague for that reason? ). But I'm going through the list of reasons I'm happy to be in this program and now there's a big crater in the middle of it. 

Anyone gone through anything like this, have any advice? I learned they were denied tenure yesterday so this is probably all the grieving process...I'll be content to move on in like a week. But ughhhhh this sucks. 

[serenade]

I realize this response is quite delayed so things might have changed since you first posted, but sorry to hear this. It's disheartening, I imagine, to come to a school to study with a particular person and then find that that's no longer a possibility. A real bummer. Out of curiosity, had you talked with this faculty member about being your advisor? I know you said that you indicated that in the application, but just curious if you and this person actually had a conversation about it. If so, then that faculty member was probably not making the wisest decision to take a student when his or her tenure was up in the air (unless maybe they thought that their tenure case was a shoo-in and this was a huge surprise for them, but even then...) 

Since you don't feel up to revisiting the application process (and who would?) I guess your best bet is to identify another faculty member at your institution who would be willing to advise you. Not ideal by any means, I know. Hope it turns out for the best!

[ExponentialDecay]

@serenade tenure is always up in the air, for anyone, up until that contract is signed. It's not very realistic to expect a professor to just... not take students? for 5-7 years that their TT lasts? Faculty, especially junior faculty, don't just get to decide that, lol, they're not going to advise graduate students this year. It's a basic part of their job, and they are probably allocated some quota by the department.

From OP's perspective, this situation is no different than his professor getting poached by another school, losing funding and not being able to continue running the lab, or having a stroke and, like, dying - all of which are a lot harder to predict than that an assistant professor that OP himself elected to work with might not get tenure. To be clear, when you choose to focus on an untenured faculty member, this is the risk you assume. This time the risk didn't pan out. Watching out for that was OP's responsibility, not the professor's, and the professor is not to blame for that.

OP, it sucks, but just work with someone else.