Trailblazing political science professor continues legacy of resilience

CHLOE WOLFE opinion

editor

Citing his family and mentors as his motivation to continue on his path for tenure, Timothy Lewis recently became the first Black professor to be tenured within the Political Science department.

Lewis said he feels an immense sense of pride in receiving tenure. Not only because it is a high achievement within the academic community, but also because he’s a part of the small percentage of tenured Black men across the country.

“Depending upon the source you look at, roughly only about 6 percent of the entire faculty in higher education across the nation are Black people with tenure,” Lewis said. “Then we look at Black men, that’s only roughly around 2 percent. So it puts you in a very, very exclusive category.”

Despite this being a step towards the fulfillment of one of SIUE’s strategic plan pillars, Lewis said he still feels as if he shouldn’t have been the first.

“In one sense, I’m prideful that I’m the first- But it’s 2023,” Lewis said. “We’re still having firsts in areas where you would think we already passed those racial milestones. So it was a mixed bag.”

Lewis said being the first at something isn’t a first for his family though.

According to Lewis, his father, Perry Lewis II, was one of the first Black maritime crane operators at the Mobile, Alabama, seaport. Lewis said that the port is the second largest on the Gulf Coast and can fix many larger ships that other ports cannot do.

“He was one of the first Black Americans to be employed in the ports of Mobile,” Lewis said. “As far as we know, he’s the only one to actually retire. So he stayed there all the way up until retirement in 1999. He put a little over 32 or 33 years there, and he faced a lot of racism both overtly and covertly.”

Lewis said his grandmother, Stella Wasp, was another person in his life that inspired him.

Wasp was in northern Florida during the Rosewood massacre, which began when a white woman, Fannie Taylor, said a Black man assaulted her. This led to the razing of the town and the area surrounding it.

Lewis said that his grandmother and her siblings survived the massacre by hiding in swamps as they made their way to Escambia County, Alabama, where they were born.

“We often were told the stories of how they could hear the sounds of horses chasing them and how they would hide in the swamps,” Lewis said. “This was around January so it was cold, even in the panhandle of Florida. They ran without failing and without stopping to rest — only stopping to hide — until they got to that marker that said Jay, Florida. They knew once they got there, on the other side of that city was Escambia County, and that they would have some refuge there.”

Lewis said that seeing this resilience as he was growing up was what led him to continue on his path for tenure, despite it being difficult.

“I feel like I’m just continuing a legacy, not creating one,” Lewis said. “I come from a lineage of people who are very familiar with breaking racial barriers, who are very familiar with resilience. So I feel I almost have a duty to continue that legacy.

If my parents and grandparents could survive what they survived, then, at a minimum, I can thrive in the environment that I’m in.”

In order to receive tenure, Lewis described having to do lots of work. He said that not only was he academically reviewed but he also participated in service to his community.

“I had to be evaluated by students and by other faculty members,” Lewis said. “I had to do a certain number of publications and research and peer-reviewed journals, and I had to do a certain amount of service.”

While Lewis said that the process may seem easier on paper, the inherent process of tenure is difficult for minorities to break the barrier.

“Tenure as an academic system was designed to exclude certain groups. It was meant to be an elite, white male club,” Lewis said. “When universities are looking at their tenure policy, they must be conscientious not to replicate that same exclusionary founding component of tenure. If you just replicate that then you’re going to have a disproportionately low amount of women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ minorities, and international minorities.”

Despite the exclusionary bases of academia, Lewis said his work always centers around marginalized groups.

“All of my research, to some degree, will always center around what I call a marginalized identity,” Lewis said. “As a political scientist, I study from the margins. ‘How does it affect those who are disenfranchised, either as a result of policy or just a political culture?’”

Some of the work Lewis has done to achieve tenure includes researching identity politics.

Lewis developed a concept he calls a “racially-charged district,” where he says race is so prevalent within a certain area that it “saturates” every other issue. He used Milwaukee during the George Floyd protests as an example.

When Lewis first came to SIUE, he said the Political Science department lacked diversity, not only in the classes offered but also in the professors teaching them. Lewis credits Ken Moffett, the current chair of the department, as the reason that is beginning to change.

The Political Science department now offers classes on LGBTQ+ politics, women in politics and African American politics, all introduced and taught by Lewis. He says that by offering diverse classes, students are going to do better once they graduate.

“You’re going to increase the courses students can take and students want to take courses that are just interesting to them. They don’t just want to take fundamentals” Lewis said. “If you increase your course offerings, you’re also going to increase the overall quality of education.”

Diversity within faculty, specifically the Political Science department, is incredibly important according to Lewis.

“Political Science is one of the few disciplines that covers every demographic. You need diversity,” Lewis said.

According to Lewis, diversity is not only needed to teach classes but also needed to support students.

“When students come to college, they’re looking for more than just a classroom experience,” Lewis said. “They’re looking for life mentors, they’re looking for people who can write letters of recommendations for them in the future, they’re looking for someone who may even want to be their colleague. And if you only have this exclusive group of white males, what you’re going to do is push certain demographics away.”

With summer in full swing and temperatures rising, The Alestle staff took it upon themselves to find the best ice cream or frozen custard to beat the heat. Following a few simple guidelines of taste, appearance and price, we rated eight local spots. Here’s to enjoying a sweet treat this summer.