This essay is excerpted from a new Chronicle special report, “Building a Faculty that Flourishes,” available in the Chronicle Store.
It’s no secret that tenure has come under attack — not just by red-state politicians but also from within academe itself.
A majority of faculty members these days are not on the tenure track and feel marginalized, disenfranchised, and abandoned by a system to which they cannot seem to gain access. There are also more than a few chancellors, presidents, vice presidents, provosts, and deans who wouldn’t mind seeing the whole tenure edifice come crashing down, whether they’re willing to admit it publicly or not.
The result: Many senior professors now fear losing tenure — both their own and as a concept — while a growing number of up-and-coming academics view the faculty-employment system as antiquated at best and exploitative at worst.
This depressing state of affairs is at least partly our own fault — and by “our,” I mean the administrators and senior faculty members, like me, who have long served as guardians of the system. Tenure has fulfilled a dual purpose: to determine who is worthy of a lifetime appointment and to protect professors’ academic freedom from the wrath of administrators and the vagaries of politicians. Perhaps we have concentrated too much on the first purpose to the detriment of the second. The more “elite” the institution, the truer that tends to be. Even many second- and third-tier institutions now use tenure as a means of weeding out “the unfit.” We have turned tenure into something esoteric and elusive rather than practical and inclusive — and, in so doing, have greatly reduced the number of people who benefit from the system and are therefore willing to fight for it.
To save tenure, its advocates and custodians at four-year colleges should consider borrowing a few pages from the tenure handbook of community colleges. Yes, the two types of institutions are very different, but there is much the former can learn from the latter about tenure:
Treat tenure as a promise, not a sword of Damocles. Faculty members hired on the tenure track at two-year colleges enter with the expectation that they will, in fact, earn it — it’s just a matter of time. (Not all two-year colleges offer tenure. Those focused on technical programs are less likely to do so than those that feature a thriving university-transfer component.)
That approach contrasts sharply with the practice at four-year colleges, where those fortunate enough to land a tenure-track appointment scarcely have time to celebrate before they start worrying about whether they’ll still have a job in seven years. From Day 1, they feel like someone is constantly looking over their shoulder, as if their every move is being judged — probably because it is.
Perhaps more four-year colleges should leave the “weeding out” to search committees. Assume anyone who makes it through the hiring process is probably well qualified. Bring faculty members on board with the expectation that they will eventually be tenured barring some sort of major screw up. That simple shift in mind-set would go a long way toward restoring young academics’ faith in the system.
Re-erect the big tent. Too many institutions — two-year and four-year — remain stubbornly reliant on adjuncts. However, at the typical two-year campus, almost all full-time faculty members are either on the tenure track or tenured. In contrast, many four-year campuses have a clear caste system for full-time faculty members, with a small pool of tenured Brahmins at the top while legions of lecturers and contingent instructors do the bulk of the full-time teaching.
Administrators at four-year colleges would no doubt say they can’t afford to hire all full-time faculty members on the tenure track, although contingent-faculty activists have long argued that it would be possible with institutional will. Even while acknowledging hard fiscal realities, administrators must also weigh the many “soft” costs of their overreliance on adjuncts — such as the impact of large numbers of nontenured faculty members on campus morale, on student success, and on the faculty’s ability to perform its key role, in a shared-governance environment, of overseeing the curriculum.
Ultimately this caste system seems counterproductive. If comparatively few full-timers have tenure, how exactly does it promote academic freedom? The answer: It doesn’t. If only a minority has a particular right or privilege, it can’t be said to exist in any meaningful way. Conversely, when more academics enjoy the freedom conferred by tenure, that freedom becomes a powerful force.
Emphasize teaching in the tenure process. Teaching is the primary metric by which faculty members are evaluated at two-year colleges. (Service and professional development are secondary factors.) Competent teachers are practically guaranteed to earn tenure.
I know. It’s not that simple at many four-year institutions, where faculty members are often hired to do research more than to teach. And perhaps a research-intensive tenure process is understandable at wealthy, highly selective universities that pride themselves on their cutting-edge research or in disciplines with fierce competition for grant dollars.
However, is that really true of most four-year campuses and most disciplines? Our profession boasts far more competent teachers than truly gifted researchers capable of doing original work. Allowing assistant professors to qualify based primarily on their teaching portfolios would greatly expand the benefits of tenure, opening the system to faculty members who in the past were excluded. There’s no downside to four-year institutions’ valuing teaching more — especially at a time when enrollments are declining and students are feeling disengaged and questioning the value of a college education. Research has shown that the quality of the classroom experience is one of the main factors that attract students to a campus and keep them there. Moreover, four-year colleges — not just community colleges — are serving more first-generation and underprepared students who need great teaching more than ever.
Redefine what types of writing count for promotion. Most faculty members at two-year colleges are not required to do research. After teaching, what counts toward tenure is professional development and service. Community colleges define professional development broadly — to include publishing as well as attending and presenting at conferences, workshops, and “brown bags.”
For our faculty members who do like to write, practically anything that makes it into print is considered a “publication.” For example, my columns and blog posts for The Chronicle over the years have helped me earn “outstanding” ratings under professional development on my annual evaluations, even though what I write about is only tangentially related to what I teach.
Perhaps this concept is not directly transferable to four-year colleges, where faculty members are expected to publish and have light teaching loads relative to two-year campuses. But I don’t see why most four-year institutions couldn’t at least broaden their definition of “publishing” to include writing for nonacademic audiences and about a wider range of topics than just their subfield. At many four-year places, public writing in newspapers and other online media sites wouldn’t make it onto a faculty member’s CV, let alone be considered as publishing for tenure. But in the real world, that type of writing is a significant accomplishment, a potential public service as academics bring their expertise to vital concerns, and a service to higher education at a time of public mistrust in academe. It’s high time more four-year institutions recognized that fact and allowed faculty members to list such publications in their tenure bids.
Reduce time to tenure. Perhaps the biggest problem with tenure at four-year colleges is that it takes so long to achieve. By the time people finish their doctorate and spend seven years earning tenure, they’re well into their 30s. If they fail to earn tenure, they have to start over at a time when many professionals are nearly halfway through their working life. That uncertainty affects all sorts of important life decisions, including getting married, having children, and buying a home.
At community colleges, time to tenure (or, as it’s sometimes known, “continuing contract”) is usually three years. Basically, if the administration renews your contract for the fourth year, for all practical purposes, you’re tenured. At some two-year colleges, it takes a little longer (five years at mine, for instance), and there’s a more formal process. But even then, it’s nothing like the seven-year marathon that faculty members endure at four-year campuses.
Here, again, I’m not suggesting that the tenure process at our colleges be exactly copied by four-year institutions. A three-year tenure process there might be too short. But why not five years? Give assistant professors a five-year contract from the date of hire. Evaluate them annually based on reasonable metrics. Then, at the five-year mark, if their evaluations have been satisfactory, grant them tenure. If not, let them go.
Earning tenure probably should be easier at a two-year college than in the four-year sector. But even at research institutions, it needn’t be such a herculean task or limited to so few as it is now. As long as four-year institutions treat tenure like the Holy Grail — which none but the pure in heart (i.e., heavy in publication) can attain — they will continue to weaken the system, give its enemies more ammunition, and further shrink the ranks of its defenders.
