Higher Education and Tenure

¶ … teacher tenure? In spite of endeavors on the part of certain higher education criticizers to exploit tenure as one among the culprits responsible for a profusion of institutional failings, no compelling proof exists of the fact that tenured educators fail to do their job adequately (Bowen, Howard, Jack & Schuster, 1986). In fact, available evidence points to a majority of tenured educators striving hard, like never before, in the current age plagued by tighter resources.

Moreover, evidence indicates that the major factors that influence educator performance of their job were the institutional conditions linked to college/university location or mission, rather than tenure (Bess, 1988). The concept of tenure developed alongside teacher professionalization within the higher education context. It systemizes an enduring, formal employer-teacher bond, with individuals who effectively satisfy probation conditions being rewarded for their efforts. Tenure is earned through performance sufficiently remarkable to enjoy senior faculty approval within an educational division or department.

Once earned, it provides the individual a certain measure of security as he/she had given up other more profitable career options for a scholarly life. Clearly, similar to all other authorities or benefits, tenure may be misused by individuals awarding or receiving it. However, opponents of tenure do not realize the huge tradeoffs demanded from individuals who follow a career in this field within a world wherein financial standing governs individual worth (Allen, 1997).

Concerns linked to getting sacked if one becomes the unfortunate victim of a principal observation on the very day pupils cause trouble or one delivers the lesson poorly generates considerable anxiety among new educators. With no clue of when a departmental head or principal decides to visit and observe, educators striving for tenure frequently rely on lessons proven to work fairly well instead of attempting novel techniques.

By providing competent teachers assurance that they are secure in their job so long as it is performed well, anxiety levels will reduce and teachers can concentrate on offering novel, outstanding learning experiences to pupils (Mathis, 2015). The tenure practice safeguards higher educators against retaliations from societal reactionary groups or persons. Prior to its institutionalization in colleges and universities, a career in higher education was susceptible to societal pressure, popular demand, admin impulses, and political logicality -- irrespective of conflict advantages.

Teaching staff were sacked carelessly without any due process at any time based on the desires of influential politicians, bureaucrats, board members, or sponsors. Tenure grew in significance to scholarly freedom with research works' increased prevalence in universities. Numerous revolutionary contentious ideas and contemporary inventions may have been impossible if not for tenure (Allen, 1997). For instance, the scholarly careers of several sociology professors whose works revealed Southern racist leaders' prejudicial outlooks in the American Civil Rights period would have been unsustainable without the relationship tenure has with scholarly freedom.

Tenure defends academicians against the jingoistic pressure to give in when pursuing facts on ideological, social, economic, and political grounds. Hence, tenure and faculty professionalization are entwined closely, even in colleges and universities (Allen, 1997). Tenure has had a pivotal role to play in maintaining teaching staff morale and culture and ensuring college/university cohesiveness.

If there has been any news of systemic abuse of tenure-related rights or trust at any college or university, one must seek institutional sources of abuse, rather than hurriedly shifting the discussion to the overall tenure practice. In a nutshell, tenure is vital as it promotes college/university productivity and stability. Educators consider.