on the principal stresses of my life, and the things that distract me from them

[pellucid]

1. Grading is FINISHED!!!!!!!!! Well, not entirely, but the exam marking is finished, and that's the part that has been making my brains leak out my ears the past few days. Note to self: next time you think "oh, exams go quickly, even when they're essays," remember that THIS IS NOT TRUE when there are 120 of them. Next time, I will include multiple

Comments

[gabolange]

Having thought about it, I actually think the wholesale abolition of tenure would be an excellent thing. It's more expensive to hire a tenured/long-term/well-established professor, but it's also more expensive to hire a senior/long-term/well-established businessperson in almost every field. The fact that they can be fired for lack of performance encourages people to continue to work hard--and it is their hard work and experience that makes them valuable (and thus worth the extra cash). A professor who continues to provide value to the university (whether that's teaching, or research, or knowledge base) should be paid more--but if there's a now-tenured professor who isn't doing those things, there's a certain sense to replacing them with people who doIf there are all sorts of people who would lose their jobs, doesn't that say something about their contribution

[pellucid]

Hmm. If all institutions of higher education were Research 1 institutions, I think I'd at least partially agree with you. A university with a strong commitment to research does, of course, have a vested interest in keeping quality senior scholars around. The problem, of course, is that so many institutions, especially in the US, are not research institutions, and I just can't see what motivation Eastern Mediocre State U or Middling Little Liberal Arts College would ever have to keep on senior faculty

[gabolange]

I don't have the time to answer this in full, but I will give it a quick shot.

The advantage of having senior faculty is that you get senior intellects; even in a lower-level academic environment like a public or private school, the older/more expensive/more experienced people provide value to both the other faculty and the students. Their knowledge base in teaching and in understanding the material, the culture, and the structures of the institution fundamentally keep the institution running; they pass on knowledge to new teachers, they pass on all the tacit and intangible information any institution needs to succeed. (This is true in non-academic environments as well

[pellucid]

The advantage of having senior faculty is that you get senior intellects; even in a lower-level academic environment like a public or private school, the older/more expensive/more experienced people provide value to both the other faculty and the students.

Oh, I completely agree with you. I just don't have a great deal of confidence that many college/university administrators would--at least not when push comes to shove and financial decisions have to be made.

As for the academic freedom thing, I think it actually is a significant issue, and more for institutions that are not religiously affiliated. Most religious institutions who want their faculty to adhere to particular religious standards have a contract that the faculty must sign at regular intervals; someone who breaks the contract is subject to being fired whether he or she is tenured or not. So tenure at a religious school is actually less firm than at a secular one (or one with religious affiliation but not the kind of religious environment that requires its faculty to

[gabolange]

I guess I would like to have faith that people in academia can be trusted to agree to disagree on matters of religion or philosophy or political science or ideological interpretation of text. Given your experience, perhaps that faith is misplaced, but I'm not sure why academic disagreements should have anything to do with academic administration. And if they do, or can, that's a problem with administration . . . that seems to be in place. Which, to put it vernacularly, is lame.

As for identity politics, I don't think that's something that's been solved in any field--it remains difficult to be female, or LGBTQ, or POC, or whatnot in most fields (except perhaps teaching or nursing, where being female is good, but where pay is stagnated because it's traditionally viewed as "women's work" . . . but I digress). So I'm not sure we need tenure to protect people so much as a broad-based cultural shift wherein it's okay to be whatever wherever you damn well please. In some ways, it seems unfair that there are industries where by virtue

[pellucid]

If the academy is something that should be viewed as entirely different by virtue of the fact that it offers inherently intangible benefits (the use of being "useless" as you say), then perhaps it requires a structure that is unique and my arguments are moot. But if it is something that can be considered analogous to other organizations wherein promotion and retention is based on merit instead of longevity (speaking ideally about business--if only it were so), then I'm not sure that academia should have fundamentally different standards of operation.This is kind of the heart of it, I think: is academia analogous to other organizations or not? And I think I'd continue to argue with vehemence that there are at least some very fundamental differences between the goals and purposes of a university (or college) and other organizations. There are benefits that are, as you say, intangible, but which are also essential and which need to be protected (from all the people who don't see these benefits as essential because they are intangible--or