The Other 85 Percent

Paul Says:

I can definitely see the importance of tenure from a couple perspectives. First, if I am a parent with a child getting ready to enter college, I would like them to have the option of attending a college with a strong core faculty. Feasibly if none are tenured, then is the institution more of a staging area for teachers that will move on to other places soon? Where is the “brain trust” of the school? How does an institution with little or no tenured faculty build its reputation, and build a legacy of instruction? The brain drain issue is always a concern in the private sector, and I think it’s certainly important in education as well. If Cornell for example did not have tenured faculty, how is it that they maintain the quality of the product they offer? Can they?

I think these are a couple concerns even before the issues you cite. The questions I would ask based on that report are:

– What could be causing the reduction?
– Have schools with reduced tenured faculty seen a negative side effect? If so, what?
– Is the reduction having a negative effect?
– Have any of the studied institutions moved to a different option?

August 6th, 2009 at 1:30 pm

Mike Offerman Says:

Paul, thanks for sharing your perspective. You make some great points and ask questions that I think are important. It would be particularly interesting to learn about what negative effects are being realized, if any.

Mike

August 6th, 2009 at 2:39 pm

Lisa Featherston Says:

It is a sad day when Washington begins to fire tenured teachers for just the reasons you articulate. We look for these same teachers throughout our learning experience and then to get recommendations from them. It’s a feeling of being home. With new teachers, you feel you have been picked up and placed on Mars, no offense to new teachers but it is difficult for the learners to adjust because we don’t know what to expect.
Teachers with tenure are supposed to be protected from this sort of thing. If they are not then no one is safe.

August 10th, 2009 at 2:36 am

Steve Vodhanel Says:

What do you do with ‘dead wood?’ Term I first came across while doing research on the California community colleges. Dead wood refers to faculty that once tenured do nothing but teach their 5 courses (15 hrs/wk) and sit in their offices for another 5 hours a week. No research, no faculty involvement, certainly no community involvement nor admissions recruiting.

And don’t tell me you don’t have any! A dean I currently work for quit as a dean at San Bernardino Valley College after two years. Reason being tenured faculty who won’t do a damn thing and while protected by a powerful union. A current president of Mt. San Jacinto Community College (and Capella learner) once told me that he had a history instructor tell him…”I work 15 hours a week, 9 months a year…and I make 85 GRAND!” I know a photography instructor at Mt. San Antonio Community College who once he got tenure he quit photographing and took up music! Another instructor I know, a CIS instructor, is so far behind current technology as it’s not funny. He got tenure 10 years ago and since has started a horse ranch and raises quarter horses. Funny thing, he’s now calling himself a professional photographer!

My chair at Riverside Community College gave up his chair position (too much time required) and set up a schedule where by him having the most tenure he could choose to teach 5 Intro to CIS courses. Easy to teach, little work during the course, and zero preparation time, and 3 courses are online so he can stay home. For him it’s 20 hours a week, 9 months a year…and $90 GRAND.

One friend of mine who has tenure told me that tenure here depends on two (2) things: longevity or felony. Longevity = 4 years to tenure; Felony = only way to lose tenure.

Maybe the examples above are why the only jobs currently available in the California community colleges are for part-time instructors.

August 17th, 2009 at 3:55 pm

Mary Ann Nelson Says:

Ms. Bowen states the argument for why it is important to increase the number of tenured faculty: “Parents and students are beginning to see the difficulty when the part-time faculty member you loved for English 101 is no longer there for English 201, or to write a recommendation. You don’t have that continuity.”
Ironically, Ms. Bowen seems to be advancing the need for schools to be able to hire the high performing, loved part-time teacher (who is usually not tenured and, as a result, is the first to be bumped by a tenured teacher). It’s a questionable argument to use for increasing the number of tenured teachers; instead it could be said to support removing the restrictions of tenure on school district hiring so that loved teachers can continue to be hired because they are high performers. Since her stated goal is to retain successful part-time teachers who are popular with parents and students, the tenure systems I’ve experienced would likely undermine a school’s ability to retain the part-time teacher. Tenured teachers tend to want full-time jobs, with ongoing assignment guaranteed due to seniority. The teacher tenure system often reduces access to part-time teachers who want to teach part-time only due to family reasons, who may have moved often across states without achieving tenure, or who are most often those not tenured for other reasons but are successful teachers needing portability. Tenure is awarded to full-time teachers who successfully complete three years under contract in a Minnesota school. While the tenure system does indeed provide for staff continuity from year to year, the part-time teacher’s job loss from one year to the next is most often due to that teacher’s having been bumped by a tenured teacher who is owed first preference for assignments.

August 24th, 2009 at 4:35 pm

John Nadalin Says:

As a labor supporter and an adjunct faculty member I can understand Barbara Bowen’s comments completely. Faculty who have devoted so much time to students, to research, and to their university deserve to be treated better than many are.

There is plenty of time to clear out the “deadwood” or replace ineffective faculty before tenure is awarded. Where I see this as a problem is when department chairs are pushed through a revolving door. It is nearly impossible to find the continuity when you have a new boss every couple of years. We just need to do a better job of selecting and retaining top talent from the get go.

With so much competition for students, some universities treat faculty like a sales force and weed them out because of educational politics rather than performance. The research and publishing demands of some of these schools deserves to be repaid to such faculty via tenure. Tenure is not a dirty word.

September 6th, 2009 at 11:09 am

Libby Woods Says:

Your comments regarding tenure are extremely correct. My undergraduate experience (not Capella, my local in-person classroom) in Spanish courses proved discouraging because there was not a professor of tenure from which to choose. I looked at the list of names and chose the name that impressed me – boy, was I mistaken. I could have barely passed the first professor, but withdrew/flunked because I realized it was not the level of knowledge needed to teach me (ADD is a battle with most in my family, including me). Then, I could have taken the easy route ‘French,’ two years in jr. high and two years in high school ‘head start.’ But no I chose another professor – best choose I ever made. She was not tenure, but she should be by now (if she chose to stay with our school). I told every one of my classmates about my failure and remarkable ‘A’ recovery with this wonderful professor offering elaborate understanding of a language that I could at first barely understand. Her background was Latin, and she could clearly and concisely replicate the language in pronunciation, annunciation and body language. She often dressed in clothing representing different Spanish speaking countries and areas to emphasize the diversity of the language, comparing the English language as such. Even within the United States the English language is used and portrayed differently depending upon the locale of the individual. Various slang’s spoken here may be totally unfamiliar if spoken there, 200 miles away. Likewise, English language spoken in countries outside the U.S. use the English language differently. For example, a European visits the U.S. and asks a U.S. citizen for a ‘fag.’ The European is requesting a cigarette, most Americans do not call a cigarette a ‘fag.’

May not be the exact comment you hoped for, but a true situation that could shed light on the real value of tenure positions. I really don’t think I could have learned much about the Spanish speaking worlds if not for her (and the two years she taught me). Obviously, experience and knowledge hold an enormous value (especially for students such as me).

Libby

October 13th, 2009 at 8:59 pm