All about tenure

Just a few points, in no particular order:

In Canada, unlike in USA, we have lot less denials of tenure (at least this is what I feel and heard) but we still have professors who are denied tenure going crazy (including one who shot dead four).

Tenure is awarded after a fairly rigourous process but to think that it is a flawless and highly professional work (meaning no personality involvments) is wrong. But just like anything we have made there are flaws. On the other hand, we have not invented anything better to keep freedom of expression alive. So let us keep it. (Just like democracy which we know has faults (as implemented anywhere) but we know nothing better).

Not all tenured professors stop working just because of tenure but surely some do. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get them to do more. (Again a fault but not serious enough to kill the goose).

It is possible (and is done) for student inputs (both grad and undergrad, and volunteer and nonvolunteer) to influence tenure but to think the students’ input alone should break or make is crazy. Tenure process involves the evaluation of the potential for the next 20 or more years, and students, however clever they are, just one stakeholders and it is the society at large which is the major stakeholder.

Long live the tenure and hopefully more would use it to question anything anywhere.

Kuthusee, Tenured Professor at Canada, at 11:13 am EDT on May 11, 2005

Student Input to Tenure

My graduate advisor is up for tenure review, and I am curious what I should say/do by way of input. I think my input would be strongly positive. (1) should I be formal and write a letter, or should I instead make verbal remarks to the influential faculty? (2) are pending grant proposals and publications of any value (i.e. should I hurry up for such reasons)? (3) does my input only count towards instruction criteria? or how can I get it to count towards the professor’s scholarly criteria as well?

RM, Grad Student, at 6:18 am EDT on September 24, 2005

Throw the first stone...

I, on the other hand, would not like somebody like Mike Conklin to teach my kids. What happened to compassion? Because one person has had a nervous breakdown he or she is damaged for life?

How about we also make the one who did not get tenure wear a chip that will enable parents to track him or her down through satellite technology? Better still, let’s make those who throw the first stone wear big, scalet letters saying “Blameless.”

Here is one problem with American academia: too many know-it-alls, too many people who inflict judgement on their peers, with such gusto, with such pleasure, and cannot wait for the chance to be on a tenure committee to do it with official approval.

Professors in the very exhausting and nerve-wrecking tenure process bleed and hurt and suffer like the very same ones who delivered the blow of rejection without any warning signs that things many not have been going too well. Every university worth its salt should have a system in place to make sure the candidates to tenure and promotion receive appropriate, timely reviews that will give the candidates a chance to either satisfy the “weaker links” in the application, of become ready for the rejection.

Logan, at 3:45 pm EDT on May 3, 2005

Ah, compassion...

Tell ya what, Logan. You go spend some of your compassion points and /you/ sign up for the professors who have demonstrated themselves to be looney-tunes.

Fred, at 7:12 pm EDT on May 3, 2005

Mental stability IS required for tenure

Logan, you exemplify the growing concern with America today. Misplaced values, lack of responsibility and zero accountability.

Do I feel sorry for the professor having a mental breakdown? Sure, to some degree. It is sad when a person loses touch with reality and breaks from safe behavior.

However, being a professor means being safe to teach, which, this professor seems to lack.

An you are more concerned with his emotional well being than the safety risk his errant behavior may have caused?

School is about learning facts. Church is where you learn compassion. Don’t mix them.

Lastly, this professor may actually deserve tenure, since tenure is a means of having to avoid consequences for your actions, which seems to be what Logan advocates.

Kelly, at 7:13 pm EDT on May 3, 2005

When a Professor Loses it

While I have great sympathy for the professor who was denied tenure, I also know that with tenure and promotion come great rewards. I know of very few non-academic positions that enable you to work hard for 5-7 years and then have virtually unlimited job security until you retire. I’ve actually heard professors say to a lecture hall full of students, “I don’t care what you say or what you think. I have tenure, so you can’t touch me.” In many companies, you can be fired for much less, even if you have worked there for 20+ years. Obtaining tenure is a rigorous process because it is meant to ensure academic freedom and protection for those who are able to navigate the process; it is a priviledge, not a right.Faculty applicants need to be aware of the sometimes tenuous, subjective, and confusing nature of the tenure process before they take on the challenge of becoming a professor.

University Staff, at 7:13 pm EDT on May 3, 2005

I Empathize with the Professor

Currently I’m a student, and I can feel where this Professor, and others like him, might be coming from. During midterms and other times of high stress, students scramble around cramming material into their heads so that they can be at the top of their game when it comes time to use their knowledge. Tests decide who knows the material and who could go on in that field of study. Often times I find myself wondering how I did in comparison to my peers, and if I don’t perform at the level I expect or would like, it’s safe to say that I’m a little dejected, and that I begin wondering what I’m doing in the class if while pounding full pace I can’t keep up with the pack. This is often the case with other students.

Tenure, although I know little about the process, I view as something of a test. I imagine the process is similar: Work to the limits of capability, don’t reveal stress level to peers, and meet the moment of truth with as much stability and hope as possible. The difference between a test and tenure though, is that tenure proves whether or not one is ULTIMATELY worthy; whether everything up to that point: the late nights with bloodshot eyes, the perpetual fluttering of the stomach, the immense sacrifices made, were worth it, or whether they were all for naught. Denial of tenure means the latter, and if I were put into that position of accepting the idea that maybe I’m not supposed to be doing what I’ve spent my life working for, well, I just might strip naked and rampage at the injustice of my world that is currently crashing down around me.

Maybe everything I’ve said is stupid and ill thought out, but that’s my take. Adios.

Navarre, University of California San Diego, at 4:38 am EDT on May 4, 2005

A better critique

See Margaret Soltan’s blog entry (at http://margaretsoltan.phenominet....nted-workers-uds-great-admirer.html) for the best response to yet to this item. Does this really deserve to be news if there is no detail, or is this just rumor?

Sherman Dorn, Associate Professor at University of South Florida, at 1:12 pm EDT on May 4, 2005

Performance reviews?

“Why can’t it be like any other job, with periodic performance reviews?” There are constant reviews — academia is very competitive and there is a lot of peer pressure! It is true that there are those that “peak” earlier in their career than others and it is the responsibility of the dept. chair to adjust their academic responsibilities accordingly.

Jim, at 3:16 pm EDT on May 4, 2005

‘Losing it’ is not necessarily unreasonable

“Losing it” isn’t necessarily an unreasonable reaction to being turned down for tenure when you consider it in context.

The tenure decision represents a wholly unique kind of situation in the marketplace. The prize is formidable: effectively an iron-clad guarantee of job security for life, which now that mandatory retirement ages have been struck down can indeed be a lifetime sinecure. Although you need to continue to perform to win further promotions, merit raises, and job perks, the gap between tenure and untenure is vast and unparalleled outside academe. Furthermore, academic salaries have risen substantially in recent years: a full professor at a major university can easily make a six-figure salary, which is respectable by almost any standards – and it comes with vacations that only a European could grasp.

At the same time, the downside is unlike any other job context as well. If you are fired from a corporate job, it is definitely a setback, but if you have good skills to offer, you still have the hopes of finding another job in the corporate job market. Not so in academe. After a six-year, high-pressure chase for the gold, the reality is that, however good your teaching, if you are turned down for tenure at one school, it is essentially impossible to get hired at another tenure-awarding school. (You might potentially be considered for a junior college or community college position, but even there they may worry that you won’t really fit in.) The closest counterpart for this situation might be not when a lawyer loses his or her job at a firm, but when he or she is disbarred from the profession.

To add to the dilemma is the unusual relationship that academics tend to have with their profession – it becomes something close to a religious calling. The embrace of Mammon in the corporate world is a sad consolation prize for losing the intellectual freedom of the academic life. The other “do good” option for the outcast academic – the world of academic administration, government agencies, or foundations – amounts to pallid and paltry paper-pushing after the experience of speaking in tongues in the classroom pulpit.

Finally, of course, is the awful personalness of it all. The most critical part of the process is the review by the other members of your own department – the people you’ve been chatting with in the halls, exchanging ideas with at cocktail parties, and having over for dinner for the past six years. It doesn’t get much colder than that.

For those who are turned down for tenure, everything happens in a single, horrible, final moment. The publications bar has risen radically over the years – many of the elder statesmen passing judgement would never have qualified for tenure by today’s criteria. Even candidates with remarkable resumes filled with books, articles, and conference appearances may fall short in the Kafkaesque deliberations on their fate.

Being turned down for tenure isn’t just a job issue – it’s the emotional equivalent of a horrendous, bone-deep divorce whose aftershocks may well last the rest of their lives. Counseling services? Given the magnitude of the situation, well-intentioned counseling from a campus-based therapist is a little like putting a band-aid on an amputation.

Peter A. Hempel, Ph.D.

Peter Hempel, Dr., at 4:15 am EDT on May 5, 2005

“he started shouting expletives about the university administration... He then moved into a hallway, continuing to shout and removing his clothes...”

Where’s the story? That’s how I normally teach.

Jorge, at 2:31 pm EDT on May 5, 2005

ah tenure

I spent most of my working life in the private sector, earning my PhD at 40, and I was neither awed nor dismissive of tenure. I worked, wrote and published, taught as well as I could, and involved myself in campus/community service according to my passions. This led to my tenure. The nice thing about this department and this institution is that all of those things are important to tenure (and that includes student evaluations and letters). Tenure is important because it protects faculty from the political “flavor of the month” reactionaries, allows for controversial research, and establishes a uniquely high standard for performance. In spite of the stereotypes, professors don’t shut down at the granting of tenure. The vast majority love what they do and, I would argue, may be even more emboldened to explore the edges of a discipline.

The problem is in the process. At my institution, junior faculty, along with the department chair, draft a letter of expectation that outlines what they will need to do to achieve tenure. The decision is based on Teaching, Service, and Research (publication). We take all three seriously. The letter serves as a clear guide for faculty and, in my experience, is recognized by everyone involved as something of a contract. One assistant professor recently left before the tenure decision. This person had not published much of anything beyond newsletter pieces in five years and chose to move on.

I just want to add for Businessman and others that this is very hard work for most of us (almost all consuming at times), and few faculty earn 6 figures or even close. Finally, I know few elitists in higher education. They’re there, and they seem to stand out, but most faculty are hard-working, committed, down-to-earth folks who believe in what they do and do it well.

ralph

ralph, Associate Professor at buffalo state college, at 8:53 am EDT on May 6, 2005

When a Professor Loses It

Despite the vague description of the background to this situation, it appears that the professor’s colleagues in the peer review process probably had ample, sound empirical evidence upon which to base their decision.

It probably wasn’t the first time the fellow went ballistic over something and his colleagues seemed to intuit that it wouldn’t be the last.

It was the right decision.

Charles, at 10:25 am EDT on May 6, 2005

I have been in the academic world since I was a student in the late 1950s. I have always found academics endearing and, curiously, brave. Based on their intellect, they innocently enter the world of scholarship. Hoping to add to knowledge and understanding, they spend years in more or less solitarly endeavors, which leads to relatively asocial lives. When they finally get the courage to present their research publically (hoping it helps the possibility of tenure, as well), they are immediately lacerated by colleagues. In such an environment, it is difficult to develop one’s mental health, I think.

Barbara, at 12:13 pm EDT on May 6, 2005

Teaching vs. research?

When I was a graduate student, I used to think it was wrong to pay any attention to service when evaluating people for tenure.Now, though, as someone who (out of fear) carried a back-breaking load of service responsibilities up through tenure and now(out of a sense of duty) will probably continue to do so, I am a bit irritated with the colleagues who duck service almost entirely. We all benefit from, e.g., getting our accreditation renewed; should some of us feel free to reject such tasks? And if someone does so before getting tenured, what can we expect afterward? I am not sure how I feel about this issue, and I don’t think I would want to turn down a strong scholar for weak service. Interestingly, the people who shirk service are often also among the weakest scholars. Service and scholarship, after all, both involve investing in a community.

Administrations really send mixed signals about this. The tenure and reappointment decisions say loudly that research is the only thing that matters, and service and teaching consist of a few boxes that need to get checked, not complex tasks where one’s performance is really measured. As a result, people in my department and others regard first-year teaching as a waste of time—it is hard work, and one can’t teach one’s research in a composition class. Let the adjuncts do the service teaching, just as we let the janitors clean the bathrooms. This has a couple of deleterious effects. One, it means that we don’t recruit future majors. Two, it means that we don’t often have to justify the fundamental postulates of our disciplines to the skeptical and uninitiated. Encouraging people to think of themselves as loners concentating own CVs has other intellectual consequences. I teach in an interdisciplinary first-seemster program, and collaborating at the pedagogical level with people in other departments has filtered back into my research in a variety of ways. At first I thought involvement in this program would be a distraction from research, but thinking about where my work fits into the larger system of disciplines has been incredibly valuable. I think that, like the wrestler Antaeus, when research gets too far from its maternal origins, it loses its strength.

Recently tenured, at 5:42 am EDT on May 8, 2005