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From: mark@elsie.UUCP (Mark J. Miller)
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.college
Subject: Re: Proposal to replace academic tenure
Message-ID: <1244@elsie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Sep-84 17:56:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: elsie.1244
Posted: Thu Sep 20 17:56:32 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Sep-84 03:32:53 EDT
References: <166@inteloc.UUCP>
Organization: NIH-LEC, Bethesda, MD
Lines: 69

> 
>    During my time in college life (student 7 1/2 years, teacher 6 years), I saw
> many, many problems with the tenure system. Giving someone almost total job
> security as a reward for 6 years of excellence does not work well enough to
> provide students with an environment of academic excellence. 
......
>    At the point in a professor's (generic term, not rank) career when the tenure
> decision is traditionally made, the prof is instead granted a long-term
> contract (say, for ten years, pun intended). Half-way through this contract
> (five years), the prof comes up for review again. If the review is favorable,
> the old (half-completed) contract is replaced by a new one of the same length.
> If the review is unfavorable, the prof comes up for review again in two years.
> If this review is favorable, the old contract is replaced with a new one as
> above. If this second review is also unfavorable, the prof has the remainder
> of the old contract (three years) to find a new job.
> 
.......
> T.F.Prune (Bill Wickart) {allegra | ihnp4 | tektronix} !ogcvax!inteloa

Your proposal has many good points and would go a long way toward solving the
problem of professors who retire as soon as they receive tenure. However,
this proposal would creat several new and dangerous situations, situations
that tenure was designed to guard against:
1.) Protection for teachers with unpopular views.
    During the 50's, the McCarthy era, there was heavy presure to fire
    many "pink" (i.e. liberal) professors. Tenure protected many of
    them, untenured faculty got fired.  Given the current political
    climate, this is likely to happen again in the next few years. Yes,
    I know your 10 year contract would reduce this risk, but the
    McCarthy era spanned almost ten years.
2.) Encouraging researchers to take risks.
    Tenure gives faculty members the freedom to branch out into new areas
    and start new research projects. Sometimes these are fruitful, often
    not. Certainly there would be less encouragement to do this if one knew
    that (s)he would be "pounding the street" if it didn't work.
3.) Economic protection.
    In times of tight budgets there is great temptation for administers
    to hire younger professors at lower salaries by letting the older
    facility go as their 10 year contracts expire. Several schools would
    probably develop policys of NEVER granting contract extensions after
    the first 5 years, unless you have a Nobel, are in the NAS, etc. (this
    is especially true for "top tier schools", who have an over supply of
    top people). It is also likely that the 10-5-3 system you propose would
    soon become a 5-3-1 system, then a 3-2-1 one. The power to fire is the
    power to dictate and control. That is NOT a good environment for
    academia.

I'm not tenured and I agree the tenure system has many flaws. It would do
many schools much good to get rid of dead wood. Heavens we have a lot of
dead wood around here at the NCI. But, given three years or not, it is still
very hard to find a new job when you're 50. Perhaps a 5 year review of
tenured faculty could be held and a positive decision made if the contract
is to be terminated at the end of the next five years. The review should be
made by people outside the school with no financial interest, much the way
grant reviews and tenure decisions are made today. The point is, that if a
decision is made to terminate the contract, reasons for the termination must
be stated, in writting. This would give the faculty member a basis for
appeal and possible court action.

Incidently, it's not that hard to get rid of tenured faculty today. I've
seen it done. You give such people no lab space, no promotions, a heavy
teaching load of uninteresting classes ("Chem 101: chemistry for non-science
majors who can't add) and combine that with peer contempt. They soon leave.

-- 
Mark J. Miller
NIH/NCI/DCE/LEC
UUCP:	decvax!harpo!seismo!umcp-cs!elsie!mark
Phone:	(301) 496-5688