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During a study-abroad trip to Scotland with mostly Medieval Studies students, the writer confronts how their past continues to define them despite tenure. The narrative highlights students’ surprising blend of historical knowledge and modern interests, then describes daily monastic immersion in a 13th-century monastery—services, Latin prayer, silence, and garden work—framing history as lived experience.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":53,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/lifestyle/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/confessions-of-a-tenured-professor-knowing-your-place-a-professor-and-travel-writing-teacher-returns-to-scotland-on-a-study-abroad-trip/597772/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/confessions-of-a-tenured-professor-knowing-your-place-a-professor-and-travel-writing-teacher-returns-to-scotland-on-a-study-abroad-trip/597772.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"SANS","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-10","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What role does tenure play in the professor’s sense of identity?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Tenure “lashed to the mast” motivates the professor to turn trips and long weekends into work, shaping how they think about personal fulfillment and professional obligation.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How are the students on the trip portrayed?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"They are mostly Medieval Studies majors described as knowledgeable about obscure rituals while also engaging with modern and technological interests, and they ask unsettling, memorable questions.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What did the professor learn from living in a 13th-century monastery?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The experience required frequent services, early rising, meditative prayer in Latin, and structured quiet routines, leading the writer to treat history as an all-encompassing lived practice.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},597772,1793106491,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":52,"category_name":53,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":34,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},962090760505,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","Confessions ofa Tenured Professor  \nKnowing Your Place:  \nA “Professor” and “Travel-Writing Teacher” Returns to Scotland on a Study-Abroad Trip  \nColin Irvine  \nAugsburg College  \nIfeel that [this college] has found a way (or ways, more accurately) to fold into its identity the best of both words when it comes to embracing its urban community and celebrating individuality; and, as an individual who is apart of this community, I like being here for this reason…or at least this is what I’ve been saying in my various philosophy-of-teaching statements, submitted for reasons related to tenure portfolios and annual dean’s reports. It’s a statement I have tried hard to make come true in the way somebody tries to fall in love with somebody else, usually somebody close by and convenient.  \nAnd, for the record, I have liked working where I do. I have learned to embrace an urban community and culture that remains distinctly different from the one in which I was raised, one more outdoor-oriented and rural; and I have learned to enjoy spending what little spare time I have with people who share somewhat dissimilar interests and passions. But, still, here is not where I am from, and I’m finding out that where I am from continues to define who I am, a frustrating fact that will not let me fully become the type of person/professor I thought would when I first headed up this trail nearly thirteen years ago. I thought I would be more content, more at ease with what I was doing and where, exactly, I was doing it. I never thought, for  \ninstance, that I would be a person who looks forward to the weekends or, worse yet, maps out months in advance vacations and getaways. But, I must confess, I usually know by the end of October when I’m heading to Utah in January to ski; and on several occasions I have bought my round-trip ticket for a pack trip in the Idaho Sawtooths in July months before I’ve put away my snow shovel in Minnesota.  \nSo, now that I am “lashed to the mast” by virtue of tenure—to quote a colleague of mine from Wyoming who likewise earned tenure within the last year—I find that I am often seeking out imaginative ways within this profession to turn trips and long weekends into work, which is how, in truth, I ended up this last spring heading off to Scotland with students on a study-abroad trip. (I suppose that for the sake of full disclosure it should be noted that I am writing this while sitting at the University of Oslo near the Blindern T-bane stop, just four stops on the Sognsvan line from the hiking/biking/skiing trails that lead as far as one cares to go back into the nearby lakes and mountains—they really do. I checked.) Still, even when I arrived in Scotland (and again, a couple of months later in Oslo), I found that I carried with me across the Atlantic all of my searching, a fact brought close to home, incidentally, immediately by the students with whom I was traveling.  \nMostly Medieval Studies majors, these were dungeons and dragons kids who are knowledgeable about obscure rituals tied to distant history and, paradoxically, all things modern and technological. They know how to juggle, play chess, find cheap tickets to the renaissance fair, imitate accents (especially British ones), fashion armor, read Latin, and, most notably, ask unnerving questions like magicians casting spells, questions that render the addressee speechless (case in point: we walk into a hotel in Aberdeen, and I enter last; before I can set my bag down,  \none of our large, bearded scholars asks with a straight, harry face,“Hey, Colin, where’s the stairs in this place?” Honestly, to walk into a room and go 0 for 1 before even setting down your suitcase is tough when trying to establish credibility with the other professionals waiting to check-in.)  \nSure, this depiction of these students amounts to stereotyping. But that’s only because they are mostly the same in different ways. They share a commitment to openness, to a kind of acceptance that seems to ha","cbCait7zfPPf3jrT","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCait7zfPPf3jrT","pdf",271015,"English","# Knowing Your Place\n## Tenure, personal habits, and restless purpose\n## Study-abroad companions and medieval-studies stereotypes\n## Immersion in a 13th-century monastery and daily monastic routines","[{\"question\":\"What role does tenure play in the professor’s sense of identity?\",\"answer\":\"Tenure “lashed to the mast” motivates the professor to turn trips and long weekends into work, shaping how they think about personal fulfillment and professional obligation.\"},{\"question\":\"How are the students on the trip portrayed?\",\"answer\":\"They are mostly Medieval Studies majors described as knowledgeable about obscure rituals while also engaging with modern and technological interests, and they ask unsettling, memorable questions.\"},{\"question\":\"What did the professor learn from living in a 13th-century monastery?\",\"answer\":\"The experience required frequent services, early rising, meditative prayer in Latin, and structured quiet routines, leading the writer to treat history as an all-encompassing lived practice.\"}]","Confessions of a Tenured Professor - Knowing Your Place - A “Professor” and “Travel-Writing Teacher” Returns to Scotland on a Study-Abroad Trip | PDF",1792085675,11]