The Inequities of Academic Tenure

...Almost as a reflex action, then, the newly hired professor has to enter the publishing rat race before his feet are firmly planted in the academic soil...

...So they find themselves working for low wages without any guarantee of job security, a predicament leading many to feel that, instead of protecting them, tenure actually exploits them...

...In the end, the lucky ones-those who "score" with a publisher-often receive tenure without doing any significant new research or writing...

...has pointed out in Change magazine, "Nontenured faculty members are so often reduced by the uncertainties of their situations that they don't even eat lunch with their tenured colleagues," who frequently "act as doctors reluctant to become friendly with terminal patients . . . and keep their nontenured colleagues at a safe distance...

...In its place a system should be instituted whereby every faculty member-from the newly hired to the most senior level-would be given a contract with a fixed term of approximately 6-8 years...

...The risks involved are simply too great...

...And I, for one, would like to see that happen...

...Finally, it can be argued that a university attempting the program outlined above would be committing suicide, because most of its faculty would gravitate to colleges that continued to uphold the old rules of tenure...

...it can decrease the teaching loads of the tenured professors who are causing the trouble (effectively increasing its true faculty-student ratio), thereby rewarding them for their selfishness...

...In many universities, untenured department members are not expected to comment critically upon major departmental decisions, even when their observations might prove helpful...

...Yet this points up another shortcoming of the system: It splits every academic department into two distinct groups, one free to dissent and the other afraid to say anything...

...Admittedly, this system has some major deficiencies...

...Allegedly we are to be rated on our publications, our teaching ability, and (we are told) our service to the university community...

...But most important of all, the chances of receiving tenure in the pre-1970 era were very good (and those who were denied it at one institution could usually get it somewhere else...

...Perhaps the greatest drawback of tenure is the criteria it employs to judge the qualifications of junior faculty members...

...During the 1950s and '60s this was a relatively simple affair, but the academic presses are now in a period of economic retrenchment and their current rejection rates are staggering...

...Nonetheless, the addition of new elements to the reviewing procedure-like students, younger faculty members and professors from other departments-would help to minimize this risk...

...Against these very real inequities, the reasons for retaining tenure as is seem both shallow and outdated...

...Indeed, like most of my untenured friends, I have come to the unhappy conclusion that tenure works only for those who have it and grievously injures those who do not...

...That prospect alone should be enough to move us to action...

...In advancing this argument, I should note that the overwhelming majority of my senior colleagues openly discuss the issue of tenure and are quite sympathetic to the needs of junior faculty members...

...Another damaging aspect of tenure is that it can prevent important departmental reforms from taking place...

...The problem is not one of personalities, but the system itself-a system that tends to ignore the need for change and to deal most unfairly with younger academics...

...Accordingly, junior people are often kept off committees dealing with controversial subjects so that they won't have to side with one tenured faction against another...

...At my own school, however, the relationship between the "haves" and "have-nots" is remarkably congenial...

...Indeed, junior faculty members are frequently placed in double jeopardy, they dare not offend either the college administration or their tenured colleagues...

...Secondly, there is the problem of what to do about a faculty member who has been at a university for many years but no longer meets the standards for renewal...

...edly have no difficulty meeting this deadline...

...and it creates suspicion among students, administrators and the public at large regarding the motives and competence of academicians...

...In the first place, there is no real guarantee that some committee members would not continue to judge candidates for renewal according to their own self-serving standards...

...But this potential is nipped in the bud...

...During this period, the professor would be afforded full job security...

...Those days are gone, perhaps forever...

...and whether the functions he now performs are really consistent with the evolving goals of the university...

...to the college community...

...Under the American Association of University Professors' seven-year "up or out" rule, an untenured faculty member has approximately four and a half years to produce a published monograph...

...Thus the tenure system impairs both the teaching and research of junior faculty members...

...The evaluation process is begun sometime in the fifth year, since the university administration must give a 12-month notice of nonrenewal and the department itself needs time to judge the work...

...It discriminates unfairly against junior faculty members by limiting their attempts at self-expression as well as their chances for meaningful employment...

...This does not mean (as many students and more than a few college presidents have maintained) that large numbers of incompetent and inflexible faculty members are being protected by the system...

...But tenured people in this position present a more difficult problem, especially since most departments, in the interests of "harmony," will rarely confront them on so touchy an issue...

...Now that I have been teaching for a couple of years at a major Eastern university, I must confess that these explanations no longer make much sense to me...

...it hinders those committed to educational reform by placing needless obstacles in their path...

...In this context the following suggestions, distilled from informal academic discussions of tenure, seem worth considering...

...Needless to say, the latter is the nobler alternative...

...These might include whether a person is performing well in the classroom...

...whether he is fulfilling his responsibilities (through committee work, etc...

...This process could best be handled by establishing several committees to examine the performance of each faculty member up for renewal relative to a list of predetermined criteria...

...There are cases, to be sure, where tenure gives senior faculty members the backbone necessary to take unpopular stands within the university...

...It even freed the industrious academics to pursue other sources of income-Such as writing textbooks, compiling readers, acquiring grant money, and lecturing for profit...

...Too many qualified academics are without jobs (or even the remote prospect of future employment) to justify the arbitrary retention of an individual who serves neither his students nor his field of study...

...or it can fire an untenured professor...

...The objective evidence suggests, therefore, that the preservation of academic freedom is often based less on a blanket guarantee of job security than on the willingness of college faculties to stand firm in defense of their constitutional rights...

...What is more, in many instances untenured faculty members with radically outspoken views were saved from political persecution by the courageous public support of their colleagues-tenured and untenured alike...

...Tenure, as it operates today, is a burden to the profession it seeks to protect...

...A freelance would undoubtDavid M. Oshinsky, a past contributor, is Assistant Professor of History at Douglass College, Rutgers...

...In this case (a rarity, in my opinion, since most faculty members I know in their 50s and 60s are remarkably productive), a mandatory retirement with full pension rights would be in order...

...Furthermore, committee members would be forced to justify their decisions in terms of well-established criteria encompassing all significant aspects of academic life...

...If we fail to seize the initiative, disenchanted college bureaucrats and hostile state legislators, among others, will surely institute their own reforms...

...During certain periods of American history, tenure did provide essential guarantees of protection against authoritarian college administrations, legislative witch-hunts, and assorted vigilante movements...

...It is true, though, that a few tenured professors can safely ignore any proposal with which they disagree, even when their motives are seen as essentially self-serving by the rest of their colleagues...

...If the individuals in question do not have tenure, they are quickly warned to shape up...

...Tenured professors are undeniably in a much safer position to attack the feasibility or morality of a given bureaucratic decision than are their junior colleagues...

...The result, of course, is that too many of us use every spare moment reworking our doctoral dissertation in the hope that some academic press will publish the thing and end our misery...

...As Park lamented in his Change article: "It should be in the interests of any university to recruit the best young faculty and to nurture their intellectual and academic growth by providing the most enriching . . . environment possible, with a full guarantee of academic freedom and a reasonable guarantee of job security...

...Similarly, the contention that tenure somehow compensates for low salaries is ludicrous to most young academics...

...Instead of providing a challenging intellectual milieu, it forces us to postpone our plans for any type of creative new endeavor...

...Yet the publication standard is clearly the most important...

...whether he is engaging in significant research (that may or may not lead to publication...

...For a young academic, who is judged more on the quantity of his research than on the quality of his prose, it is a tough schedule, especially when he must prepare classes and deal with hundreds of students each year...

...For the new system to work effectively it would have to be adopted by universities throughout the country, or at least by the most prestigious ones...

...Let one common example suffice: At present, most departments, under strict orders from the administration, are faced with the necessity of either attracting more students or discharging some of their members (all of whom, naturally, would be untenured...

...The unlucky ones are left to wonder whether they spent too much time seeing students or serving on university committees...

...instead of enhancing our ability to communicate with students, it puts us in the uncomfortable position of viewing thorough classroom preparation and extended office hours as possible obstacles to professional advancement...

...The crucial question is whether the present tenure system can be altered to deal effectively with these abuses and still provide a good measure of job security...

...It is essential that young academics be placed on these committees to judge not only their contemporaries, but senior people too...

...It would be most refreshing, I think, to sit in on a renewal hearing where the question, "How much has he published...

...3. Such committees should be made up of all seg-ments of the university community: students (possibly in an advisory, nonvoting capacity), administrators, colleagues from within the discipline of the faculty member under review and from other departments as well...

...While worrying long and hard about the prospects of getting a job in a declining professional market, I had, it seems, subconsciously avoided the equally depressing problem of trying to keep one...

...Although this policy "protects" the junior person from possible harm, it reinforces his belief that he can best serve his own professional interests by keeping his opinions to himself...

...Meanwhile, those of us who survive the process can only grit our teeth and hope that our recalcitrant colleagues will mend their ways or retire sometime before the end of the century...

...This is hardly what academic freedom is all about...

...In short, I was convinced that the unique environment of the university, with its emphasis on teaching and research, could not possibly be judged by the standards applied to General Motors or a Wall Street law firm...

...Do I dare say that "some of my best friends are tenured professors...

...In the past, the knowledge that college teaching jobs provided a tremendous amount of security was an important factor in attracting talented people to the profession who might otherwise have opted for the greater financial rewards of medicine, law or business...

...To begin with, the principal line of defense, academic freedom, has increasingly become a slogan without a cause...

...This is a valid point...

...Consequently, a department is forced to choose among various unappealing options: It can simply do nothing...

...As might be expected, these departments invariably contain a few professors who do not excel in the classroom and who consistently fail to draw students...

...And those fortunate enough to be hired are discovering that their chances of obtaining tenure are becoming slimmer and slimmer...

...Now we are confronted with a situation where hundreds of aspiring academics, who have years of training behind them, are competing for jobs that pay anywhere from $9-12 thousand...

...Tenure makes the first few years of a faculty member's career a frantic race...

...Moreover, what little I knew about the tenure system was skewed by my uncritical acceptance of long-held academic cliches...

...The time has come for us to take a long look at ourselves and our profession, and to begin making the necessary changes...

...2. At the end of the contract period, a careful review of every individual's professional credentials should be undertaken...

...At some universities, Danby Park Jr...

...1. Tenure as we know it should be abolished...

...Although I have heard of a few cases where an untenured professor with a book in hand was denied reappointment because of poor teaching, I know all too well that an exceptional teacher with no significant publishing credits has about as much chance of obtaining tenure as Walt Rostow has of regaining his old job at MIT...

...whether he is doing an adequate job of advising undergraduates and directing the work of graduate students...

...did not dominate the discussion...

...But in relatively recent times of unreason (e.g., the McCarthy years) tenured professors throughout the nation lost their jobs because many of their colleagues either hid in fear or, in some cases, actually led the assaults against them...

...Tenure was necessary, I assumed, to protect intellectual freedom, to compensate for low salaries, and to preserve the sense of stability so vital to the quest for scholarly excellence...