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Plight of tenure: Labor Day edition

Labor Day is the chance for Americans to celebrate the success of the American workforce. This recognition acknowledges the importance of workers to the social and economic progress of the United States. Last year, I discussed the plight of adjuncts in higher education in the tradition of Labor Day. To celebrate this year, I will discuss the plight of tenure. Across institutional types, tenure is in decline. Just a generation ago, tenure earning faculty made up nearly two-thirds of faculty in U.S. higher education. As we grill our hamburgers today, the number of tenure earning faculty has dropped below one-third. But why do we need tenure? Doesn’t tenure just protect lazy, deadwood faculty? Other professions don’t receive lifetime contracts, why should professors? In today’s post, I will share the four challenges that tenure enables and their importance for both higher education and society.

What is tenure? Simply put, tenure is a lifetime contract.

This does not mean a lifetime job. Tenure establishes clear guidelines as to how and why a faculty member can be fired. 

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Don’t take a faculty job at LSU

Long before the levees broke in Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana has struggled. Some of the disasters are problems from within the state such as corruption and political incompetence while others are outside the state’s control such as the BP oil spill or the FEMA response after Katrina. It is no surprise that the higher education system of a state struggles when a state has taken as many body blows as Louisiana in the last ten years. Decreases in state support of higher education has led to the closing of academic programs and LSU even threatened to declare financial exigency. However, the latest round of problems for LSU are a manmade disaster that leads me to say to future prospective LSU faculty: Don’t take a faculty job at LSU.

LSU has a long history of problems regarding the way the institution treats faculty.

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What is tuition discounting and why do colleges do it?

Tuition discounting is growing in higher education. Yet, by the very nature of the practice, the concept is confusing to prospective students as well as people who have spent their careers working in colleges and universities.  A recent report by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) suggests that tuition discount rates are at an all-time high. The report further argues that the strategy is unsustainable and many institutions will have to reconsider their approach to discounting. But all of this raises the question: what is tuition discounting and why do colleges do it?

Photo credit: Daniel Oines

No one— or very few students— actually pays the listed tuition price for a university. The way to think about a university’s tuition is like the sticker price on a car. No one pays sticker. The question is how much of a discount you can negotiate.

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What are the types of faculty appointments in higher education?

Unlike many career fields, there is a relatively small variation in the types of appointments for faculty members in colleges and universities. However, I often find that many non-faculty have a hard time understanding the different types of appointments used in higher education. Once you understand the basic underlying structure for appointments, it is easy to quickly figure out the types of faculty appointments in higher education.

Photo credit: John Lemieux

I think much of the confusion regarding faculty appointments comes from the fact that different institutions used slightly different names to describe the appointments.  Despite this, the basic structure of appointments does not vary tremendously between institutions.

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What research on learning tells us about teaching

At the start of each academic year, SMU’s Center for Teaching Excellence (which I direct) hosts a Teaching Effectiveness Symposium. This year our keynote speaker was Todd Zakrajsek from the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina.  Todd is a dynamic and engaging speaker. His talk was based on his book, The New Science of Learning: How Brain Research is Revolutionizing the Way We Learn (which I highly recommend). In today’s post, I will share my five top takeaways from his keynote that I believe should inform the way we teach in higher education.

Photo credit: aboutmodafinil.com