Oliver Lee Bateman, QuitLit, and the Higher Education “Staypieces” We Really Need

Last updated on: September 12, 2015 at 2:42 pm by Guest Contributor

Oliver Lee Bateman, QuitLit, and the Higher Education “Staypieces” We Really Need 2015-09-11T14:57:55-05:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Noah Toly

In a by-now-more-or-less-viral post to Vox yesterday, Oliver Lee Bateman (posting under the name Oliver Lee) announced he would be quitting his tenure-track faculty position in history at University of Texas – Arlington. Bateman’s post can be added to the burgeoning list of “quit lit” focused on departures from academia.

Today, some respondents took Bateman to task. Georgia Tech’s Ian Bogost tells Bateman “No One Cares that You Quit Your Job.” Or, as Sarah Conrad Sours writes, “The sum total of [Bateman’s] complaints seemed to be that some people didn’t like him and that some of his students were unmotivated.” Frankly, it isn’t clear what reasonable expectations Bateman had that were not met. Nor is it clear that any of the challenges he faced were particular to academia. I don’t deny that even the best academic jobs can be fraught – I’ve written a bit about that myself, though not necessarily from personal experience – but none of that is unique to academia, and Bogost wants Bateman to know that: “Guess what. Working for a living is a pain in the ass.”

Many of Bateman’s critics, however, seem to have missed his main point largely because he buries the lede. Bateman writes that his dissatisfaction with day-to-day workplace issues in academia is just part “of a larger and even more troubling story. After spending four years working in higher education, trying to effect piecemeal improvements, I’m convinced that the picture is more dire than most people realize: There’s no one single problem to fix or villain to defeat, no buzzword-y panacea that will get things back to normal.” He goes on to identify five challenges in or failures of higher education before concluding that “the academy is no longer an investment of time worth making.”

The driving force behind Bateman’s piece (and perhaps behind his resignation), it seems, is alienation. Bateman sees some significant structural and cultural challenges facing higher education, he does not see adequate responses to those challenges, and he does not feel empowered to address them himself. (Except, perhaps, that quitting actually does begin to address the problem of too many professors, which is implicit in his comments on adjunctification and the inadequacy of the alt-ac movement, and this may be the only sense of agency available to those who are so completely deflated and discouraged in the face of structural challenges.)

While I don’t resonate with that sense of disempowerment and alienation (that could, admittedly, be tied to my own privilege, but it is a privilege that Bateman would at least seem to share), nor with the temptation to throw in the towel because of it, I do think that sense is real for some people who not only want their work life to look a certain way, but desire to understand the meaning and significance of their work in the context of the big picture of higher education – its meaning, purpose, and long-term prospects.

This reading of Bateman’s piece puts it in the context not of other pieces by workplace malcontents, but of other pieces highlighting what seems to be a crisis in higher education. What’s implicit in many (not all, but many) of these pieces is a a certain nostalgia – there seems to be, lurking in the background, the assumption that most of higher ed history has been a golden age of stability and certainty. The expectation gap between that assumption and present realities contributes to a sense of impending doom joined by bewilderment and a feeling of disempowerment, all of which can be alienating and cause for withdrawal and disinvestment.

But the assumption that the history of higher education has, for the most part, been marked by stability and certainty doesn’t seem to hold up. The academy has had its ups and downs, its fits and starts, its periods of turmoil and adjustment. It seems to me that a sense of stability and certainty is really the exception, rather than the rule. To be sure, each time has its own challenges and changes – the ones we’re facing now are very real and will require discernment – but challenge and change are old, not new. And higher education would not be what it is today if earlier trials had not been met with creativity, industry, discipline, and energy by those who continued to invest, rather than withdraw. We should be grateful for that.

The fresh and sometimes seemingly intractable challenges facing higher education are no reason to withdraw or disinvest. Rather, they’re reason to invest even more in the enterprise. So in the face of challenge and change, which are to be expected, we should double down on higher education, not leave it – enough with the “quitpieces.” What we need, as Bogost writes, are “more staypieces.” But we don’t need staypieces that focus on workplace benefits or pretend that structural and cultural challenges don’t exist – in those cases, no one will care that you’ve kept your job, either. Rather, we need staypieces shot through with realism, but ones that match realism with commitment, addressing today’s challenges with the kind of creativity, industry, discipline, and energy that people will thank us for later.

Noah Toly is Director of the Center for Urban Engagement and Associate Professor of Politics & International Relations at Wheaton College. This post is reprinted from Tumblr. Images: Noah Toly and Pixabay.

Common Good

Faith and the Workplace

Previous Post

September 11, 2015

A moment of silence for 9/11

Next Post

September 15, 2015 The sorrows of Mary and the callings of Christians

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said: "Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter John James Paul