Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site elsie.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!hao!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!elsie!mark 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