Assignment:
Discussion 1
Academic freedom and tenure are two aspects of higher education that are both crucial to its success as well as unique to the field of education. Very few other jobs in all of society have the option to be able to hold a position for life. Tenure, however, is not just a benefit of working within education, but rather a crucial aspect to its ongoing existence and prosperity for its role in the existence and promotion of academic freedom. ""It is very simple, really," says Gregory Scholtz, director of the American Association of University Professors' department of academic freedom, tenure, and governance. "Academic freedom doesn't really exist for people who can be let go on somebody's whim" (Schmidt, 2013).
Tenure is crucial to the prosperity of academic freedom as it not only protects the tenured faculty member, but their untenured colleagues as well. This, "is at times referred to as the "herd immunity theory" or "umbrella argument" of tenure" (Tiede, pages 441-442). This theory is quite similar to herd immunity in terms of disease and vaccinations, but in terms of tenure and academic freedom; tenure represents the vaccination and academic oppression represents the disease.
Tenure, however, does have its shortcomings. Some may argue that it doesn't leave schools enough leeway in order to discipline underperforming or absent professors who may be taking advantage of their station and tenure. While this is a validated concern, the amount of professors who may use tenure to their advantage in this manner is very limited. Additionally, when considering the importance of tenure in regards to academic freedom the shortfalls are far outweighed.
The only other alternative to tenure that academic freedom currently has would be through additional federal legislation. Public institutions do not have to rely on tenure for their academic freedom guarantee as much as private institutions do due to their First Amendment rights. If those First Amendment rights were transposed to cover private institutes as well as they do for public ones then tenure would not need to be relied upon as much. What do you all think? Are there better alternatives to protect academic freedom other than through additional legal provisions?
References:
Schmidt, Peter (2013). Business School Offers Case Study for Tenure Debate. Chronicle of Higher Education, 60(11).
Tiede, H.-J. (2018). The Front Rank: On Tenure and the Role of the Faculty in the Defense of Academic Freedom. History of Education Quarterly, 58(3), 441-447.
Discussion 2
Contracts govern the relationship between colleges and employees. These contracts may either be formally written with individual faculty members or may be contained in the college faculty handbook (Kaplin& Lee, 2014). Tenure is granted after a defined probationary period to provide faculty members guaranteed job protection. In higher education, the purpose of tenure was to ensure that, "after the expiration of a probationary period, teachers or investigators [researchers] should have permanent or continuous tenure, and their service should be terminated only for adequate cause" (American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 1940)
Several articles have supported academic tenure, while others have seriously opposed it. Those who endorse it link it to improved lectures productivity while those that oppose it link it to poor performances due to teacher reluctance due to the secure lifetime jobs. For, example the article "It's Time for Tenure to Lose Tenure" by James Watherbe strongly opposes the concept of academic tenure. As it states, tenure locks in high costs and makes it difficult for universities to explore more productive teaching techniques. In that way, teaching techniques remain calcified, despite a technological revolution and that U.S. colleges' once-undisputed superiority is under siege (Wetherbe, 2013).
Additionally, it encourages professors' reluctance to use technology to revamp the way they teach is understandable, which is to the detriment of students.
The rationale for granting tenure was to lifetime employment to those who complete the probation period. This was also to boost academic freedom; research universities could function without risk of being crippled due to divergent modes of thought (Manjounes, 2016). Academic freedom and tenure work together as they aim to offer professors the opportunity to investigate issues in the ongoing search for truth and protect those who voice unpopular ideas. But I believe that with constitutional regulations, academic freedom can be guaranteed without tenure.
Tenure has not yet achieved its intent, and that is why it is the tenure system is under attack. Due to the surety of a lifetime job, professors have become reluctant to advance their teaching and research. As Ginsberg notes, tenure provides job security for lazy and incompetent professors who spend their afternoons sipping sherry at the faculty clubs (Ginsberg, 2012). In short, the tenure system has created lazy and incompetent tenured professors who buzz their way through the same lectures year after year without any advancement despite technological evolution.
References
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). (1940). Statement of principles on academic freedom and tenure: with 1970 interpretive comments.
Ginsberg, B. (2012). Tenure and academic freedom: The beginning of the end. Academic Matters: The Journal of Higher Education.
Kaplin, W. A. & Lee, B. A. (2014). The law of higher education (5th ed.). Indianapolis, IN: John Wiley and Sons.
Manjounes, C. K. (2016). How Tenure in Higher Education Relates to Faculty Productivity and Retention. Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies Collection.
Wetherbe, J. C. (2013). It's time for tenure to lose tenure. Harvard Business Review, 13.