Should tenure be abolished in Universities?

Question

Does tenure have a negative effect because it removes the incentive for continued performance? Professors can rant, rave, ramble, etc., and never be fired.

Answer 1

Tenure for professors should be abolished.

It is no longer about being a good teacher it is about getting tenure.

Unhappy stressed out grad assistants teach and grade the undergrad students. Professors do not even know their student's names.

Tenure produces all the "evils" that tenure was designed to eradicate:

1.termination based on grudges, ideology, politics, or generic emotion.
2.instead of focusing on teaching and research, untenured faculty members are devoting their energy to survival, trying to keep hidden any idea or accomplishment that may prick the ego of colleagues or initiate a feud.
3.negative tenure decisions are rarely if ever overturned.

Answer 2

How tenure works, and what it means varies by institution. There are many institutions in the US that don't grant tenure. For those that do grant tenure, it’s basically a protection for academic freedom. If it really eats at you, go to college some place that does not award tenure.

Where I work, a liberal arts college, tenured professors can be fired for poor teaching performance (students evaluate every course that they take, every term, and the evaluations are taken very seriously). Professors could be terminated for mishandling institutional funds, embezzling, and sexual involvement with a student (which is considered an abuse of power). A professor couldn't be terminated because he said that the President of the US (or the college) is an idiot.

Now at the college where I work, a great emphasis is put on teaching. At research universities, that's not the case. The professor has to put out a product (usually publications), and if he doesn't, he doesn't get tenure, or, if he has tenure, he doesn't get promoted. In those institutions, those faculty members can't afford to make teaching their first priority; if they do, they're probably not going to get tenure, and then they'll be looking for a new job.

I'm not teaching faculty, I'm a librarian. As a librarian, I am considered faculty, and I have to compete for tenure just like any other faculty member (this is unusual; in most institutions librarians are not on the tenure track). I think of the tenure track as a six year probationary period. I get to work my butt off for six years, doing research, getting published, making presentations at conferences, doing committee work, etc. Then at the end of those six years, if I haven't done well enough, I essentially have fired myself and I get to start again somewhere else.

Would I have more mental energy to give you, my reference patron, if I didn't have to devote so much of my effort to getting tenure? Yes; I'm convinced that I would be a better librarian if I did not have to compete for tenure. But if I don't get tenure, then I will have ZERO to give to you, because then I'll be out of a job.

It's the same situation for teaching faculty. At a research institute, their first priority is not you because you aren't the first priority of the institution. At many places, faculty are under tremendous pressure to bring in dollars in terms of grants, or patents and attracting the best students to the university. And how do they attract you to the university? By being the best in their field. How do they get recognized as the best in the field? By doing research, getting published, presenting at conferences. It's a wheel that greases itself.

You can be part of the wheel, or you can go someplace else. Or you can complain about it and do nothing. The choice is yours.

Answer 3

It should definitely be abolished. Ive had some professors that should have been fired a long time ago but because of tenure they get to stick around and have no teaching skills whatsoever. Just because someone knows a subject inside and out does not mean they know how to teach it in a manner that students will understand.

Answer 4

sure. Having a pastime is helpful. or you may flow each few years, and who needs to purchase a house and calm down once you're basically going to could %. up and flow in many years? Tenure also helps a instructor to objective with their gaining understanding of kinds somewhat more effective, often to the great consider regards to the scholars without nerve-racking about being fired the first time a figure complains their toddler got here upon out some human beings don't think of their particular god.

Answer 5

You obviously do not understand tenure. A professor can be fired for not teaching the subject, not attending class, or neglecting his duties.

But he cannot be fired for expressing his opinions about politics and other subjects, because if he could, all you would have on faculties would be an assortment of cowering yes-men, as was the case in the USSR, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and such.

You may have been listening to too much ratwing radio. It tends to rot the brain and prevent clear thinking, so they say...

Answer 6

This is a good question (among a sea of dross).

I have worked in universities around the world for nearly 25 years .

There is no doubt in my mind that Uni Profs are the laziest species on the planet. If work is to be done they will whine, pass the buck, stab their colleagues in the back saying that they should do it instead, or get a graduate student to do it and, should it turn out to be a success, they will claim all the credit.

Tenure is a perennial problem in Uni's. But, I must agree with you that it removes all motivation to perform. It is the stupidest system of employment ever created.

Still, that said, if it did not exist and Profs had to justify their existence by going into the REAL world of work, unemployment figures would increase dramatically, since everyone of them is simply unemployable..

As H.L. Mencken said 'Those who can - do. Those who can't - teach'. Might I add, in my experience, that those who can't teach - become Uni Profs.

Answer 7

Come on...rants and rambles of cooky profs are as traditional as the keg party. Cut old guys some slack...because some of those raving nut jobs worked with Enrico Fermi, the Nixon Adminstration, and Apallo eight mission team.

Answer 8

FOR SURE