Today's New York Times hosts a Room for Debate on What if College Tenure Dies:
In 1975, 57% of all college professors had tenure or were on a tenure track. In 2007, that number had fallen to 31%, and a new federal report, to be released in the fall, is expected to show another decline for 2009, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this month.
What are the implications of the decline of tenure? Does tenure promote students' learning or raise the level of academic scholarship?
Critics of the system, which provides job security, say that it promotes mediocrity and sloth among an aging academy, blocking opportunities for young scholars, and encourages useless research as tenure candidates vie to be published in jargon-filled journals that no one reads. Tenure's defenders say that professors who have it are better able to challenge students by risking unpopularity, and to express opinions without fear of retribution. What will happen to American higher education if tenure disappears?
- Cathy A. Trower (Harvard), How to Start Over
- Cary Nelson (Illinois), At Stake: Freedom and Learning
- Mark C. Taylor (Columbia), Unsustainable and Indefensible
- Adrianna Kezar (USC), No Tenure, No Nothing
- Richard Vedder (Ohio University), Reducing Intellectual Diversity
