We the undersigned wish to express to the Arizona Board of Regents our profound concern for the non renewal of Dr. Janina Fenigsen’s contract for the next academic year.

Dr. Fenigsen has been a long-standing member of the linguistic anthropological community. We believe that not renewing Dr. Fenigsen’s contract would be loss not only to the department and NAU, but also to the field of anthropology at large. Dr. Fenigsen has made very significant contributions to our discipline as indicated by her rich publication record. She has published articles in reputable journals (e.g., Cultural Anthropology, Semiotica, Pragmatics, JRAI, American Ethnologist), she has just co-authored a volume for Routledge (Handbook of Language and Emotion, 2019) and co-edited a cutting-edge special issue on Emotion Pedagogies (Ethos, 2016). 

 
For many years, Dr. Fenigsen has demonstrated great dedication to her pedagogical mission, developing new syllabi for her classes and curricular innovations to booster student learning and engagement. 
 

We are also deeply concerned for total lack of support that was provided to a long-term member of the NAU faculty in order to allow her transition to a new job and new life. After nine years of service, Dr. Fenigsen was abruptly notified of the decision not to renew her contract, leaving her completely exposed both financially and health-wise.

These are very challenging and uncertain times. COVID-19 has initiated an economic and health crisis of unprecedented scale affecting Northern Arizona University and our nation in drastic ways, but this does not justify the brutality of the measures NAU adopted to layoff a large number of its non tenured faculty members. Not only they were given no explanation for the criteria used for the enforced cuts, but the extremely short notice with which these decisions have been made public has deprived these faculty members and their families of their health insurance during an unprecedented health crisis.