retroactive firing

I would like to tell the story of a dean at a prestigious university in the United States who was willing to go a great length when I, an international Lecturer on a 1-year contract, presented my resignation. The dean went as far as to threaten me with retroactive firing (!), and put me at risk of loosing my new job and, even worse, deportation.

The story goes as follows: I was working as a lecturer at university A. I was on a working visa (I need a visa to be in any country other than the one I was born). I had a big teaching load, no research time and no stability (the contract was for one year, renewable). Most important, this job came with a lot of uncertainty, for I didn’t know whether they would renew my contract until two or three months before its expiration date, and therefore of my visa’s expiration date. No job = no visa = deportation. In my second year as a Lecturer I applied for a postdoc position at a high profile university (university B). And I was offered the position (yay!). Having a job offer when you are on a visa is not, however, any warranty. University B couldn’t confirm my contract until they had all visa documents transferred from university A, and approved by the governmental office. In order to start that process, which would take several months, I had to keep my visa, sponsored by university A, valid. The HR people from university B told me I had to be hired in my previous job in A right until the day before my new contract with B was planned to start, otherwise the transfer could not be done.

vulnerable

I would like to make a comment about the vulnerability of many international scholars, in particular those who depend on a visa. I have a very good job at a prestigious university in the United Kingdom. I run a lab, I publish cutting-edge research, I supervise students. I also have two children and a house here, and my partner works at the same university. It seems I have the dream job for a researcher, and a dream life (if you like children!). And I do. However, my passport, issued in one of the countries from the former soviet union, spoils the dream. My dream job and everything else can vanish if I don’t get my visa renewed, which depends on getting my job contract renewed, which in turn depends on having a grant approved every 5 years (not to mention the scariest of the stages in the process of having a visa renewed: the usually arbitrary criterion applied by the officer who decides whether or not to approve your visa). If I don’t get the grant, I have to face deportation and leave everything here, my career and my family. Many academics live with the pressure of having to publish and get grants in order to continue in their jobs. That is part of the academic work. What I try to point out is that those who depend on a visa have an extra pressure: it is not only a matter of keeping your job, but also the life you built and are living.

It is often invisible, this vulnerability, and I haven’t found yet a way to cope with it, with the constant fear of one day having to leave my family and everything I love. Vulnerable, I’d say we foreigners are.