Thoughts on tenure

[Raspberry]

There may be a problem with the whole tenure system. My son is a PhD candidate in biology, so he is aware of some of the pitfalls in the system. In his opinion, being denied tenure would mean that Amy Bishop's career, at age 45, was essentially over. A tenure denial would probably have meant that no top school would touch her, and that she would never reach her full potential. One of my son's undergrad profs was denied tenure, and ended up teaching at a community college. And while that is still a career in academia, it means fewer opportunities for research, for grants, for publication.

Interestingly enough, my son also mentioned the grad students who may have been working on her projects. They will all probably have to start over, too, and that's no small thing for them. My son has already put four years into work on his degree, and he still has a couple of years to go.

For those of you who are more 'in the know about this' than me, what do all think of the whole tenure systemf?

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. I know little about tenure, but Bishop should have a guaranteed lifetime position

in a prison for what she's done.

[el_bryanto]

2. The Tenure System has it's plusses and minuses

It's designed to protect academic freedom - once you have tenure you can pursue what you want to without fear that the university will fire you for pursuing questions they don't want answered.

In practice though, getting tenure means figuring out what the people granting tenure want and doing that. It can be stressful, and often times there is an element of pretending involved, which I find intolerable - but I can also see why you don't grant tenure to everybody who becomes a professor.

Bryant

[Raspberry]

3. Should it take as long as it does?

I think I read that Bishop was hired in '03. That's SEVEN YEARS of her life before she was to get the boot. It sounds like there are things that UAH should have been aware of after only a couple of years. If a person who isn't going to get tenure anyway is gone after two or three years (as they would be in most businesses) they have the chance to learn from their mistakes and start over elsewhere. Seems to me, anyway . . .

Just for the record, I'm not talking about Amy Bishop specifically, since her *ahem* issues should have been addressed when she was 20.

[roguevalley]

4. given the amount of craptastic dipwads in administration, tenure can

be the only thing between a teacher and the abyss. rv, who taught 27 years and knows.

[d_r]

5. That's the standard time table.

Typically - this can vary from institution to institution, and some places are more up for negotiating time tables than others, but generally in a tenure-track position you get two years and go up for a reappointment. In your third year you were either reappointed or not, and you have that third year to find another job. This is the humane way to let go somebody that doesn't seem like they are going to make it, counsel them out before reappointment. If you get reappointed, then you come up for tenure after year 6. Year 7 is a year to find another job if you don't get it.

The reason you have that length of time should be to the benefit of the professor, not the detriment. The purpose is to give that junior faculty enough time to establish a track record.

Yeah, it looks bad not to get tenure, but depending on the person and their track record they may be able to get another job. But there are fewer positions to be had so the chances are not so good.

It is a bad situation when you could have a $100K in loans etc.

In the best of situations, the criteria are clear and you get feedback every year so you know how you are doing and aren't surprised. In the worst of situations that isn't the case. Most situations are somewhere in between.

In the bigger picture, university budgets are tight and so tenure-line positions are disappearing. It is a lot cheaper to hire an adjunct to teach a class for a couple of grand than it is to have a full-time tenure-track professor. In some ways that can be good for students, you get an adjunct that works a full-time job out in the field. But there is a tipping point where that is not good for students, you get a lot of part-time and grad-assistants and not full-time faculty teaching in your courses. I think this is a real concern. I think sometimes people are concerned that tenure is a path to dead-wood old professors who sit in their offices and don't really work, but most places have post-tenure reviews in place. Honestly, I think that is less of a concern than the reduction of tenure-track professors and the reliance on adjuncts.

The other thing, UAH isn't exactly a research 1 school - we're not talking the big 10 here. This is primarily a teaching university and so I would bet that the tenure and promotion decisions are weighted to take teaching quality heavily into account. Honestly, looking at the vita that is posted at the UAH web site this professor's research track record was not overly strong, but I honestly don't know how updated that was.

And yes, she is looking at a lifetime appointment at Tutwiler.

[Raspberry]

9. Thanks!

That was the BEST explanation of the tenure process that I have ever seen. Basically, I think you are saying that there is enough feedback along the line that a person with some basic perception (and, presumably, not to much of an ego) could see the handwriting on the wall, and get out or shape up.

It is too bad that there aren't enough tenure-track positions to make fluidity easier for talented people who may just not fit in in any given institution, but in a lot of ways that's how it is in any field right now. And things probably aren't going to get better any time soon.

Also, with adjunct professorships, what do the grad students do for mentors? I imagine those positions will be drying up, too, then. Sad that for the future of academia.

I don't know that much about UAH specifically, but I had assumed that with its strong ties to NASA that research would be very important. I had also read that Amy Bishop's research skills were outstanding. It sounds like she was just a total mystery. Some of her student evaluations on ratemyprofeessor.com were very good, some were the total opposite. Bipolar, maybe??

[d_r]

17. Things are very relative

And it depends on point of view. UAH isn't Harvard or University of Michigan or something like that. Yes, it does have ties to Nasa and like any university research is important, but it isn't a top tier research power house or anything like that. And I am probably looking at her vita with a tougher eye than most.

And yes, HOPEFULLY you should get enough feedback along the way that you should know what the expectations are and how you are faring in meeting them. But that isn't always the case. It really varies based on your department and the university. In my opinion, the department and university should be invested in making sure that junior faculty get tenure - that is good for the department and the university. On the other hand, some departments and some universities (e.g., some of the major research institutions) are known for sucking junior faculty dry and then cutting them loose, then repeat the cycle. Some are known for hiring several jr. faculty with the expectation that only the best of those will get tenure and then the position lines for the others will be filled again with some fresh young faces in six years. I wouldn't say that is the norm, but some places are more cut-throat than others, some are mores supportive and cooperative.

FWIW, my point of view is that I worked at a research 1, big 10 university for 8 years, passed my tenure review there, but now I work in a "at" university, which makes me so much happier in terms of time to spend with family and so on, still get to do research and lots of teaching but less pressure, and even time to post on the internet in the middle of the day on occasion. Let me just say I LOVE MY JOB.

[Raspberry]

20. What's an "at" university?

And about the bad ones--it must be known which ones they are, so why do bright, talented people go there?

It's great that you love your job. Everyone should be able to say that.

Hope things work out for my son in academia, but the more I hear, the more I wish he had chosen a different field. He had to wait six months to find out if he had passed his qualifiers, just because one of the people on the committee didn't check his in-box often enough, or something. One of his fellow grad students didn't pass his thesis defense because his professor didn't get him the samples he needed. (Transportation was an issue for this student.) Seems like so much of these bright young peoples' future is in the hands of people who can just be unconcerned jerks.

[d_r]

24. Hi, sorry by "AT" I meant

A university AT something. Like the University of Alabama AT Huntsville, or the University of Tennessee AT Chattanooga, or Auburn University AT Montgomery, etc.

Your son will be fine. When he interviews at jobs he should ask about the philosophy of promotion and tenure. He'll figure all that out.

[RoyGBiv]

19. UAH ...

I have some bit of insight into the decision making process for UAH specifically, and quality of teaching is a big factor in tenure decisions.

[stray cat]

7. You come up for tenure at a designated time - 7 years is normal

you basically have 7 years to prove yourself indispensable - ideally its enough time to gain international recognition and excel. The reason you get tenure or you don't have to find another job is to force the school to make a decision and not drag it out any longer.

[Raspberry]

11. The trouble is

that if it takes you 6 or 7 years to get your PhD, and another 7 to find out if you get tenure, you have a person in their mid-30's or older competing for jobs with someone younger, more energetic, perhaps fewer family demands, maybe hungrier. Perhaps, also cheaper.

[MineralMan]

6. When I returned to college after my time in the USAF,

I made a discovery. What I discovered was that the very best teachers I had were those seeking tenure. The very worst were those who had tenure. That was uniformly true. I was an English major. The tenured professors didn't even try. The ones who wanted tenure tried very hard.

It's that simple, at least in the Humanities.

[Yupster]

8. In baseball they call it

Playing in a contract year, meaning the player will be a free agent at the end of the year so is playing his very best to get a big contract offer at the end of the season.

[reflection]

10. Was going to say the same thing.

Playing in a contract year. That's the first thing I thought of. Once the desired goal is achieved, the pressure is off to perform at a high level if there is no internal motivation.

And like the earlier poster, I too noticed a similar marked difference in the performance levels of my college educators based upon their tenured status.

[Raspberry]

12. It's all political, I guess

You play the game until you win, then you rest on your laurels.

What's ironic is that my son chose academia over business (like his father,) or medicine because he thought both those fields were too political. Right now, either would probably be far less political than academia.

[MineralMan]

14. I considered academia, but decided against it. The petty

politics of the department where I did my graduate work convinced me that just about any career would be more to my liking. So, I ended up doing lots of interesting things in my working life. A much better choice, I think.

[heli]

13. Very accurate observation

The good teachers are often the hungry ones - like the assistant professors - and the adjunct professors who teach on the side for fun.

[MineralMan]

16. Yep. The Assistant Professors on tenure track were working

hard, publishing, doing scholarship, and brought some enthusiasm to the classroom. The people teaching for the joy of teaching displayed that infectious joy in the classroom. The career people with tenure tended to teach upper-division classes from their moldy old thesis and tell old stories that no longer had much going for them. Most had stopped publishing, too.

I contended with some of these in a public way, trying to provoke them into showing some signs of life, but it was usually of no use. They just plodded along, phoning it in, and boring their classes.

[QC]

18. Good teaching never got anyone tenure,

not in an R1 research university, at any rate.

I have seen good teachers denied tenure because they did not publish enough, but I have never seen a wretched teacher with lots of publications get anything other than tenured and promoted.

In research universities the incentives simply do not reward teaching much. The people there who do teach well are those who do it for the love of it, and colleagues will actually warn young faculty not to "put too much time into teaching."

Unfortunate but true.

[RoyGBiv]

22. I had the opposite experience ...

My worst teacher, in fact, was one who was come up for tenure review that semester I had her, and she was horrible. My second worst was an ABD PhD candidate who had been teaching for a few years and was still looking to get hired full time. He talked about his kids and their sporting prowess at least as much as his subject, during class.

My two favorite professors were the head of the history department and, oddly enough, the Dean of Humanities, who still taught one section per year.

This was history/poli-sci/English and was a smaller university, which may have affecting things.

[leftofcool]

15. I think you nailed it.

[boobooday]

21. The tenure system has its problems

But, Amy Bishop's career was nowhere near over. She was a Harvard grad with a strong record of research and a development deal for a scientific innovation. She worked in a field that offers many lucrative opportunities in the private research sector as well. An English prof denied tenure might end up at a community college (and there's really nothing wrong with that) but she wouldn't have.

From what I have read, she was a fairly ineffective teacher and a contentious, difficult colleague. If the faculty had recommended tenure, they would be committing themselves to the daily experience of her unpleasantness. Indefinitely, forever.

She is really not a good case for arguing the problems with the tenure system. I am a faculty member, not-yet tenured, but I would not expect my colleagues to vote to keep me around if I was a miserable person and a poor teacher. Every faculty member who is trollish with the students just creates more pressure on those of us who actually care about what happens to them.

[izzybeans]

23. She would have been able to teach elsewhere.

Her career was only "over" from the perspective of a top-tier graduate. She landed at a secondary campus of the U of A. Having not gotten tenure there she could have gone to a teaching college and sought tenure there.

Sometimes things just don't work out.