When the quality of higher education in the U.S. comes up for discussion, the subject of tenure is rarely far behind. And the disagreement could hardly be more stark.
Critics of tenure for college professors say it is ruining the education of millions of students. In pursuit of tenure, they say, professors have become experts at churning out research of questionable value while neglecting their teaching duties. On top of that, critics say, tenure has become the tool of a stifling orthodoxy in academia, rewarding only those whose views on curriculums, administration and finances are in line with the status quo.
Oh god, shut up shut up shut up shut up. If it weren't for tenure, I would have quit a long time ago. Nothing else could make me work these 60-hour weeks, nor the 70-80 hour weeks I worked to get it.
ReplyDeleteAMEN.
DeleteBecause personal gain is always the best argument when the discussion is on the well being of the future generations.
DeleteThey seem to assume tenure = tenure primarily for research, which, realistically, is increasingly the case, but it doesn't have to be that way. Tenure for teaching and service with just enough research to keep one's skills and knowledge current was the norm in many places for many years, and it's a good model -- one that encourages a carefully-thought-out, ever-evolving, and, yes, rigorous curriculum, driven by the teachers in the classroom, not by "consumer" desires or administrative/pedagogical fads/whims.*
ReplyDeleteMethinks they've stacked the deck, not only in terms of who they're surveying (duh!) but also in terms of how they're asking the question.
*Mind you, I'd actually *like* to work in a traditional R1 environment, where tenure is awarded for research (and the teaching/service load is commensurate -- increasing research expectations piled on top of teaching and research expectations at R2s and SLACs and such are not doing anybody any favors); I just know that such environments are increasingly rare, and will probably soon be limited to the Ivies and a very few private R1s (and maybe a flagship state U here or there that has somehow evaded the heavy hand of its state legislature, but I'm not at all hopeful about that). The real question is the conditions under which 80%+ of the faculty, who will be teachers first, will work, and tenure (and the service expectations and bottom-up informal, local pedagogical "research" that come with it) can be a valuable tool there, too.
I'm going "ugh" over the number of comments that insist that "I had this one tenured professor and s/he was TERRIBLE so we need to get rid of the whole system." UGH.
ReplyDeleteAnd apparently neither their tenured nor their untenured professors taught critical thinking. Or they weren't listening when someone did -- because, you know, it wasn't "relevant."
DeleteI know many great people who would have NEVER gone into teaching without the possibility of tenure out there in the future. There are just easier ways to make money than this, right?
ReplyDeleteTenure, or some equivalent kind of job security, or I would be a lawyer now. Or an editor; I was on the verge of accepting a job as an editor when an acceptance for grad school came in. But if a TT job hadn't been a possibility at the end of it, I'd have taken the editing job. And since tenured jobs are evaporating, not by the abolition of tenure but simply by only hiring contract teachers, I am very wary of recommending to any of my students that they carry on. "What's wrong with law school?" I say. (Up here in the Frozen North there aren't many law schools, so they all still get jobs.)
ReplyDeleteIt occurs to me that the abolition of tenure by simply replacing all TT jobs with contract teaching not only destroys the tenure system by erosion but has the added effect of saving the universities bundles and bundles of money in the short term, since adjuncts cost so very much less.
It's the same tactic the right is using to bring about the abolition of women's right to choose what happens to their own bodies, not by outlawing abortion outright, since Roe V Wade, but by eroding it with 1000 petty regulations,and overlooking the terrorist acts (firebombings, targeting doctors and shooting them in their own churches, etc). You never have to actually admit you're trying to abolish tenure/ re-colonize women's bodies. You just create conditions that will have the same effect.
I can't imagine recommending that my own children become academics.
I am praying that my daughter NEVER gets it into her head to become an academic. And you have to figure that once the benefits that made teaching attractive (job security, pension plans, and health plans) evaporate, so will the good people. I did not go into this profession for some bullshit abstract love -- for that, I would have gone into fiction writing, tutored for free, or been an independent researcher. I went into it because that's where my talents were and that's where I could see myself having a liveable life in exchange for my efforts.
ReplyDeleteIf I ran the country all the editorial writers for the WSJ would be felling trees in Siberia.
ReplyDeleteAnd all the conservatives shot.
And all the libertarians hung.
That sounds spectacular. Couldn't we make double nooses and hang the conservatives as well, pairing each with a libertarian in the hopes that they attempt to fight while swinging from the tree?
Delete