Tenure and post-tenure policies in higher education

Tenure and Post-Tenure

What are some new insights you have discovered as you continue to read and explore literature of Tenure and Post-tenure review?

The question of Tenure and Post-tenure review in the university context has received considerable attention in the literature. One of the most interesting insights is the fact that it is a very complicated issue, particularly when issues such as academic integrity and the value of higher education are considered.

O'Brien (1998, p. 17) for example notes that higher education institutions lack the necessary level of post-tenure competency reviews. By implementing non-mandatory retirement, there is once again a focus upon competence. The author states that senior faculty should only be compelled to retire on the basis of failing competence. This would be facilitated were post-tenure review part of the generally accepted policies of the university or college in question. This is however not the case.

According to Burgan (2006, p. 6), tenure provides a secure working environment in which faculty can conduct their work, and even more importantly, their research. For research to flourish, faculty needed to be secure in their work environment, and tenure was a way to accomplish this. This provides the insight that tenure is a fundamentally pragmatic issue. Research and tenure do not only connect on the platform of ideology, but also in terms of its practical necessity.

Garcia & Moses (2000), on the other hand, address the issue of tenure from the viewpoint of colored faculty. In providing advice on seeking tenure, the authors (2000, p. 31) note that the process is extremely subjective and should be handled as such. Tenure-seeking faculty should therefore construct key professional relationships in order to attain prominence both within the faculty and on the national scale. The key insight that these authors provide is that tenure can be approached from a subjective viewpoint, and also that seeking tenure can be controlled by targeted action.

This very subjective viewpoint is what causes inherent risk to the process of tenure and post-tenure research. In order to mitigate this risk, Poskanzer (2002, p. 1) suggests that two policies are essential. First, there should be a set of "widely shared expectations about the terms and conditions of faculty jobs." Secondly, an "established custom within academe" would make it possible, together with the "expectations" would then facilitate the relationship between the faculty and its employees.

The most surprising insight about tenure is that it is a relatively "late arrival to the American system," as noted by Altbach et al. (2001, p. 12). It was formally implemented only in 1940. The system in the United Sates therefore accounts for only 60 years at the time of writing, out of some 360 years in Europe and the UK. Another interesting insight in the light of this I the fact that there is considerable tension between the primary aims of American universities; to both teach young students and conduct research (Altbach et al., 2001, p. 18).