Academic tenure in North America

This article is about academic tenure. For feudal land ownership, see land tenure.

Tenure commonly refers to academic tenure systems, in which professors (at university level)—and, in some jurisdictions, schoolteachers (primary and secondary school levels)—are granted the right to not be dismissed without cause after an initial probation. Tenure systems usually are justified via claim that they provide academic freedom, by preventing instructors from being dismissed for openly disagreeing with either authorities or with prevailing opinion or with both. Such systems also may have an economic rationale, like the rationale for the existence of senior partner positions in many law and accounting firms, in that employees who cannot be replaced may be more likely to give accurate assessments of junior colleagues who otherwise might threaten their positions.

Another reason for the existence of tenure is that, in the realm of academic and intellectual pursuit, people may do better, higher quality work when they have job security than when they do not. When possessing job security and the intellectual autonomy inherent to tenure, scholars are able to pursue topics of their own interest, topics about which they usually are more passionate and produce better results. Without tenure, scholars will generally attempt to measure what pursuits they are "supposed to follow", and, in imitation of said guidelines, produce work of lower intellectual quality.

In the university and college teaching systems in North America, academic tenure underpins employment; however, it increasingly is rare employment . In the 1970s, it became politically unpopular, both in North America and world-wide; opponents charged academic tenure removed the incentives for productivity in the tenured academic, and unfairly relieves professors of the fear of unemployment felt by most workers. Additionally, fewer tenure-track positions in North America exist for too many candidate students, the unintentional consequence: a large, "academic underclass .

For example, most U.S. universities currently supplement the work of tenured professors with the services of non-tenured adjunct professors, men and women academics who contractually teach classes for low wages and few employment benefits. For these, and other reasons, academic tenure was officially restructured in public universities in the United Kingdom, by the Thatcher government in the 1980s. It is no longer offered in parts of Australia and in most of Europe, moreover, it repeatedly is under attack in state universities in the United States. In New Zealand, the employment concept of "tenure" is referred to as confirmation.

History

Tenure in the 19th Century

In the 19th century, university professors largely served at the pleasure of the board of trustees of the university. Sometimes, major donors could successfully remove professors or prohibit the hiring of certain ones, none-the-less, a defacto tenure system existed. Usually professors were only fired for interfering with the religious principles of a college, and most boards were reluctant to discipline professors. The Courts rarely intervened in dismissals.

In one debate of the Cornell Board of Trustees, in the 1870s, a businessman trustee argued against, and lost his argument against the prevailing system of defacto tenure. Despite the power retained in the board, academic freedom prevailed. Another example is the 1894 case of Richard Ely, a University of Wisconsin professor who advocated labor strikes and labor law reform. Though the Wisconsin legislature and business interests pressed for his dismissal, the board of trustees of the university passed a resolution committing itself to academic freedom, and to retaining him (without tenure).

Tenure from 1900 to 1940

In 1900, the presidents of Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago each made clear that no donor could any longer dictate faculty decisions; such a donor’s contribution would not unwelcome. In 1915, this was followed by the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) declaration of principles—the traditional justification for academic freedom and tenure.

The AAUP's declaration of principles recommended that:

• Trustees raise faculty salaries, but not bind their consciences with restrictions.
• Only committees of other faculty can judge a member of the faculty. This would also insulate higher administration from external accountability decisions.
• Faculty appointments be made by other faculty and chairpersons, with three elements:
• (i) Clear employment contracts, (ii) formal academic tenure, and (iii) clearly stated grounds for dismissal.

While the AAUP pushed reform, tenure battles were a campus non-issue. In 1910, a survey of 22 universities showed that most professors held their positions with “presumptive permanence.” At a third of colleges, assistant professor appointments were considered permanent, while at most colleges multi-year appointments were subject to renewal. Only at one university did a governing board ratify a president’s decisions on granting tenure. Finally, there were approximately 20 complaints filed in 1928 with the AAUP, and only one merited investigation. Colleges slowly adopted the AAUP’s resolution; defacto tenure reigned; usually reappointments were permanent.

Tenure from 1940 to 1972

In 1940, the AAUP recommended that the the academic tenure probationary period be seven years; still the current norm. It also suggested that a tenured professor could not be dismissed without adequate cause, except “under extraordinary circumstances, because of financial emergencies.” Also, the statement recommended that the professor be given the written reasons for dismissal and an opportunity to be heard in self defence. Another purpose of the academic tenure probationary period was raising the performance standards of the faculty by pressing new professors to perform to the standard of the school's established faculty.

Yet, the most significant adoption of academic tenure occurred after 1945, when the influx of returning GIs returning to school and too-quickly expanding universities led to severe professorial faculty shortages. These shortages dogged the Academy for ten years, and that is when the majority of universities started offering formal tenure as a side benefit. The rate of tenure (per cent of tenured university faculty) increased to the current 52 per cent, and remains at that rate, with little fluctuation. In fact, the demand for professors was so high in the 1950s that the American Council of Learned Societies held a conference in Cuba noting the too-few doctoral candidates to fill positions in English departments. During the McCarthy era, loyalty oaths were required of many state employees, and formal academic tenure was not a protection from dismissal—even regarding free speech and free political association. Some professors were dismissed for their political affiliations, but of these, some likely were veiled dismissals for professional incompetence. During the 1960s, many professors supported the anti-war movement against the war with Vietnam, and more than 20 state legislatures passed resolutions calling for specific professorial dismissals and a change to the academic tenure system. University boards of trustees stood their ground and suffered no consequences.

Tenure from 1972 to the Present

Two landmark Supreme Court cases changed tenure in 1972: (i) the Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 US 564; and (ii) Perry v. Sindermann, 408 US 593. These two cases held that a professor’s claim to entitlement must be more than a subjective expectancy of continued employment. Rather, there must be a contractual relationship or a reference in a contract to a specific tenure policy or agreement. Further, the court held that a tenured professor who is discharged from a public college has been deprived of a property interest, and so due process applies, requiring certain procedural safeguards (the right to personally appear in a hearing, the right to examine evidence and respond to accusations, the right to have advisory counsel).

Later cases specified other bases for dismissal: (i) if a professor’s conduct were incompatible with her duties (Trotman v. Bd. of Trustees of Lincoln Univ., 635 F.2d 216 (2d Cir.1980)); (ii) if the discharge decision is based on an objective rule (Johnson v. Bd of Regents of U. Wisc. Sys., 377 F. Supp 277, (W.D. Wisc. 1974)). After these cases were judged, the number of reported cases in the matter of academic tenure increased almost two-fold: from 36 cases filed during the decade 1965-75, to 81 cases filed during the lustrum 1980-85.

During the 1980s there were no notable tenure battles, but three were outstanding in the 1990s. In 1995, the Florida Board of Regents tried to re-evaluate academic tenure, but managed only to institute a weak, post-tenure performance review. Likewise, in 1996 the Arizona Board of Regents attempted to re-evaluate tenure, fearing that few, full-time professors actually taught university undergraduate students, mainly because the processes of achieving academic tenure underweighted teaching. Yet, faculty and administrators defended themselves and the board of trustees dropped its review. Finally, the University of Minnesota Regents tried from 1995 to 1996 to enact 13 proposals, including these policy changes: to allow the regents to cut faculty base- salaries for reasons other than a university financial emergency, and included poor performance, and firing tenured professors if their programs were eliminated or restructured and the university were unable to retrain or reassign them. In the Minnesota system, 87 per cent of university faculty were either tenured or on tenure track, and the professors bitterly defended themselves. Eventually, the president of the system opposed these changes, and weakened a compromise plan by the Dean of the law school that failed. The board chairman resigned later that year.

Tenure today is still a fierce issue. In one tenure battle at Indiana University, a professor was accused of making death threats, his wife went on hunger strike, and many called for the entire department to be disbanded. Expectations for tenure continue to rise, and some scholars fret about the stringent minimum requirements (2 books, 12 articles) of a buyer’s market. Still, nationally about 7 in 10 tenure-track professors get tenure. In 2001, a panel at Northeastern University proposed some fresh changes that the professors later rejected. “Under the proposed policy, professors who received poor merit ratings two years in a row would be counseled by a three-member faculty committee that would craft a plan aimed at helping the professor improve his or her performance. After the plan was in place, the committee would re-evaluate the professor every six months. If, after two follow-up reviews, the committee determined that the faculty member's performance was still subpar in any of three areas -- research, teaching, or service -- the university could take steps to fire the tenured professor.”

Part-time teaching work along the tenure track is rare in academia, with one study estimating that only 5% of universities offer such an opportunity, compared to 57% of companies. The national trend is for adjunct professors to teach when tenured or tenure-track professors do not. Professional schools have the least tenure track faculty, since a ready market for those professors exists outside academia; nationally, medical schools have the lowest percentage of tenure faculty. Tenure has fallen into disrepute. A recent survey of university presidents found that 53% agreed that tenure for faculty members should be replaced by a system of long-term contracts (39% percent disagreed). 70% of presidents who had never taught before favored the contract system, compared with only 38% of those who had taught for more than 20 years. Likewise, female and minority faculty are more likely to agree that tenure is “an outmoded concept” and an old boys club. While the leading academic economists studying tenure agree that post-tenure evaluations have little value due to the lack of information, there is no consensus on how to reform the system.

Award

Tenure is not usually given immediately to new professors upon hiring. Instead, open jobs are designated eligible for tenure, or "tenure-track," during the hiring process. Typically, a professor hired in a tenure-eligible position will then work for approximately five years before a formal decision is made on whether tenure will be granted.

The academic department will then vote to recommend the candidate for tenure based on the tenure-eligible professor's record in teaching, research, and service over this initial period. The amount of weight given to each of these areas varies depending on the type of institution the individual works for; for example, research intensive universities value research most highly, while more teaching intensive institutions value teaching and service to the institution more highly. The department's recommendation is given to a tenure review committee made up of faculty members or university administrators, which then makes the decision whether to award tenure, and the university president approves or vetoes the decision.

A candidate denied tenure is sometimes considered to have been dismissed, but this is not entirely accurate: employment is often guaranteed for a year after tenure is denied, so that the non-tenured professor can conduct an extended search for new employment. Also, some prestigious universities and departments in the US award tenure so rarely that being denied it is scarcely an insult.

Professors who have earned tenure at one institution are often offered tenure along with any new position (as "senior hires"); otherwise, tenured faculty would rarely leave to join different universities.

Outside the US, a variety of contractual systems operate. Commonly, a less rigorous procedure is used to move staff members from temporary to "permanent" contracts. Permanent contracts, like tenure, may still be broken by employers in certain circumstances: for example if the staff member works in a department earmarked for closure.

Revocation

Tenure can only be revoked for cause, normally only following severe misconduct by the professor. In the US, according to the Wall Street Journal (January 10 2005), it is estimated that only 50 to 75 tenured professors (out of about 280,000) lose their tenure each year. Revocation is usually a lengthy and tedious procedure. In Colorado, where the question of what constitutes grounds for dismissal of a tenured professor arose as the result of the controversial comments of Ward Churchill regarding the victims of the 9/11 attack, grounds for dismissal are "professional incompetence, neglect of duty, insubordination, conviction of a felony or any offense involving moral turpitude… or sexual harassment or other conduct which falls below minimum standards of professional integrity."

Criticisms of the tenure process

The AAUP has handled hundreds of cases where tenure candidates were treated unfairly. The AAUP has censured many major and minor universities and colleges for tenure abuses. [1] [2]

Tenure at many universities depends solely on research publications and research grants although the universities' official policies are that tenure depends on research, teaching and service. Even articles in refereed teaching journals and teaching grants may not count towards tenure at such universities.

Tenure evaluations are often conducted in secret sessions by committees that keep no minutes. Tenure committees often provide no details to the tenure candidate on the reasons why tenure was denied. Such secrecy makes it easy for one or a few faculty members to sabotage a tenure case for a tenure candidate they dislike.

At some universities, the department chairperson sends forward the department recommendation on tenure. There have been cases where the faculty voted unanimously to tenure an individual but the chairperson sent forward a recommendation not to grant tenure despite the faculty support.

Tenure decisions sometimes seem arbitrary. Tenure candidates with impressive lists of publications and accomplishments have been denied tenure while those with far fewer accomplishments have obtained tenure at the same institution.

Criticisms of tenure

There is some debate about the effects and desirability of academic tenure. Not all universities offer tenure.

Tenure may allow academics who express controversial views to be unaccountable to taxpayers or employers for comments or positions. Proponents of tenure state that this protection from "retaliation" is a benefit of tenure, as it expands discourse on subjects that otherwise may be too sensitive to address. Opponents state that public funding should be accompanied by some measure of control over content and that the higher educational system should not continue to support those with offensive or objectionable stances. Proponents state that a difficulty in this stance is the question of what should be judged to be objectionable, and by whom. Another point is that such control attacks academic freedom, as well as tenure.

Others criticize tenure for allowing professors, once tenured, to be less concerned with performance in all areas, reasoning that their jobs are relatively secure. This also reduces the free flow of faculty to industry, as they may be reluctant to give up the benefits and security of tenure. Such a restriction may not be beneficial for the economy.

Another criticism of tenure is that when legal and just causes do arise to revoke tenure, it is often accompanied by a protracted and expensive legal battle that would not be necessary without the tenure system.

Finally, while in some cases tenured faculty may be laid off for financial exigency or the closure of a department (if their tenure is by department), at many schools tenured professors cannot be dismissed if their discipline is no longer viable based on interest from students or research funding grants (if their tenure is by college). Untenured professors, however, can be laid off. Advocates of tenure say this encourages continued research in neglected areas, while opponents say that it wastes money on fields that might otherwise shrink or die out and prevents colleges from redirecting their funds to more relevant areas and responding to changing conditions.

Arguments in favor of tenure

Arguments in favor of tenure usually center around the benefit of making the faculty unanswerable to the administration. The oft-cited argument is that, via tenure, faculty are free to teach what they consider to be right without fear of retribution. For example, conservative faculty at liberal institutions and liberal faculty at conservative institutions would be free to maintain institutionally contrarian viewpoints. Such diversity of viewpoints is considered beneficial to the educational environment.

A less cited, though perhaps more persuasive argument, is that tenure helps to preserve academic standards. At all but the few institutions with exceptionally large endowments, administrations are largely motivated to increase the number of students at the institution. This motivation, left unchecked, would result in ever declining admissions requirements and ever rising grade inflation. A faculty that is tenured and that does not share directly in the profits of the institution is motivated less by maintaining enrollment numbers than by maintaining its academic reputation among its peers. Thus, tenure protects academic rigor from competitive forces that would erode that rigor in favor of attracting and retaining greater numbers of students.

An empirical argument in favor of tenure is that, at least in the U.S., tenure has evolved in a (relatively) free market environment. The fact that tenure persists indicates that, for the moment, the market system deems it valuable.

See also

• Life tenure
• Professor
• publish or perish
• A Tenured Professor, a novel by John Kenneth Galbraith
• School and university in literature
• Feudal land tenure

Sources

• Amacher, Ryan C. Faulty Towers: Tenure and the Structure of Higher Education. Oakland: Independent Institute, 2004.
• Chait, Richard P. (Ed.). The Questions of Tenure. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2002.
• Joughlin, Louis (Ed.). Academic Freedom and Tenure. Madison: U. of Wisc. Press, 1969.
• Rudolph, Frederick. American College and University: A History (Reissue Edition). Athens: Univ. of Ga. Press, 1990.
• Haworth, Karla. “Florida Regents Approve Post-Tenure Reviews for All Professors.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 11, 1996, A15.
• Magner, Denise K. “Minnesota Regents' Proposals Stir Controversy With Faculty.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 1996, A11.
• Leatherman, Courtney. “Alleged Death Threats, a Hunger Strike, and a Department at Risk.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 4, 2000, A12.
• Wilson, Robin. “A Higher Bar for Earning Tenure.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 5, 2001, A12.
• Wilson, Robin. “Northeastern Proposal for Post-Tenure Review Goes Too Far, Critics Say.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 11, 2001, A14.
• Whiting, B.J. Delegate to the ACLS of the Medieval Academy of America, in 1953 (Speculum 28[1953] 633-34). The Council was alarmed at the thought that a national academic faculty of 50,000 would have to grow to 90,000 by the year 1965 in order to keep up with the demographic demand. This news was reported as staggering. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos066.htm#emply) that “Postsecondary teachers held nearly 1.6 million jobs in 2004,” at least a quarter million of them undeniably humanistic.
• Wilson, Robin. “Working Half Time on the Tenure Track.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 25, 2002, A10.
• Fogg, Piper. “Presidents Favor Scrapping Tenure.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 4, 2005, A31.

External links

• Current Tenure Articles at the Chronicle of Higher Education
• Post-Tenure Faculty Evaluation
• Teacher Tenure
• Tenure, Promotion, and Reappointment: Legal and Administrative Implications
• Enhancing Promotion, Tenure and Beyond: Faculty Socialization as a Cultural Process
• American Association of University Professors 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure
• Tenure: Will It Survive? Academe May-June 2000, Volume 86, Number 3