Teacher Tenure in Higher Education: Arguments For

Introduction: The Case for Teacher Tenure

Despite efforts by certain higher education critics to cast tenure as one of the culprits responsible for a range of institutional failings, no compelling evidence exists that tenured educators fail to perform their jobs adequately (Bowen, Howard, Jack & Schuster, 1986). In fact, available evidence points to a majority of tenured educators working harder than ever in an era marked by increasingly tight resources. Moreover, evidence indicates that the primary factors influencing educator job performance are the institutional conditions tied to a college or university's location or mission, rather than tenure itself (Bess, 1988).

The Development of Tenure and Teacher Professionalization

The concept of tenure developed alongside teacher professionalization within the higher education context. It formalizes an enduring employer-faculty relationship, rewarding individuals who successfully satisfy probationary conditions. Tenure is earned through performance sufficiently distinguished to gain the approval of senior faculty within an academic division or department. Once earned, it provides a measure of professional security to individuals who have given up more financially lucrative career paths in favor of scholarly life.

Clearly, like any authority or benefit, tenure can be misused by those who award or receive it. However, opponents of tenure often fail to appreciate the significant tradeoffs demanded of individuals who pursue an academic career in a world where financial standing frequently governs individual worth (Allen, 1997).

Job Security, Anxiety Reduction, and Teaching Innovation

The concern of being dismissed after a poor observation — whether because students misbehaved or a lesson did not go as planned — generates considerable anxiety among new educators. With no way of knowing when a department head or principal will visit, teachers striving for tenure frequently default to lessons known to work reliably rather than attempting novel approaches. By providing competent teachers with the assurance that their position is secure as long as their work is performed well, anxiety levels decrease and teachers can focus on offering innovative and outstanding learning experiences to students (Mathis, 2015).

Tenure as a Safeguard for Academic Freedom

The tenure practice protects higher education faculty against retaliation from reactionary groups or individuals. Before tenure was institutionalized in colleges and universities, an academic career was vulnerable to societal pressure, popular opinion, administrative impulse, and political expediency — regardless of the merits of scholarly inquiry. Faculty members were dismissed without due process at any time, based on the wishes of influential politicians, bureaucrats, board members, or donors. Tenure grew in significance alongside the increased prevalence of research in universities, and numerous revolutionary or contentious ideas and contemporary discoveries might never have emerged without it (Allen, 1997).

For instance, the scholarly careers of several sociology professors whose work exposed the prejudicial outlooks of Southern racist leaders during the American Civil Rights Movement would have been unsustainable without the connection between tenure and academic freedom. Tenure defends scholars against pressure to abandon the pursuit of truth on ideological, social, economic, and political grounds. For this reason, tenure and faculty professionalization are closely intertwined, even across colleges and universities with differing missions (Allen, 1997).

References

Allen, H. L. (1997). Tenure: Why faculty, and the nation, need it. The NEA Higher Education Journal.

Bess, J. (1988). Collegiality and bureaucracy in the modern university. Teachers College Press.

Bowen, H. R., & Schuster, J. H. (1986). American professors: A national resource imperiled. Oxford University Press.

Mathis, M. (2015). Teacher tenure debate: Pros & cons. Retrieved from TeachHub: