Should tenure for college professors be abolished?

[Momzie]

Have any of you actually ever seen a tenure file prepared by a professor and submitted to the university's tenure and promotion committee?

To say that "it only looks at research" is simply wrong. Ours includes about sixty different documents that need to be included, and it includes a breakdown of our teaching evaluation scores by course, by semester, to be charted as to show trends, etc. There is a minimum score which is required and it's not particularly low.

Our files also require that we include things like letters from community organizations where we might have spoken, research that we have done in concert with the community and which benefits the community, clippings from when we might have written an article or been mentioned in our local paper.

And then, yes, we are also expected to hit certain standards in terms of research. I can tell you from experience that the old, moldy professors who long ago stopped doing research also stopped keeping up with the literature that you'd want them to be familiar with in order to teach your child. Presumably, you'd want the biology professor who taught your child to also be doing research in genetics so that they would be familiar with the latest trends in genetics, including the stuff that hasn't been published yet but which they heard about at the academic conference. (Our university only pays for us to go to academic conferences where we're presenting. So a professor who doesn't research will be less up on the latest information, techniques, etc.)

And good luck to the guy who would rather be taught by the foreign policy practitioner than by the foreign policy professor. Chances are what you will get is a mid-level bureaucrat who spent most of his time working on a very narrow area -- say, for example, how gas prices are set in the Middle East. When you ask him a question about 9/11, the rise of China, etc. he won't have enough historical knowledge or knowledge of a different area to be able to teach you about that, nor will he have been reading the journals where those areas are discussed. You, too, will end up with lots of "practical knowledge" about gas prices -- which, incidentally, will not help you pass the foreign service exam, where they're looking for generalists. So, as Dr. Phil says, good luck with that.

[Manorite]

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.

Let's dissect the reasoning here, and see if abolishing tenure is consistent with the rest of the argument.

Claim: In pursuit of tenure, professors are focusing only on churning out research.

Tenure is a good way to ensure you don't lose your job.

To make sure they don't lose their jobs, professors are focusing only on churning out research.

Research is desirable for universities, and thus those who churn out research are more likely to receive tenure, and thus less likely to lose their jobs.

Once tenure is achieved, one's job is secured.

If tenure is eliminated, one can never be sure of job security.

If one is never sure of job security, then one must constantly act to keep one's job secure.

If one is never sure of job security, one will constantly focus on churning out research, as the premise has established that this is the main concern of the research universities in question.

Conclusion: If tenure is not abolished, professors will focus on churning out research until they receive tenure. If tenure is abolished, professors will focus on churning out research for their entire careers.

--

I don't believe the above argument because I disagree with the premise, that professors only churn out research in pursuit of tenure. Every tenured professor I have had has been a great teacher that certainly deserved tenure. I haven't had a non-tenured professor that was unconcerned with teaching, despite whatever research they may have been focusing on.

Of course, there are some tenured and non-tenured professors who neglected teaching for research, but I suspect that many of them would still do so without tenure, as there are plenty of other motivations, such as genuine disinterest in teaching, sense of personal prestige from publishing significantly, and a desire to advance the field.

[mathmom]

Dh teaches at a med school so his teaching duties are somewhat limited, but keep in mind that teaching students in your lab is every bit as much teaching as what you do in the classroom.

His school actually puts you through both asst and full professorships before tenure. When you finally get tenure you really deserve. Even so they are working on ways to deal with unproductive faculty members.

IMO, at least in medical research, the real crime is how impossible it has gotten to be to get grants. Nowadays your grant can be rated in the top 10% and still not get funded. It's made research even more critical than it used to be in the whole equation.

[xiggi]

I will tell you that teachers aren't the reason education isn't what it should be in this country.

The teachers aren't the problem.

You are absolutely correct. Teachers are not the primary reason why our education system, especially the primary and secondary one, is in such abysmal state. One could say that the biggest victims of the system are the teachers and the ... students. But, here's a problem. The culprits are also easy to spot, and they are the people who control our education system, and have been allowed to do so mostly with the support of teachers who were promised perks, including tenure and organized sinecures.

Is the life of a young teacher as swell as it used to be? Obviously not, because the system has been developed by the elders in a time our society was able to afford it, or not that interested to challenge it. Now that we surpassed the financial limits of the system and cannot afford to pay teachers for part-time (if any) teaching duties in tertiary education, and about 180 days of presence per year in the lower sector, the "complaining" by regular people becomes more vocal.

So, yes, teachers are not the reason why the system is so bad, but they also exhibit few intentions to abandon a system that offers the protection and perks that are simply unavailable in the private sector. Changes for the better will require abandoning tenure, non-year long teaching duties, and more than anything else depoliticizing unions and CBA.

But as Churchill once said, Americans can always be counted upon to do the right thing - after all other possibilities have been exhausted. This surely applies to our education system.

[katliamom]

My bet is that the very same people who complain that TAs do a lot of undergraduate teaching also complain about tenure.

You want your kiddo to be taught by a real professor? You should back tenure. Otherwise quit your kvetching and accept that you'll be paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to educate your kid by only slightly older kids without PhDs.

[xiggi]

My bet is that the very same people who complain that TAs do a lot of undergraduate teaching also complain about tenure.

That could be a safe bet, as the issues are not foreign to one another at the schools that rely on that ... system of indentured servitute.

Tenure, in itself, is not the problem; the problem is what it helped create over time.

[katliamom]

Well, what did it create? Hmmm. A productive class of scholars who also need to be involved in teaching and in the running of their universities. As someone who is very familiar with higher education in many other countries, let me tell you this: professors world wide are amazed at how much is required of professors in this country, where you have to publish or perish, where you have to spend a sizeable portion of your time on UNpaid campus activities, and where your promotion and salary can be determined by students who often act like spoiled and vindictive brats with overinvolved parents.

Are there bad apples? Hell yes. But that's not the problem with tenure, nor is it a problem with "what it created" -- whatever that is.

[xiggi]

Look at your list and note the absence of ... teaching. Perhaps, you only listed the activities you consider problematic, and overlooked the obvious. But what is easy to spot is the condescending tone used to describe parents and students. An attitude that permeates an entire education system that has lost track that its purpose is to serve the students (and the parents who pay the bills) and not and foremost the service providers.

Regardless, whom is to blame for the focus of the publish or perish model? And who are the beneficiaries of that model?

[mythmom]

No. I'm a 61 year old college professor. I vote no. LOL.

[katliamom]

xiggi, no, my list is comprised of (time consuming!!) activities required IN ADDITION TO teaching. And by the way, those teaching loads are going UP in most universities while the additional requirements are hardly decreased. Publish or perish is a system that guarantees that professors in this country aren't the dead beats you think they are. And that have made American academia among the most productive on the planet.

Of course, to anti intellectuals that's a giant so what. But then, so is literacy.

[GA2012MOM]

This was in our local news within the past few days. Although I don't think this particular article says he is tenured, other articles have. Is his tenure protected even if he is convicted of an offense of moral turpitude?

UGA German Professor Charged with Prostitution - Athens, GA Patch

[Hanna]

"Tenure creates a sense of ownership that I believe is necessary for a successful institution"

I agree that the sense of ownership is necessary for a successful institution, but I don't see a correlation between tenure and ownership in my real life.

I'm surrounded by university staff (counselors) who don't even have 1-year contracts, much less with tenure. We are at-will employees. Yet I see people sweat blood for their students and the institution every day. I've seen tenured and non-tenured faculty members do the same, and others who do not do the same. If there's a relationship there, I don't see it.

[katliamom]

GA20 mom, I don't know about this case in particular, but I can tell you that tenured college professors have been fired for a lot less....

[xiggi]

Publish or perish is a system that guarantees that professors in this country aren't the dead beats you think they are. And that have made American academia among the most productive on the planet.

First of all, why do you assume I think professors in this country are dead beats? Although I do believe that this system does not foster the dedication to teaching the students deserve, I hardly think our professors are unworthy or underperforming. They do exactly what the system forces them to do, and that is why for many the focus is leading research, publishing, and chasing the mighty dollar. Is such system the best an undergraduate could hope for? No, and by a long shot.

You obviously believe research to be important. And so do I, but not when it comes at the expense of teaching undergraduates and abdicating teaching duties to armies of TAs and graduate assistants, who just as their mentors consider that teaching is the evil side of their careers.

Finally, do I believe that all research is important? Not at all. The academic journals are filled with research that prompts a reader to wonder how such efforts could find the support and dollars to make it happen.

And by the way, those teaching loads are going UP in most universities while the additional requirements are hardly decreased.

Is that supposed to be a problem? Sounds like a good beginning! Perhaps the same could be expanded to the K-12, and see and end to the JJA syndromes. That stands for June, July, and August!

[xiggi]

From http://www.centerforcollegeaffordabi...tin_report.pdf

 20 percent of UT Austin faculty are teaching 57 percent of student credit hours. They also generate 18 percent of the campus’s research funding. This suggests that these faculty are not jeopardizing their status as researchers by assuming such a high level of teaching responsibility.
 Conversely, the least productive 20 percent of faculty teach only 2 percent of all student credit hours and generate a disproportionately smaller percentage of external research funding than do other faculty segments.
 Research grant funds go almost entirely (99.8 percent) to a small minority (20 percent) of the faculty; only 2 percent of the faculty conduct 57 percent of funded research.
 Non-tenured track faculty teach a majority of undergraduate enrollments and a surprising 31 percent of graduate enrollments.
 The most active researchers teach nearly the average of all faculty; increasing teaching loads of others would trivially impact outside research support.

and

The Top Quintile
The 20% of faculty members (that is, 840 out of the 4200 faculty within our sample) with the highest teaching loads carry 57% of the total number of student credit hours taught at the University’s (or 55% of the total teaching load if we control for the part-time status of some faculty). These 840 faculty members teach, on average, 896 student credit hours and 318 students per year. Of these 840 faculty nearly 60% are either tenured or on tenure-track while just over 40% are non-tenured.

The Bottom Four Quintiles
On the other hand, the remaining 80% (or the remaining 3,360 faculty members) perform only 43% of the total teaching duties on the Austin campus (or 44% after controlling for the part-time status of some of the faculty). The faculty members falling in these four bottom quintiles teach an average of 167 student credit hours per year and an average of 63 students per year, the equivalent of about 1.26 3-hour courses per year with an average student enrollment of 50 students per course, or three courses with an enrollment of 21 students each.