If a college instructor doesn't get tenure, does the committee or department

[raccoon]

or the janitor :silly: have to explain to him or her why they didn't get tenure?

[aikoaiko]

1. Not the janitor, but yes the committee and department have to defend the untenureable performance

Somehow I don't think this has to do with college tenure.

:shrug:

[DURHAM D]

2. ditto

[frazzled]

3. Instructors aren't usually eligible for tenure

You generally have to reach the level of associate professor, or some higher rank to be considered for tenure.

What's the question here? Or the agenda?

[raccoon]

4. The question was whether someone at the school had to give the person a reason.

No agenda. Honest to Betsy.

[gkhouston]

7. Yes, they do, but "instructor" is typically not a title associated with

tenure-track positions. The order (depending on seniority) would be assistant professor, associate professor, (full) professor, and possibly professor emeritus after retirement. The "tenure clock" usually goes *bing* when you're at the associate professor level (7 years).

[kiva]

12. It depends on the school -

I was an instructor before I was tenured. Also the length of time varies - I know several schools with 4 year paths, 7 years seems like a long time to be tenure track. Are these east-coast schools?

[gkhouston]

29. They're ones that expect a lot of publications, plus quality teaching,

plus involvement in professional organizations.

[aikoaiko]

9. In general, yes. All T&P decisions are supposed to follow policy and most policies have

long paper trails over several years. At my university, the President makes the decision and the departmental faculty, department head, college committee, college dean, and Vice-President of Academic Affairs all make recommendations to the President.

If any or all of those recommendations are for non-tenure, then the President usually cites those "no votes" in the letter denying tenure. It would be unusual for a president to receive unanimous recommendations FOR tenure and then decide not to grant it (unless the department or program was being reorganized).

[JDPriestly]

11. At state universities and colleges, tenure rules may be expressed

in state law or regulation.

In California, it is.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=edc&codebody=&hits=20

[exboyfil]

5. I don't know

Why don't you ask Guillermo Gonzalez at Iowa State who was not granted tenure (he is the poster child for the God awful Expelled movie)? The reasons given included a dramatic reduction in authored papers, failure to secure telescope time or grants, and failure to bring graduate students to their PhD completions; but these reasons came from those viewing the decision from the outside. I don't know what they told Gonzalez (whose book is a bit weird but not really deserving of the criticism and ad hominem attacks which he received from writing it). What he did was no different than some of the hyperbole coming from Sagan or Hawkings.

[petronius]

6. Yes, but a lot of it comes before the decision - there is a series of assessments

from various levels during the tenure and promotion process, with opportunities to dispute the evaluations, as well as a grievance process after the fact.

Which is not to say it never breaks down, or gets abused...

[raccoon]

8. Some years ago, I read a book, THE CLIFF WALK, by a man who didn’t get tenure.

I could really identify with the author. I’ve never taught at the college level, nor at any level, but in another field I could relate to what happened to the author.

The Cliff Walk: A Memoir of a Job Lost and a Life Found

Don J. Snyder

“Snyder (From the Point, LJ 4/15/88) had to come to grips with reality when he learned he would not be granted tenure as an English professor at Colgate University. Snyder had a wife he adored, three beautiful children, one on the way, and what he thought was a secure, lifetime "dream" job. Sure he would get another job, especially because the Student Honor Society had nominated him each spring for "Professor of the Year," Snyder was caught off balance when he received 90 rejections. Inertia, depression, and despair set in as he awaited another teaching position that never came. Snyder details the various painful stages his family had to go through, from selling their house to buying food with food stamps. When he could no longer take it, he accepted a job as a day laborer to provide for his family. Snyder writes with skill, insight, and sensitivity. Given the current upheaval in the status of tenure--and, indeed, the upheaval caused by downsizing generally--Snyder's book is timely”

http://www.amazon.com/Cliff-Walk-Memoir-Lost-Found/dp/0316803480

[undeterred]

22. When I worked at the University of Chicago there was a male scientist

who was awarded tenure and then had it revoked after three powerful female scientists went to the Dean of the Division and complained that they didn't think he deserved it. Its hardly ever the case that someone who is awarded tenure doesn't deserve it, and this person had published good papers.

I worked in a neighboring lab so I heard his side of it from his people. Basically, pure politics. He got the tenure based on his work, and lost it because of politics that came from people higher up the food chain. He kept his mouth shut and got a position somewhere else as soon as he could. Small world, so I'm sure everybody knew the story. Probably still did well in his career.

Lots of times shit happens that just isn't fair.

[yellowcanine]

10. Depends on the university but actual reasons given are usually fairly minimal.

It is a tricky deal because external reviewers are involved and they are promised confidentiality. Some of the external reviewers are actually chosen by the candidate and it could be very awkward if too much information was given and the candidate would know that a particular external reviewer had given them a negative review.

[BoWanZi]

13. What exactly is the goal of tenure? Why is tenure required for higher education?

I really don't know. Why is tenure desired by colleges/universities?

I really don't know but it seems like it might breed apathy in the professors.

What makes tenure so important for the students in the end?

[libodem]

15. Security

The longer you teach the better you get. The first year is the hardest. How do expect a human being to be a good teacher when they live in fear of losing their job to some cheaper noobie.

[BoWanZi]

20. Seems like to me that if you are a good professor, the college will want to keep you

Since a college full of newbie profs won't look so good to prospective students. I don't know, just seems kind of unfair compared to the "normal working person" who doesn't get those kind of perks like tenure.

I remember when I was working at a college and the profs were making equivalent money to their respective parties in the "real world" work force. I remember hearing that from a supervisor who said that engineering programs could not keep the profs unless they paid them close to or equivalent to what they would make in the real word.

I dunno, I just get a tad of a bad taste in my mouth when certain people are afforded special privileges that common people like me can't get in the work force.

I do understand the academic freedom issues.

[alcibiades_mystery]

28. A " normal working person" doesn't voluntarily give up 6-8 years of

earning and rank building in order to acquire the skills needed by the employer and "customers."

Tenure is not a special privilege. It is a function of the incentive structure of academic work. If you took away tenure, there would be a massive decline in the number of people willing to sacrifice earning potential in the service of education and scholarship. Maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. You'd also have tremendous loss of skilled work at the university level, as people with PhDs move toward the now security-equivalent but higher income industry work. Despite what you may believe, academics are paid far less on average than their cohort of equal skill and education levels working in industry. Without tenure, they'd have little economic incentive to stay in academe.

So, what happens when you have a labor shortage in higher education (as opposed to the current labor glut). You tell me.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. While it certainly happens that tenured professors "quit" working

It is far from the norm. It's usually something that is being investigated during the probationary period (i.e., pre-tenure performance). Tenured faculty tend to be independently motivated in their research areas - they don't need job incentive to continue their research and pedagogies.

The traditional rationale for tenure was, of course, academic freedom.

Today, it is more like an incentive to continue on with what is often thankless and extensive work. Put very simply, without the promise of job security at the end of the line, few people would be incentivized to undertake extensive graduate education, which essentially means that they will lose massive earning power during the outset of their earning years (i.e., mid-twenties to early thirties, or thereabout). Remember that if you're lucky, you get paid in the area of $12,000-$18,000 a year as a stipend for various activities you perform as a graduate student (teaching, lab assistant, research assistant, and the like). So, consider the opportunity costs there. We're talking about smart people who could probably earn more in other professions. Could the average graduate student earn, say, $45,000 a year doing something else? Then that's in the order of $150,000 given up in opportunity costs for graduate education. Factor in tuition reimbursement, and we're still at $100,000 or so that would accumulate, and probably lead to property purchases, and the like.

Tenure serves as a kind of inducement in this regard: yes, you lay out large opportunity costs in terms of lost wages for six or seven of your prime earning years, but you get to do your research in peace if you get through a tenure process at the end of it all. How are students helped? Tenure secures the expertise in subject areas by inducing people to commit to graduate education, even though it can be immediately counter-productive from the standpoint of costs.

[Hannah Bell]

17. the fearlessness to think outside the box.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. The original idea was to create "a community of scholars"

who would spend their entire working lives in one place.

The legal procedures were codified during the McCarthy era, when professors were being fired for saying something unpopular. You could be fired at will during the first seven years of employment, but if the college hired you for an eighth year, it was legally obliged to give you tenure. There are only three acceptable reasons for firing a tenured professor: what is called "moral turpitude," which was stealing and selling rare books from the library in one case that I know of and raping a student in another case; the closure of a department or program; and a declaration of financial exigency (an official declaration that the college is going broke and needs to shed faculty in order to survive).

In practice, colleges and universities at all levels are doing away with tenure-track positions. Instead, they use adjuncts, who are paid peanuts, have no benefits, and usually have to work at two or three places to earn a bare living, or one- to three-year temporary full-time instructors. Or else (like some of the Ivy League schools) they have a few slots in each department that are officially tenure-track positions but are really revolving door positions--you have to practically win a Nobel Prize to get tenure.

If you are denied tenure (as I was), the notification must come by your sixth year. If you have teaching experience, the college may agree to move your tenure decision up to an earlier date. In either case, you have to apply for tenure and create a portfolio of work and recommendations. A committee of tenured faculty reviews your case and makes a recommendation, which is then supported or vetoed by the academic dean and president. My notification of denial contained no reasons, but I suspect that I was blackballed by a member of my department.

Since the academic hiring season comes around only once a year (each subject area has an annual convention that serves as a job market), you get one more year of employment after you are denied tenure.

I looked around, saw that most of the new jobs in my field were short-term appointments and decided to get out of academia. A few months after I left, a former colleague invited me to a party at her house. She later told me that some of the guests had remarked about how "relaxed and cheerful" I looked.

[BoWanZi]

21. Well since colleges are forced to consider tenure, then they might choose alternative solutions

such as adjuncts and short term positions but if tenure wasn't required, then I imagine colleges would be more apt to keep professors longer since tenure would not be an issue anymore. Instead of looking for a loophole to prevent tenure, they would just rather keep the professor.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. In state universities in particular, professors come under threat from

yahoo legislators.

During the Vietnam War there were some professors who were so unpopular with the right-wingers (because they participated in peace marches and spoke at rallies) that they would have been fired if it weren't for tenure.

(Yes, I know that people in the business world don't have those protections, but they should.)

[BoWanZi]

25. That makes sense. i was working for a private college anyway

[raccoon]

24. I'm glad things worked out well for you.

After I left a certain job I had about 20 years ago, several people said I looked relaxed. This job was at a place that was a real sweatshop, and there was a lot of turnover there. One guy who worked there went postal, not at the workplace, but at the apartment he shared with another contract worker, and shot his roommate, the roommate's wife, and the roommate's dog.

Community colleges in my area (and I expect, 4 year colleges too--I just happened to be more in the know about community colleges)have gone more and more to adjunct faculty. And part-time, unbenefited staff as well.

From time to time, I've thought that I wished I could've been a college professor. Now I'm glad I'm not. I might could've stood trying to jump through all those hoops when I was younger, but not now. I'd have probably not made it because of the politics; I used to be dumb as rocks about office politics. In about the last decade or so, I've been learning. Wish I'd have known it all 40 years ago. Oh, well.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. Depends on the institution

Some schools and systems have fairly comprehensive paper trails and require written reasons, while some don't. The details will usually be spelled out in the contract, even if the contract is just a reference to the faculty handbook, or whatever they call it at that place. There is no automatic systems that applies to all institutions. Typically, however, a tenure denial is deemed serious enough that there will be provisions in place for a written explanation.

Almost always, a tenure denial is predictable, since the candidate will have had numerous pre-tenure reviews that make assessments along the way (in some schools, a third year review is a big one, in others a fourth year review). These reviews can even be the occasion to advise the candidate to look for another job, since tenure seems impossible (for example, if the candidate has made no progress toward completing a book or securing a book contract in departments where a book is required for tenure). The third or fourth review review can also be an occasion to not renew a faculty members contract, for the same reason. Not everybody even gets to go up for tenure.

Just as a correction to the poster above, the general tenure track sequence is assistant professor (untenured), associate professor (tenured), and "full" professor (tenured). Some schools will allow "instructors" (typically people who were not hired on a tenure track, or who don't have a PhD) to apply for tenure, although this is almost never the case at research universities (it usually happens at community colleges or very small, teaching focused colleges). If you are hired on the tenure track, your rank begins at assistant professor; instructor generally signifies an adjunct faculty position (i.e., non-tenure track). Of course, that depends on the institution as well.

[Sgent]

18. Also denial of tenure

usually results in being fired.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. It always results in being fired

After your denied tenure, you have one year to look for another job, and then you're out.

I didn't realize that until I was in graduate school myself. Before that, I thought it just meant that you didn't have job security (which it does). I didn't know that it was an "up or out" system.

[alcibiades_mystery]

27. I would say that they're synomous