Full Professor, One Student at a Time
- Alex Mendez Giner
- 10 hours ago
- 2 min read
On Saturday, May 9th, I received official notification that I have been promoted to the rank of Full Professor at Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. I've been sitting with this for a couple of days, and I'm still processing it.
In American academia, Full Professor is the highest rank in the system — and the hardest to reach. Unlike tenure, there's no clock. What's required is a sustained body of work that has made a demonstrable contribution to the field: not just locally, but broadly recognized. Teaching, creative output, scholarship, leadership — all of it, across the full arc of your career, evaluated rigorously at every level of the university and by external full professors at other R1 universities. Many Associate Professors never make the jump. It takes time, intentionality, and a clear sense of who you are as a professional.
I've been at SU for fourteen years. I came with a commitment to cinema as an art form, a background in commercial production, and a lot of ideas about what a film program could be. I'm still making films— alongside my love and creative partner Sandy Siquier, without whom none of this would mean half as much — still teaching, still building the kind of program I believe in, one student at a time.
This promotion is recognition of all of that. Fourteen years of students who challenged me, surprised me, and made me a better filmmaker, better professor, and better human being. This one is as much theirs as it is mine.
Now back to it.
