Tenure and Post-Tenure Review in Higher Education: Annotated Bibliography

Introduction to the Tenure Debate

The issue of tenure is a matter reflective of many of the broader debates in higher education. This institution, designed to protect the academic freedom, political objectivity, and job security of educators, has become a battleground on which philosophical differences between administrators and faculty are sorted out. The notion of post-tenure review has been introduced into many higher-education contexts with the intent of applying regulatory oversight and administrative control over educators. Its stated purpose is to prevent what administrators describe as "dead wood" — the idea that job security encourages diminished effort and a reduced focus on teaching responsibilities.

To its opponents, frequently tenured and tenure-track professors, post-tenure review is a policy designed to undermine the freedom, objectivity, and security of the educator. According to educators who oppose it, post-tenure review is too often used to carry out politically and personally motivated terminations that tenure would otherwise prevent. To date, this remains a highly debated subject, with emotionally charged rhetoric driving much of the discussion. The range of perspectives surveyed in the sources discussed below reflects this ongoing tension.

Articles such as that by Custer et al. (1999) demonstrate that this debate permeates most dimensions of higher education. With a focus on industrial and technology education, the article by Custer et al. illustrates that what is often framed as a debate about educational quality is in fact a struggle for power. Between educators and administrators, vast disagreement serves to separate institutions from their ultimate goal of education. According to Custer et al., "post-tenure review is one of the salient issues in higher education today. Legislators, boards of trustees, and academic administrators have called for more frequent and comprehensive assessments of faculty performance. Often, these calls are accompanied by unflattering characterizations of the quality of faculty (e.g., 'deadwood'), our workload (e.g., 'seven hours a week'), our priorities (e.g., 'too little teaching and too much questionable research'), and our perceived unwillingness to monitor our own academic performance and accomplishments." (p. 1)

Administrative Power and the Case Against Post-Tenure Review

The nature of the discussion on post-tenure review is almost inherently hostile toward educators and the institution of tenure. Texts such as that by Horn (1998) strengthen this perception by characterizing tenure not merely as flawed and in need of reform, but as an institution whose value has fully run its course. This suggests that while the debate is often couched in notions of quality education and effective management of a teaching workforce, the underlying discourse implies a much more biased set of interests. Particularly for administrators, the ambition to exert control over veteran instructors has a direct bearing on both the nature of post-tenure review and the rhetoric used to endorse it.

The events described by Wilson (2002) — in which a tenured professor was ultimately dismissed for criticizing his department head through the channels of post-tenure review — suggest that such abuse is quite often the case. This condition is especially problematic because post-tenure review has already achieved mainstream institutional status. According to Elias (2001), "post-tenure review has been likened to the 'elephant-in-the-room syndrome' in psychotherapy, where the patient ignores a central reality in his or her personal situation (Applbaum 1997; Livingston 1992). Currently, at least 28 states have mandated some kind of post-tenure review in all their public institutions (Morreale and Licata 1997). Many private institutions have also mandated such review. Andrews and Licata (1991) reported that 70% of surveyed institutions have some form of post-tenure review." (p. 1)

Even the relatively balanced analysis offered by Elias (2001) concedes that some form of evaluation and oversight is both useful and justified given the pedagogical concerns connected to unrestricted tenure. However, it also acknowledges the need to restrain the approach currently taken toward post-tenure review. According to the text by Licata and Andrews, post-tenure review tends to be most commonly executed in more innovative, private, four-year colleges where resources are plentiful and educational standards are high — suggesting at least some genuine interest in educational quality rather than purely administrative control.

Academic Freedom as a Core Value

As the article by DeGeorge (2003) contributes, it would be counterproductive — and arguably destructive — to pursue a policy orientation that dismantles the freedoms that allow educators to inspire, innovate, and challenge young learners. DeGeorge argues in favor of a post-tenure review policy that is designed with proper protections for those dimensions that make tenure necessary in the first place. Any policy intended to improve educational outcomes through greater oversight must also encourage academic freedom. As DeGeorge argues:

"Academic freedom protects those at the university who are pursuing knowledge or truth within their area of expertise. It is not license to state one's views on any topic or in any way. Its justification is not the right or good of the individual researcher, but the good of society, which is the expected beneficiary of the development of knowledge. The obligation of administrators of institutions of higher learning is to ensure that those who develop knowledge and push it forward — primarily the faculty — are able to do so." (pp. 12–13)

The text by Wriston (1940) offers philosophical grounding to this idea, positing that the imposition of limitations on academic freedom tends to produce dogmatic institutional principles and comes at the expense of more balanced and ethical discourse in educational contexts. To Wriston, the suppression of such freedom threatens to carry highly unethical consequences. (p. 341)

This idea is further endorsed by Fuchs (1963), who connects academic freedom to certain inherent civil rights. According to Fuchs, "exclusion from the academic community because of race has also been stated of late to be a violation of academic freedom; and exclusion of students or teachers from public institutions on this ground, or discrimination against them for this reason, is of course a violation of federal constitutional right." (p. 432)

Conclusion: Toward a Balanced Approach

Ultimately, this back and forth still leaves us with a firm sense of the importance of tenure as an institution that improves both output quality and organizational culture in the university. The findings of English et al. (2009) feed an overarching conclusion: that tenure must, at least to some extent, be protected even as efforts proceed to give it administrative oversight and regulatory form. The ongoing national conversation about tenure reflects precisely this tension between accountability and freedom. In proceeding forward from this discussion, compromise — one that preserves the core protections of tenure while establishing transparent and fair evaluative mechanisms — remains the strongest recommendation.