Advantages and Disadvantages of Tenure
In the debate over tenure, there are many arguments stated by defenders
and opponents of the issue. This section of the paper will introduce some
of the common advantages and disadvantages presented by each side.
Advantages
To the defenders of tenure, its predominant function is to safeguard the
public welfare by protecting academic freedom while assuring academic
accountability (Smith, p. 77). Freedom in research, freedom in teaching,
freedom in publication, and freedom in learning are all indispensable to
the ultimate objectives of an educational institution. Tenure serves as a
protection of academic freedom and represents a shared commitment among
members of the university community. Tenure is granted only after a
professor displays a commitment to teaching, scholarship, and university
service. Tenure is a means by which professors can protect themselves, at
least partially, from the uncertainties that inevitably emerge when
management decisions are made by a continually changing group of
professors who may shift their political alignments. In short, tenure is
a form of job protection professors have from their colleagues and the
special problems created with an academic democracy.
Proponents of tenure also stated that once tenured, a faculty member
becomes an intellectual leader of the university community. They are able
to provide expertise, stability, and direction to the university's
academic programs. It is felt that faculty authority to define faculty
positions, conduct searches, and make decisions about curricular changes
would be significantly undermined if tenure were not in place. Tenured
faculty are motivated by a pride in their profession, a sense of
responsibility and a recognition that they are the real "owners" of the
college (Cotter, 1995).
Stability of employment is seen as another advantage of the tenure
system. Professors themselves feel that a largely temporary and untenured
faculty will cause a working environment of hostility and disrespect.
These working conditions cannot present students with new and challenging
perspectives. "Tenure, as a visible manifestation of university
commitment to the faculty member, offers an assurance of career continuity
which facilitates reciprocal faculty commitment to the long-term study and
research programs by which the frontiers of knowledge are expanded"
(Smith, 79).
Tenure is also construed as a practical means employed by university
administrators and board members to induce faculty members to honestly
judge the potential of prospective professors. In effect, university
officials and board members "strike a bargain", with varying degrees of
credibility, with professors. If professors bring in prospectives that
are better than they are, they will not be fired. Tenure is a means of
putting limits on political infighting. It increases the cost predatory
faculty members must incur to be successful in having more productive
colleagues dismissed. More importantly, academic decisions on the worth
of colleagues and their work often are made by the rules of consensus or
democracy among existing incumbents. In essence, tenure can be seen as a
measure of contractual protection against getting fired.
Stability of employment expectations, for individuals of demonstrated
competence, tends to enhance the attractiveness of the teaching profession
and may induce highly qualified persons to pursue a teaching career in
lieu of more lucrative pursuits. Many colleges and universities feel that
if a tenure system were not in place they simply could not compete for the
best and brightest graduate students who prefer appointments at colleges
where tenure is possible. Moreover, if tenure fell out of favor
everywhere this might reduce the number of people going to college
teaching because relatively low salaries combined with no job security
would make teaching less attractive. Tenure may, in fact, enable colleges
to attract and hold very able people for less money, since they have the
benefit of lifetime job security.
Disadvantages
The most prominent criticism against tenure is that it may result in job
security for professors who are poor teachers. Some fear that once a
professor gains tenure he or she will go into neutral and stop producing.
The inept are in fact protected by tenure. College and university
administrators have used tenure with the meaning and force of sinecure-a
paid office without employment
Another criticism of tenure is that it makes termination of professors
literally impossible. Many people say that making it easier to remove
people is needed. There have been cases where faculty members have been
convicted of felonies yet they still expect to retain tenure. Then there
are the people who have never been promoted, never even teach, but still
hold on to their jobs. But not nothing in the concept of tenure precludes
firing; tenure precludes only arbitrary firing. However, most colleges
and universities interpret it as an absolute bar to dismissal and
reassignment (Smith, p. 42).
The tenure rule, through its rigidity, is also seen as a limitation to the
development of a college or university's younger faculty and the
institutions own specialties at its own proper level. "Academic
institutions are also severely handicapped by such rigidity in their
ability to respond to changing educational needs and to financial reverses
that most of them face" (Smith,49). Institutions must have the freedom to
pursue its own institutional goals.
One of the most stated advantages of tenure is it allows professors
academic freedom. However, even tenure fails to guarantee academic
freedom because some professors with tenure are more concerned with salary
advance or administrative appointments than the faithful exercise of
their academic duties. Therefore, tenure may inhibit or corrupt the
realization of academic freedom by tenured faculty (Smith, p. 51).
One of the most outstanding problems with tenure is the seven-year rule
that was instituted by the American Association of University Professors
(AAUP). In its local chapters and nationally, the AAUP has come to the
defense of anyone who has taught seven or more years. Even if no issue of
academic freedom is involved and the administration has extended a
professor's appointment beyond six years at his request, the
administration is told by the AAUP that the professor has tenure. By
making seven years the absolute limit of probationary employment, the AAUP
imposes a uniform standard on all colleges and universities and on all
departments and faculty without regard to the crucial differences that
essentially alter the way in which tenure functions in these various
contexts. By specifying a uniform deadline within which the "axe of
severance" must fall or tenure be granted, the AAUP has in practice forced
each academic administrator, whether senior faculty member, department
chairman, dean, or president, to disregard the natural laws of development
in the lives of individual professors (Smith, p. 47).
These are some of the advantages and disadvantages posed by each side of
the tenure debate. It is obvious that both sides have valid arguments in
favor of their position. Instead of continuing this debate, we will seek
to present viable solutions to please those on either side.
Introduction and Background
The Current Tenure Situation in America
Advantages and Disadvantages of Tenure
Possible Solutions
Concluding Remarks
References and Related Links
Last Modified 12/6/96 --
Jon A. Preston