Tenure as Mirror: Reflections from Korea and North America

Having chased permanence in both Korean and North American institutions, I have come to believe that tenure is less a destination than a mirror — it reflects back the values of whichever system is holding it up.

My own path from a Korean doctoral student navigating domestic hiring committees to an assistant professor in North America has made this contrast vivid. In South Korea, the tenure track is deeply intertwined with national examinations, institutional hierarchies, and an intense emphasis on loyalty to one’s home university. In North America, especially in economics, the language shifts to “markets” and “mobility,” as if scholars were financial assets moving between portfolios.

The emotional toll of these systems is rarely acknowledged in formal policy documents. In Korea, I watched mentors delay having children, postpone medical procedures, and defer personal commitments until they crossed the invisible threshold of permanence. In North America, the expectations are framed more flexibly, but the uncertainty can be just as consuming.

Gender and nationality further refract the tenure mirror. In Korea, women professors still face persistent questions about whether they can “balance” research and family. Foreign nationals in Korean universities, including Korean diaspora scholars who “return” after training abroad, can be subtly marked as temporary, even when their contracts suggest otherwise.

If we take tenure seriously as an institution that shapes lives, not just CVs, reform must move beyond adjusting publication counts or extending clocks. In Korean universities, this could mean decoupling promotion from rigid institutional loyalty. In North America, departments hiring Korean and other international scholars might commit to explicit support for immigration processes and caregiving responsibilities.

Ultimately, my experience on both sides of the Pacific has convinced me that tenure does not need to be abandoned, but it does need to be reinterpreted — understood as a collective commitment rather than a distant prize that justifies any sacrifice.