Anderson: Tenure is worth protecting
This column is paired with a counterargument called “Tenure protects lousy professors” by Joe Heidenescher.
Tenure.
For professors, it’s practically the Holy Grail, but their students are muttering it like a dirty word. Everyone knows at least one tenured professor who’s stayed long past their prime. You know, the one who spends an hour talking about their winter vacation or promoting their next book instead of lecturing on the material you need to know, because they know they can get away with it.
But does that mean we punish all the tenured professors for one dirtbag?
Remember in grade school, when one kid would act out and the whole class would spend recess inside? Even though only one person actually did anything wrong, the whole class paid the price for it. Maybe you thought it was unfair; I know I did. That’s essentially what getting rid of tenure would be. Instead of picking out the individual professors abusing the system, we would be assigning a blanket punishment to all tenured professors.
At the University of Toledo, tenure is a six-year process which starts shortly after the professor is hired. According to Vice Provost Kelly Moore in an online interview, the professor is responsible for putting together a portfolio, so to speak. They have to submit proof of their work and evaluations of their teaching, along with letters from chairs and deans. It doesn’t end there, either; the candidate’s application has to go through two committees, the provost, the president, and the Board of Trustees before they can be approved.
In other words, not exactly a walk in the park. Professors work hard to get tenure, and many of them deserve it. Their hard work doesn’t deserve to go unrewarded just because we run the chance of handing out those benefits undeservingly.
Despite the common myth of tenured professors being untouchable, they can be dismissed for legitimate reasons, and have to go through an evaluation over the time they’re at a university. While it is difficult to lose tenure, it’s meant to be that way, so that tenure can’t be yanked away for some fabricated reason.
In light of the current hiring plan in motion at UT, the question of tenure becomes particularly relevant. Tenure, short and simple, is a selling point. It’s a way to get distinguished professors to come to UT, a promise of a reward for hard work and contribution.
Ultimately, as important as the benefits of tenure are to motivating and rewarding professors, it’s not just about the bigger paycheck and the sense of security. Tenure was created to protect the right to academic free speech. Being able to be fired at will created an atmosphere of fear and conformity for professors, who felt like they couldn’t speak up or deviate from accepted theory without losing their position. Tenure keeps teachers from being at the mercy of board members for their jobs.
Now, tenured professors have more freedom to speak openly about the situation of the university they teach at and the opportunity to explore alternative theories in their respective fields.
In the end, we have to ask ourselves what’s more important: taking away possibilities for bad professors to take advantage of a system, or rewarding outstanding professors while protecting academic free speech.
Are we willing to sacrifice the academic free speech and job security of every tenured professor for the sake of those who abuse the system? Are we going to assume the worst of all tenured professors and throw educators back to the mercy of the board for their jobs because of corruption? Doing either of those things would be taking the easy way out; it’s lazy, ineffectual, and shortsighted.
Saying we should get rid of tenure is like saying we should destroy the government, or religion, or any other institution that’s become corrupt. Destruction isn’t the answer. Tearing down an institution solves one set of problems and creates a whole host of other ones. (Think the French Revolution. Reign of Terror, anyone?)
Instead, our goal should be reform. Universities should be more careful about whom they award tenure to, and the process of dismissing tenured professors should definitely get a second look. Instead of dismantling the system, we should make it more difficult for people to misuse it.
As a rule, I don’t tend to advocate for extremes, and I’m applying the same policy here. The choices don’t just have to be destroying tenure or allowing subpar teaching and abuse of the system. Both of those are giving up too easily.
The real solution is the hardest one: fixing the system.
Colleen Anderson is a first-year majoring in paralegal studies, and is an associate News editor at The Independent Collegian.
