Category Archives: Tenure & Promotion

Arizona Republic: Universities cutting back on tenure for teachers

Students at Arizona’s three state universities pay more for tuition but have greater odds of being taught by non-tenured, less experienced faculty than students a decade ago.

The shift has happened over the past decade as universities look for ways to save money, deal with booming enrollment and gain greater flexibility over hiring and firing.

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The Chronicle Review: What Is to Be Done (About Tenure)?

In a previous post, I advocated either the abolition or the radical modification of tenure. I argued that tenure in its current form terrorizes junior faculty and renders them (to greatly varying degrees, of course) timid and impotent. It permits — even encourages — tenured faculty to act like bullies.

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The Chronicle News Blog: New Mexico State U. Professors Receive Racist Letters

Four professors and a graduate student at New Mexico State University say they found threatening, racist letters in their offices when they came to the campus on Monday. New Mexico Public Radio reported that two junior faculty members who had recently been denied tenure were among those who told the police they had received the offensive letters.

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Inside Higher Ed: Rare Performance Review Do-Over

Middlebury College’s faculty committee that makes recommendations about colleagues’ pre-tenure reappointments recently took the rare step of reversing itself. The case not only put the institution’s review system under the microscope, but it also highlights the tricky issue of assessing professors with an interdisciplinary focus.

Earlier this academic year, the reappointments committee recommended to the college’s president that the contract of Laurie Essig, an assistant professor of sociology, not be renewed. As it does in all such cases, the three-professor panel observed Essig in the classroom and consulted with the head of sociology and anthropology, her “home” department.

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Inside Higher Ed: Tenure News on YouTube

Sure, colleges may issue press releases to announce those who have recently been awarded tenure. But is that really individual or special enough to share the news of such a key moment? You can read the news about Brian Donovan winning tenure in sociology at the University of Kansas in the official announcement here. But he also took to YouTube with a video to mark the moment. Congratulations, Brian.

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Inside Higher Ed: Changing the Tenure Rules — Without Telling Anyone?

When assistant professors talk about the ever more stringent standards for winning tenure, one of the favorite metaphors is of colleges “raising the bar.” At Baylor University, assistant professors who came up for tenure this year believe that not only did they face a higher hurdle, but they were forced to jump while blindfolded.

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Inside Higher Ed: Tenure as a Tarnished Brass Ring

Claire B. Potter has a level of academic success many young Ph.D.’s these days can only dream about. A professor of history and chair of American studies at Wesleyan University, she has tenure at an elite college. Tenure provides her not only with job security, but with part of her identity as the blogger Tenured Radical, where she shares views on a range of topics, writing with the freedom that tenure is supposed to protect.

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Inside Higher Ed: Tenure, the Movie

Higher education has provided plenty of plots for film, with student oriented movies the most likely to pack in audiences. Campus hijinks have always been popular (think “Animal House“). Getting into college featured prominently in “Risky Business” and “Orange County.” Faculty stories also get told of course, with many an academic novel having been dramatized. But tales of infidelity, failure, and visions of political correctness tend to dominate — such as the stories in the films “Wonder Boys,” “We Don’t Live Here Anymore” or “The Human Stain.”

But what about tenure? It’s about to have its 15 minutes of Hollywood fame. Blowtorch Entertainment will next month begin filming on “Tenure,” which is about a college professor coming up for tenure (Luke Wilson) and facing off against a female rival who recently arrived at (fictional) Grey College. (The part of the institution will be played by Bryn Mawr College, where the movie will be shot.) David Koechner will play the professorial sidekick to the Wilson character, and the production company is planning kickoff events next year to promote the film in college towns.

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The Chronicle News Blog: Protests Heat Up at Michigan Over Tenure Case of Expert in Native American Studies

Students and faculty members at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor have started an e-mail campaign to protest negative decisions in the tenure bid of Andrea L. Smith, who is interim director of the campus’s program in Native American studies.

Ms. Smith is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in Michigan’s American-culture program and women’s-studies department. The two programs split on her tenure bid, with American culture voting yes and women’s studies voting no. Then, last week, a panel in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts sided with women’s studies and voted to reject Ms. Smith’s bid. The decision now goes to the provost, Teresa A. Sullivan.

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The Des Moines Register: ISU prof loses intelligent design fight

The Iowa Board of Regents today denied an appeal by Iowa State Professor Guillermo Gonzalez, an intelligent design supporter who has lost a bid for academic tenure.

Tenure is essentially a lifetime appointment at a university.

Gonzalez, an assistant professor in physics and astronomy, has supported intelligent design, which disputes parts of the theory of evolution.

He maintains that he lost a bid for tenure because of his support for the idea.
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Inside Higher Ed: Challenge to the Power of Tenure

If a faculty member has his or her tenure rights violated, one recourse may be to file a suit — where an aggrieved professor could seek not only damages but reinstatement. While most professors might not want to go to court, the knowledge that they have that as an option gives them an important protection.

What if a state law said instead that tenure violations could be settled with a small sum of money and no reinstatement — and that such minimal compensation is all you could get? Obviously that would be much less protection, and that’s why the American Association of University Professors is seeking to intervene in an unusual dispute involving a professor who was dismissed from a tenured job at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico. A federal district court ruled that even if the professor could win on the merits of his suit, he would be entitled only to compensation under Puerto Rico’s Law 80, which provides victimized employees with three months of salary, plus a week of salary for every year of service, for those who have worked 15 years or more. (The professor had worked 28 years, so he would end up with less than a year of pay, with no chance at getting his job back.)

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Inside Higher Ed: A College Keeps (But Redefines) Tenure

Can a tenured professor be fired because he or she isn’t good at recruiting students, or raising money — or mowing the campus lawn.

Granted, the latter possibility isn’t really in play at Laura and Alvin Siegal College of Judaic Studies, near Cleveland, Ohio. But the small private institution is redefining its relationship with its tiny cadre of tenured instructors in a way that will require them to take on significant administrative roles on top of their classroom duties — and be judged as much on their performance in those roles as on their more traditional tasks.

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The New York Times: Decline of the Tenure Track Raises Concerns

Professors with tenure or who are on a tenure track are now a distinct minority on the country’s campuses, as the ranks of part-time instructors and professors hired on a contract have swelled, according to federal figures analyzed by the American Association of University Professors.

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