Category Archives: Faculty

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Another state legislature takes aim on tenure

State legislators in Kentucky are the latest lining up to attack higher education and gut the protections of tenure. A late addition to the Kentucky Senate’s budget legislation would allow public universities to dismiss tenured faculty due to program changes or elimination. Following other tenure attacks in Wisconsin and Tennessee, we see a clear assault on tenure. In today’s post, I want to address the problems with the Kentucky proposal and why we need tenure in higher education.

Another state legislature takes aim on tenure

University of Kentucky

Chris McDaniel, a Republican State Senator, claims that his proposal keeps academic freedom by only allowing tenure dismissals in the case of program changes.

McDaniel also claims that university presidents supported his proposal, yet he refused to name who he discussed it with and no one would publicly support the proposal.

Needless to say, I am dubious if McDaniel spoke to anyone other than the usual think tanks and ideologues who have been trying to gut tenure across the county.

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The tenure decision process

The tenure decision process varies across institutions. All colleges and universities value teaching, scholarship, and service in slightly different ways and the tenure decision process is built upon institutional culture, nuance, and sheer historical quirks. While there is no way to fully describe all of the variations that exist in the tenure decision process, today’s post will describe the broad parameters and levels of review that exist at most colleges and universities.

Photo credit: UConn

At most institutions, there are three basic levels of review:  department, college/school, and institution. Again, each institution is different, but I suspect these 3 levels exist at the vast majority of colleges and universities in the United States.

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Why can a tenured faculty member be fired?

One of the most commons misconceptions about tenure is that you can’t fire a tenured faculty member. The reality is that tenured faculty can and do get fired with some regularity. The difference is that tenure provides for detailed and often complicated due process procedures to protect tenured faculty from dismissal without appropriate cause. In today’s post, I want to answer the question of why can a tenured faculty member be fired by describing the four specific reasons that a tenured faculty member can be removed from an institution.

Photo credit: Amherst College
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Selecting external reviewers for tenure

One of the most critical aspects of any tenure and promotion case are the letters from external reviewers. The number of reviewers varies by institution, but typically anywhere from 6-10 letters will be solicited from scholars who can speak to the quality and impact of your research. Often, these letters play a significant and even outsized role in the evaluation process. In today’s post, I will share some suggestions for selecting external reviewers for tenure and advice for navigating what can be a confusing process.

Selecting external reviewers for tenure

Photo credit: Flickr Karen
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My reading list for 2017

Happy New Year! I have never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions but I do enjoy picking out books that I’m going to read for the year. Some years I focus on popular books that I’ve never read or on non-higher education books. For this year, I have identified 10 books that are mostly focused on faculty and academic governance. This is an area I ended 2016 thinking about and want to continue into 2017. Below are my books for the year along with blurbs from Amazon. What are you reading this year?

Photo credit: Moyan Brenn