My mentor once told me…

I teach at a small liberal arts college in Minnesota, where my work focuses on the intersections of education, equity, and belonging. My mentor once told me that stories are how we make sense of who belongs—wisdom that shaped this novel, where the university emerges as a space in which sanctuary and exclusion are never far apart. That truth feels especially urgent now, as colleges wrestle with whom they protect, whom they silence, and which voices they choose to amplify. Tenured is my attempt to fold those contradictions and complexities into story. As a tenured professor myself, I grapple daily with the same questions central to this book.

(Matt Ridenour is a published author and award-winning professor.)