On March 26, the University announced that five professors—Christiaan Hogendorn, Allan Isaac, Andrea Patalano, Aradhana (Anu) Sharma, and Gina Ulysse—had been granted the esteemed honor of tenure.

“The Wesleyan community is fortunate to have in its midst vibrant and esteemed junior faculty,” wrote President Michael Roth in a campus-wide e-mail.

The newly-tenured faculty members specialize in a wide array of fields. Associate Professor of Economics and former Assistant Professor at the Wharton School Hogendorn focuses on applied microeconomic theory in the area of industrial organization.

Associate Professor of English Isaac who has taught at NYU as well as in the Philippines, specializes in Asian American literature and culture.

Associate Professor of Psychology Patalano, has taught at Ohio University and now teaches classes such as the Psychology of Decision Making and Seminars in Thinking and in Reasoning.

Associate Professor of Anthropo-logy and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Sharma, studies ethnography in rural India and teaches classes on Gender and Political Economy in the Developing World, Gender in a Transnational Perspective and the Anthropology of Globalization.

Associate Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies Ulysse who has taught at the University of Michigan and Bates College, focuses on “gender, transnational feminism, political economy, representation, race and class performance, migration, spirituality, and spoken word in the Caribbean, the United States and South Africa,” according to a University press release announcing her tenure.

Awarding tenure is a complicated and often arduous process. It begins when an associate professor has taught at the University for seven years.

“You have seven years to prove yourself and then the seventh year you are evaluated,” said Professor of Economics Gary Yohe, who is also the Chair of the Faculty. “If you don’t get tenure, you get one more year, but you ultimately can’t stay.”

The recent tenure decisions proved to be an exception to that rule, since Isaac, who was denied tenure last year, was awarded it this year. Roth would not comment on the matter.

The next step in the process is that the professor’s department must approve and then campaign for their tenure. After being reviewed by a committee of ten external experts, the candidate is then examined by an advisory committee of nine tenured faculty members, who weigh the professor’s scholarly research and quality of teaching, which is measured by student evaluations.

“Teaching and research at Wesleyan are valued equally,” Yohe said. “This is unusual for a place that values research as much as Wesleyan does.”

If the advisory committee approves a candidate, the next step is the review and appeals board, a committee that examines if the case has been accurately and fairly evaluated. After this, the University President must sign off on the tenure evaluation, as well. Finally, it is up to the Board of Trustees, who confirmed the most recent five candidates on March 1 of this year.

Ultimately, Yohe said, the tenure process is a very heavy burden for those involved.

“It’s the worst part of the job—even worse than grading papers,” he said. “We take it very seriously.”