Here's an NYT forum on the issue. Here is a recent Megan McArdle blog post. Traditionally I've been sympathetic to tenure (disclaimer: I have it), in part because the schools which have done away with it — the for-profits — have carved out a big niche but they have not displaced traditional non-profit, tenure-driven higher education in most fields. Few parents dream of sending their kids there. My point today is simply to note that tenure critics have yet to spell out what the alternative — and thus the debate — really looks like.
If you argue "abolish tenure" the real question is this: under what conditions will professors be fired? For instance, if you abolish tenure but never fire a professor, the change is maybe not so large (though the threat to fire still can change equilibria).
Here's a thought experiment: take a 53-year-old professor, at a moderate quality university, who goes from publishing three articles a year to one article a year, and in somewhat lesser journals than before. His teaching evaluations slip steadily, though he never becomes a disaster in the classroom. In the no-tenure world, does that person get fired? (And what's his chance of finding another job?)
If firing is in order, how much higher do initial wage offers have to be? (Recall that you're asking the new hire to take a $$ wage lower than his human capital would otherwise indicate; btw Megan covers that query here.) Is this deal worth it for universities? If that guy doesn't get laid off, who does? Only the convicted felons?
If you believe in abolishing tenure, and yet tenure won't go away, do you also think schools should cut entry-level wages for new professors, as a second-best means of lowering their total compensation? How do you feel about the achievement paths of the schools that are already trying this strategy? Will abolishing tenure involve any compensation scheme other than that already used by current for-profits in higher education?
With the pro-tenure arguments, you might wonder how higher education is supposed to differ from other sectors of the economy. I believe it is this: given that higher education is in part about signaling and certification, socialization and networking of students, "warm glow" of the donors, and research superstars, the later-period shirking of the typical laggard doesn't hurt actual productivity nearly as much as the schools themselves might like to think.
This also suggests that schools themselves will never make an intellectually convincing case for tenure, since they can't come out and admit that "in the longer run, most of us don't really matter, we only pretended our productivity was worth something in the first place." Education as theatre, and all that; see my The Age of the Infovore.
When I hear answers to the above questions, namely what the alternative to tenure looks like, then the tenure debate will be getting somewhere.
To some extent the proposed gains from abolishing tenure can be reaped simply by increasing teaching load, relying more on on-line instruction and/or reintroducing mandatory retirement.
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Only a couple of comments have even alluded to one of the biggest issues here – Tenure would NEVER have become “the norm” without mandatory retirement. When that became illegal in 1994, tenure became unsustainable. As in many situations when an industry is thrown into structural disequilibrium, the shift can take a very long time. Maybe so long that in the long run, all the folks opining on this will be dead. But it is silly to think that any sort of quality-based arguments can save tenure.
This is horrendously stupid:
“It seems to me a rebuttable bright line rule of forced retirement at 30 years makes sense, (rebuttable for the minority of professors that are still highly productive). That should open up more spots and pay for younger professors.”
Forced retirement at 30? Laws against age discrimination are an interesting phenomenon you might be incredibly ignorant of.
Likewise, there are productive people who get PhD’s after 30. It’s not calendar age that matters, it’s that once you have tenure your incentives to publish fall. The fact that many new Phd’s are people in their twenties just means that’s when most people do it.
This conversation is full of people who think you can replace individuals with population averages, and that is distressing.
Professors, properly considered, are people whose unique and incisive analysis and long study has given them something to profess. These people simply don’t exist in community colleges, for-profit colleges, and most second and third rate universities. And not everyone who has tenure and is listed as a professor has something to profess.
However, I’ve met many actual professors (with something profound to profess) and I think it’s extremely important that they be given the freedom to study and research what they want in the way they want, without having to think about being unemployed or looking for other jobs and uprooting themselves and their families. Without this sort of freedom, real universities wouldn’t exist.
The other teachers don’t really need this kind of freedom, although they should be paid living wages and their work hours should be limited to a normal work-week.
Quick points from a *tenure-track beginning professor* (no, I don’t have tenure yet):
(1) Humanities + Social Sciences are VERY DIFFERENT from grant-supported basic research. My MAIN responsibilities (as outlined in my offer letter) are to bring in external grant money and run a multi-person lab which is funded by that grant money. So I am the head of a laboratory… yes, teaching is secondary.
(2) Read point #1 above. Pretending the med school and engineering school are like “faculty of arts and sciences” is simply crazy. (I am med school faculty).
(3) You need to think about DISEASE. Sure, the best people may study the basics of DNA, neuronal function and networks, etc. (i.e. basic questions). But what if you want to know something about RareWeirdDisease? Believe me, these people studying basics are not going to go to the effort of dealing with RareWeirdDisease. And companies are certainly not interested at the beginning. So yes, you need the “mediocre people” to find out something about RareWeirdDisease. It is STRONGLY in society’s interest to study RareWeirdDisease. So getting rid of all the “below superstars” will decrease research productivity enormously in my field.
(4) I applied to FamousUniversity for a non-tenure track position as a research fellow and told them I would come, even though I had tenure-track interviews (I didn’t get the fellow position). I would be very happy with a five-year contract if I didn’t have to spend ~70% of my mental energy strategizing about grants.
I really don’t care about tenure. I really care about having the resources to do great science. And the time to do great science.
Someone wants data or an experiment? How about this? The US system of higher ed is unquestionably by far the best in the world, and it has tenure. Why are people in such a hurry to fix something that ain’t broke, particularly when it is obvious that there all kinds of loudmouthed politicians who would just love to start going after loudmouthed profs they disagree with?
Randall,
I suspect Art History departments bring in money to universities, helping fund productive research in less sexy fields.
English departments? My sense is there’s a lot of deadweight there -writing centers for the most part seem to me to offer more efficient value.
Ethnic studies? I’m not sure. On the one hand I get the game theoretic element of minorities supporting ethnic studies departments and white guys opposing them. So the conflict predictably distorts our analysis. On the other hand, there are 30+ million people who identify as black in the USA and often move with high levels of coordination. Same with Hispanics. It’s worth studying, although I understand studies’ departments may become refuges or indoctrination tools rather than places for empirical inquiry.
This conversation is full of people who think you can replace individuals with population averages, and that is distressing.
Posted by: perko at Jul 24, 2010 5:11:34 PM
Bob,
“Um, excuse me, but why? Many of us, certainly me, happen to think the most important reason was to defend academic freedom”
Barkley,
It’s not a scam or a lie, it is sales and marketing. Tenure exists FOR what perko says, that guy at the tail end of the distribution. But WHY it is exists is that ‘academic freedom’ sounds good to the majority.
As a tenured professor, I can tell you that I and most of my senior colleagues who earned tenure would give up tenure immediately for a fair system that would permit us to eliminate the worst performing colleagues that we have.
That “fair system” could be something that is not enjoyed by any other profession… a three year appointment, with some certainty of re-appointment assuming that you actually continue to do your job well. Those who were not reappointed would be given a 2-year trial period in which they could either fix the specific problems or be let go.
We have faculty who have tenure for over 20 years. And have done little or nothing to publish, write new courses, improve the courses they do teach. You might respond, if you are an ardent unionist, that there are systems in practice wherein such a colleague may be dismissed. There are. But those processes are so difficult, both for the department and in terms of providing written proof of poor practice, that in the actual academic world the processes are rarely started. So my students are paying their tuition to be taught by poor teachers who do not do research.
The solution I propose will not be instituted. Unions representing faculty are far too strong to give up the idea of tenure, even if that were better for students and the great majority of hard-working faculty. I’m a member of one of those unions. Was a Vice President. But recognize that a bureaucracy dedicated to safeguarding the poorest teacher is not productive for the students or the faculty.
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