November 26, 1996
For more than a year faculty, administration and regents at the University of Minnesota have battled over proposed revisions of that institution's academic tenure code. All along, the struggles effect on the U's national reputation has been much debated.
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What IS tenure? Tenure is a employment status educators can achieve that gives them an extra measure of employment security and freedom to control their work. Forms of tenure exist at all levels of education, but it is tenure as practiced at major research universities such as the University of Minnesota that is most discussed and debated. At major universities, a tenure-track professor (that is, one eligible for tenure) typically aspires to tenure during a probationary period of at least six years. The research, publications, teaching and service of a professor are regularly evaluated by panels of tenured faculty members within the professor's field. The committees recommend the extension of tenure only to professors deemed worthy. Typically, faculty members who do not achieve tenure within their probationary period are expected to leave the university. Once tenured, faculty at a major research university are typically guaranteed permanent employment and at least their existing salary, barring severe misconduct or a financial emergency at the institution. The traditional purpose of tenure is to safeguard "academic freedom"--the freedom of faculty members to develop and disseminate knowledge and ideas they think worthwhile, even though their work may be politically unpopular or not economically profitable. |
Proponents of tenure change have challenged such dire predictions, insisting tenure is an academic tradition being re-examined all across American higher education as financial pressures mount.
What's more, Minnesota's current tenure code is exceptionally protective, its critics say. They say a controversial proposal offered by the Board of Regents in September -- which would have given the university authority to lay off tenured faculty should programs be discontinued and to reduce salaries when "compelling reasons" require it -- would merely have brought the university's tenure code into conformity with codes already in place at many universities of comparable stature.
Each of these prophecies may be somewhat self-fulfilling. The U faculty's angry denunciations of the regents' tenure proposals have doubtless helped inspire alarm in other parts of the country about the tenure discussions at Minnesota. Equally, the U's highly publicized tenure conflict has clearly helped inspire discussion of tenure's future everywhere.
With the U tenure wars subsiding, at least temporarily, amid faculty unionization votes and a search for a new university president, it seems useful to directly sample national perspectives on Minnesota's tenure battle.
What follows are the views, obtained through telephone interviews, of five respected experts on tenure and other higher education issues. All were recommended by Minnesota higher education leaders who are not affiliated with the U:
Schapiro is dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California. He says that while academic leaders are talking about tenure everywhere, Minnesota has become "the poster child" of the debate.
Adds Schapiro: "Everybody now explains, 'We want to talk about tenure, but we're not Minnesota.'"
Schapiro, like others interviewed for this article, emphasized that he has followed the Minnesota debate only at a distance and is familiar with few details of the proposals at the U. He says there's a general impression that Minnesota is thinking about "doing away with" tenure, and adds "that may not be a fair characterization."
One "dialogue" that Schapiro says is "going on all over the place" concerns post-tenure review -- a procedure by which the work of tenured professors is regularly evaluated, with consequences imposed for poor performance. Faculty at Minnesota agreed to establish post-tenure review earlier this year, though some critics complain of overly complex and protective procedures for imposing discipline.
Schapiro also says Minnesota "is not alone in examining" the question of what should happen to faculty when a university closes a department or program. "The jury is out about what really is the obligation," he says. Solutions could range from reassignment to buyouts, but "most institutions don't have a policy."
Schapiro defends tenure, believing employment security for faculty is essential to safeguard academic freedom and encourage bold and tireless inquiry. But he warns that "the professoriate has to articulate the advantages of tenure to the institution. You can't just claim [criticisms are] all right wing politics..."
As for Minnesota's reputation, Schapiro expects the U will suffer some competitive disadvantage in recruiting top people because of its becoming known as "the tenure-busting place." But he notes that the academic "job market is dead, a buyer's market." Minnesota, he says "is a great institution and will still do really well."
Diamond is assistant vice chancellor of Syracuse University and director of the National Project on Institutional Priorities and Faculty Rewards. Like Schapiro, he says there's a general impression that Minnesota has been contemplating "the abolition of tenure." He suspects the U's effort to make changes was poorly managed and produced "a lot more scars than necessary."
Diamond says there are "major problems with the tenure system" that are recognized everywhere. His project has surveyed 55,000 deans and department chairs and reveals a consensus that "the system is out of whack."
One central problem is that the tenure system mostly rewards research and publication, while universities increasingly need to better reward teaching and service.
Diamond notes that departmental closing and downsizing are commonplace today. He says "the right to lay off [tenured faculty] as a last resort" has "always been there." The key, he says, is "how humanistically is that process handled."
Diamond believes tenure change can only be successful if it comes through a cooperative effort with faculty. If change is imposed administratively, he says, "it's always going to create problems, no matter how good the idea is."
"Boards have to understand the politics of change," Diamond says.
Kurland is associate general secretary of the American Association of University Professors in Washington, D.C. He shares his organization's strong disapproval of the U regents' September tenure proposal, but believes the compromise revisions recently approved for the Law School deserve "a good grade."
Kurland acknowledges that in the past two years or so "tenure has been more under discussion than at any time since the 1970s." In the '70s, he recalls, the end of explosive post-World War II growth in higher education funding and enrollment imposed new financial pressures and inspired "an intense wave of discussion" about tenure across the country. In the end, he says, all those discussions concluded that tenure was vital to the academic enterprise.
Kurland says there are widespread discussions today about how many academic positions should be tenured and "considerable discussion of program discontinuance...What are the obligations to faculty?" What he found disturbing about the Minnesota regents' proposal was that it allowed "reduction of salary at administrative discretion" and made it "easier to lay off...than at any other place."
The issue, Kurland explains, was not the principle of layoffs as a final resort, but the level of faculty involvement in the decision-making process.
Kurland perceives an "easing up" of tensions over tenure across the country. "The backing off at Minnesota will be typical," he predicts. He believes the high-profile dispute "has not helped Minnesota" but hopes "there's no major harm and that healing can occur promptly."
Schuster is professor of education and public policy at Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, Calif. He says critics of tenure reform are alarmed by events at Minnesota for fear it could become "a first step leading toward abolition of tenure... Given the respect in which Minnesota higher education is held, [there's fear] it could lead to a wider response across the country."
Schuster says critics of tenure everywhere make the complaint that tenure is "incompatible with the necessity of adjusting to an era of scarce resources and the need to maintain administrative flexibility."
Schuster, though, thinks the "historic reason for tenure, the protection of academic freedom" remains valid, and warns it's too easy "to assume that the great battle for academic freedom has triumphed." Subtle intimidations and retributions could still stifle free inquiry, he says.
But that, Schuster admits, "is a hard argument to prevail with in the larger society, where security of employment is evaporating."
Universities' obligation to tenured faculty when programs are discontinued is "up for grabs," according to Schuster. "Layoff authority is an unsettled question. Much would depend on whether a good faith effort is made to accommodate a faculty member" and whether "trust is there [between a faculty, administration and board].]
Schuster sees real risks for the U in its tenure dispute. "Any respected college or university that begins to be identified with a policy seen as hostile to core academic values runs the risk of becoming viewed as a pariah," he says.
Breneman is dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. he is a skeptic about academic tenure, a "troubled institution" that he finds "harder and harder to defend."
Breneman notes that years ago a kind of de facto "tenure" existed for most senior professional people in America, but no more. Instead, the same kinds of economic forces undermining employment security for so many Americans are undermining tenure as well.
With a "glut of professors" on the market, more and more non-tenure track faculty are being hired everywhere, Breneman says. "If there were a shortage of PhD's, things would be different," he adds.
Tenure "won't go away overnight," Breneman says. But he expects a "more diverse set of employment arrangements" to develop in academe, which cannot, he says, make a convincing argument that it should be "a privileged economic environment where you can employ people even if there's nothing useful for them to do."
Nonetheless, Breneman views Minnesota's trail-blazing role on tenure change as "quite remarkable, though some institution had to play this role." He has "a hard time believing [the controversy] will cost them dearly" because of the glutted academic labor market. But raids on top Minnesota faculty are possible, he says, even though "top people should care less about tenure."
The irony of tenure, Breneman suggest, is that if you deserve tenure, you probably don't need it; and if you need tenure, you probably don't deserve it."
"The trick," Breneman says, "is to make the transition [away from traditional tenure] without creating something worse."
The "worse," in Breneman's view would be unionization of faculty at major research universities such as Minnesota. Like all the experts interviewed for this article, he fears unionization would intensify and immortalize adversarial attitudes on campuses and reward mediocrity rather than excellence.
Finally, Breneman concedes that the U's tenure dispute may have complicated its search for a superb new president. "It's quite a hornet's nest to invite somebody into," he says.