Is tenure justified?

[deleonjh]

I'm heavily into writing my thesis right now so I've filed this under my "to read later" folder, but I thought this article would be interesting to the people here.

From Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Volume 29, Issue 6, December 2006, pp 553-569:

Is tenure justified? An experimental study of faculty

Comments

[homais]

There's a quote from Tim Burke's old blog that always stuck in my head:

[W]e are afraid because of having tenure, not because we have yet to have it: all of us with tenure fear starting a conversation that will reveal an irresolvable intellectual and political divide between ourselves and a colleague

that's if you care about promotion

[klytaimnestra]

I suspect it's true that as a rule it will be full professors who actually exercise their academic freedom. But it really depends on how much security an individual feels they need. If you are concerned about having a paycheck but not so concerned about having the status of full professorship, then you're more likely to exercise free speech earlier on in your career.

So, I would say, the article is fundamentally wrong. Sure, full professors are more likely than merely tenured professors to say and do unpopular conscience-driven things. But tenure is the necessary condition - just not the sufficient one. Full professors without tenure would probably be pretty quiet.

Speaking for myself, tenure was the sufficient condition too. But then I'm not particularly ambitious. I don't care if I never get promoted, as long as I can get on with my work and be paid for it.

that too

[klytaimnestra]

I admit that a strong urge to bury my head in the sand was part of my initial motivation for studying the ancient world. When I looked at the modern one I despaired. I still despair, but now I rather wish I had picked a field that allowed me to do more about it. Which is not to say that studying the ancient world does nothing to affect the modern one, beyond of course giving me a paycheck, but some days it does feel a bit far removed.

[jaipur]

That doesn't seem to make sense--without tenure, what would full professorship get you? Tenure + full professorship means you're free from punishment. Tenure alone does not, as long as you can be held back from advancement. But without tenure, you can ALWAYS be held back from advancement.

[nesf]

It was summed up for me by the introduction of Creative Industries by Richard Caves (a book on the economics behind creative industries like film making and music) when he said that this was the book that he wanted to write twenty years ago but he couldn't since writing it would have ruined his chances of getting tenure since it wasn't "serious economics". It was only now, when he had established himself by work on "serious economics" that he could get away with studying and writing about this topic.

[poetcsw]

I don't expect tenure or promotion within my academic field, especially since I'm not ashamed of earning money for my consulting work in industry. I charge money for my time and do so without any guilt. When I was accused of being a bad influence on students, I answered, "Yes, my students might think you can get a job beyond teaching with an English degree."

The reply: "You'll never get tenure if you think working is a good thing."

(Working? Not even a qualifier of some sort?)