UPDATE:  Steven Taylor favors us with an extensive examination of the Churchill debate with links to pertinent blogs and articles.  I und […]

I ask you: if the goal is the cultivation of ideas and thought how can one fully cultivate those things if one knows there is a chance that a statement may get one fired?

Kevin: Not to sound too direct, but tenure never had anything to do with the mobility of society. For that matter, if we used to have a non-mobile society, why would you need tenure, since there would be no reason to want to incentivize someone to stay put, if they weren’t going to leave anyway.

Further, while it may make sense for a chemist or engineer to go back and forth to the private sector, I don’t see english lit profs or political scientists doing that with great ease. I culd certaily go work in government in some capacity, but I have a hard time seeing a bunch of humanities types easily slipping into private sector jobs.

I would love to see more people moving between the free market and university. Personally, I know lots of professors who are burnt out on their jobs and would love a stint in the free market. Conversely, I know a large number of great people in the free market with tremendous gifts and experience that would love an opportunity to share there experience with students, but who do not because the tenure track creates an iron curtain between the market at large and the university system.

Tenure was designed for market conditions that no longer exists. Today, we have more social mobility and opportunities than ever. The tenure systems does a great deal of harm by reducing opportunities for people.

“3) And yes: not do I think there are reasons to generically fear administrations, but more importantly ones’s colleagues. Sadly, tolerance is not always the more prevelant virtue on college campuses and one shouldn’t have to worry about what one says.”

If you need tenure because you fear the intolerance of your
colleagues, yet the only way to receive tenure is through these very same colleagues you fear, then yes, — the system seems broken.

A tenure system that is needed because of the intolerance of fellow colleagues, which then uses these same colleagues to grant tenure, seems highly problematic. Wouldn’t these same colleagues primarily grant tenure to those candidates that already agree with their prevailing mindset, rather than granting tenure to those candidates that disagree or are controversial? This doesn’t seem to promote academic freedom as much as it promotes academic uniformity.

My conclusion that the system must be broken includes (but is not limited to) the following:

1) Professors have to publish or die to gain tenure, which leads to frequent articles that do little to extend information (i.e. ‘How many papers can I get out of this research’). This research does not enhance student knowledge as much as it helps the professor achieve tenure.

2) Once the professor gains tenure, the focus for the professor’s prestige is in research and graduate seminars. Frequently, the perceived benefit of tenure is that the professor does not have to teach as many undergraduate courses — thereby limiting student enhancement.

3) Based on your conclusion that the people who threaten your academic freedom the most are your colleagues, if these same colleagues are the people that grant tenure, then the tenure system must logically increase academic uniformity more than academic freedom. Tenure would be given to those candidates that primarily agree with their colleagues, thereby providing academic freedom to people of the same mind. Controversial candidates would be denied tenure, thereby hindering academic freedom for those who disagree with their colleagues.

Although not a complete list of the problems with tenure, I would actually say the most compelling arguement that the system is broken is based on the fact that the people who grant you tenure (colleagues) are the very people you have concluded threaten your academic freedom the most.

I hope you don’t find this too vexing!

PDN

1) It isn’t so much the academy that is broken, but human nature itself.

2) My thesis on research is that all research redounds, to one degree or another to the students.

3) For all its flaws, the system works pretty well–for all the grief we take for K-12 in the US, our universities and colleges are the best in the world.

Aside from Churchill and those of his ilk (who are, let’s be fair, in the vast minority), I guess I am somewhat vexed as to why you see the current system as so broken.

I did not mean to imply research doesn’t enrich the student at all, I was responding in greater detail to your analysis that tenure provides the freedom to do research without stress — the stress of trying to achieve tenure. My point is that tenure pushes the non-tenured professor to publish quickly primarily for personal promotion rather than student enhancement. Likewise, after receiving tenure, the focus of a professor’s professional life frequently turns primarily to research rather than professing to undergrads. My problem is entirely with tenure as the primary motivating factor for academic advancement and professional prestige.

I obviously believe the detriments of tenure far outweigh the benefits of any increased academic freedom — and I am unimpressed with the idea that we cannot find a better way to protect academic freedom. You, however, based on professional knowledge and personal experience with colleagues who don’t practice academic freedom for others, believe tenure is your best hope for academic freedom, and any detriments are the price you pay for an imperfect system.

If you are right, then academic life sounds like a broken system of colleagues trying to advance over each other, (or colleagues who only want to include like minded academics), rather than colleagues working together to increase the body of knowledge in their discipline, thus enhancing student education. But, if your colleagues have the power to grant you tenure, and you need tenure as a defense against your colleagues, how can tenure increase academic freedom?

I may be wrong that academic freedom can be increased through better means than tenure — but until alternative means are fully explored, I am unwilling to accept the increasingly imperfect results of the status quo.

Thanks for allowing me to continue the dialogue — even if you do think I am misguided.

PDN

1) You have shifted the argument about the source of my/professor’s checks from the taxpayers to the students. That becomes a different issue than where the conversation started. And I would not argue about the importance of the students.

I still reject the customer service model–it simply doesn’t apply to education. I am not saying that that means that serving the student isn’t an issue, but it far different than a straightforward consumer transaction.

2) You are correct, there are profs who don’t like to teach and not all research is worthwhile. However, conversely there are a lot of profs who do like teaching and a lot of reserach that is worthwhile (and the worthwhiledness of a given bit of research is often difficult to ascertain).

3) And yes: not do I think there are reasons to generically fear administrations, but more importantly one’s colleagues. Sadly, tolerance is not always the more prevelant virute on college campuses and one shouldn’t have to worry about what one says.

One can accept this fact, or not, but I believe it to be true.

Further, it seems to me to logically follow that the only way to wholly ensure academic freedom is the tenure system.

4) I still dispute your thesis that a professor’s reseach doesn’t enhance his/her teaching. One guess this is especially true in the hard sciences.

5) And yes, I realize you aren’t talking about me. And further appreciate the civil and interesting dialogue.

You do realize I am not specifically talking about you, but the problems with tenure in general. Obviously their are many good professors who would do well with or without tenure. However,the ‘publish or die’—’students take me away from my research’ attitude is prevelant and is a direct consequence of tenure (look at the California University system, Northwestern University, Stanford University, UVA, etc.). I am sure striving for tenure has not influenced the types of research you have chosen, or hurt your attitude towards undergrads —- but the others? Is your department truly that unique (or do you discount the grumbling about teaching undergrads)?

And — although your check is from your university, student tuition still pays for your check. Therefore, the student is still encouraged to come to your university based on the teaching — not just your research. Look at most university admission catalogues … do they emphasize teaching or the professors research? Never-the-less, many T.A.’s teach these undergrads instead of the professor. Again, I am sure your university is the exception —- but many other universities promote professors based on publications, not excellence in professing.

If good professors will be good regardless of tenure, why is tenure needed (or do you really fear the inconsistancies of any given administration)?

PDN