In the world of professorial employment, “tenure” denotes to most outside the ivory tower a kind of job security long gone from the American market. The policy provides academic and intellectual freedom to University professors, but depending on whom you talk to, tenure is either being phased-out of academe or is solidly in place as a key policy.
What is tenure?
“It protects the faculty member from being dismissed because of the nature or outcome of their research,” said Russ Tomlin, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. “They can’t be fired because people find their opinions unacceptable or controversial or offensive.”
Despite some national speculation that universities are trying to abolish tenure because it is more costly, Tomlin said the University of Oregon approves about 90 to 95 percent of tenure cases.
This doesn’t mean that the University’s tenured faculty rate is high because not all University faculty members are allowed to work toward tenure.
Faculty are either tenure-related faculty or non-tenure track faculty, a distinction made at the discretion of the University. The latter are not eligible for tenure.
“The Truth About Tenure in Higher Education,” a National Education Association publication, asserts the importance of tenure and questions university motives.
Tenure “gives faculty the independence to speak out about troubling matters and to challenge the administration on issues of new curriculum and quality,” according to the article.
The NEA stated that no more than one-third of all college and university faculty members are tenured because an increasing number of colleges are hiring part-time or temporary non-tenure track faculty. It said as tenured professors retire, colleges keep the replacements off the tenure track in order to save money.
Tomlin agrees with the NEA on the question of academic freedom, but he said the NEA’s conspiracy theory-like assertions are not necessarily accurate.
“I don’t think in general that we’re seeing major public or private universities entertaining the process of reducing or limiting opportunities for tenure,” he said. “The real pressure is in finding adequate funding to offer competitive salaries, research support and other kinds of compensation to attract the quality of individuals that we need for tenure-related appointments. Financial pressures have increased the appointments of people in non-tenure related positions.”
Tomlin said although it is cheaper for universities to hire non-tenure faculty, it’s not necessarily always the right solution. Still, he said the University has “very qualified non-tenure faculty.”
Associate Professor Deb Merskin said she can see some schools nationally phasing out tenure, and it’s detrimental to intellectual freedom in higher education.
“It will have a chilling effect on innovative research,” she said. “One school might start turning to that as a policy and it just sort of spreads. With increasingly shrinking state support for higher education, universities are forced to look at different ways of hiring people.”
The path to tenure
In order for a faculty member to earn tenure, he or she must successfully make it through the third-year evaluation. Assistant professors seeking to earn tenure are evaluated on the basis of teaching, service, and, depending on the department of the person in question, either research or scholarly activity. The review is conducted at this point because initial contracts for untenured faculty are usually for three years.
“We want to make every effort to see our young faculty succeed,” said Faculty Personnel Committee Chair Ken Doxsee. “A really critical time is about the third year. In most fields that’s a good time to get a pretty good sense of where the person’s scholarly work is headed.”
The third-year review can make or break an associate professor; if he or she does not pass, a terminal contract is given and the person has one final year of employment, providing time to find a job elsewhere.
The Faculty Guide to Promotion and Tenure provides a comprehensive review of the tenure process and third-year review.
“Your supervisor does you a favor by being frank and thorough at this stage of your career,” it reads. “If there is a clear mismatch between individual and institution, it is better for everyone to acknowledge that sooner rather than later.”
If the assistant professor shows satisfactory progress toward “establishing a record appropriate for tenure,” he or she is provided with performance analysis designed to help the assistant professor improve before the tenure review. But if the evaluation is not up to par, the assistant professor’s work at the University is through.
“It’s not a time to be shy,” Doxsee said. “It can be hard to be honest and not positive with someone, but it’s really important.”
Daunting as it sounds, the review is said to be extremely beneficial.
“I found (the review) to be a really supportive experience and I was really glad that they did that,” said Merskin. “The intention is really to be there, to be supportive and kind of give you a little bit of the experience.”
Merskin earned her tenure in 2000, and now teaches in the School of Journalism and Communication. She said the tenure process is stressful but important.
“You’ve got some practical anxiety there because tenure is an up-or-out decision,” she said. “One never knows for sure. There’s a lot of superstitious behavior; you never say ‘when,’ you always say ‘if.’ It’s increasingly competitive for people to get jobs.”
Getting tenure
For faculty who move beyond the third-year review, the actual tenure acquisition process is drawn-out and complicated.
At the beginning of the untenured faculty member’s sixth year, that person compiles a file documenting activity in the three key areas of teaching, service, and research or scholarly activity. That file will be evaluated on three levels: The departmental level, the advisory committee level and the dean level. At each stop, discussion and advice are recorded. The dean passes the file on with a recommendation of either supporting or not supporting the tenure, as well as a report on how that conclusion was drawn.
From there, the file is delivered to the FPC, an elected committee that conducts the final review of all tenure cases before they are handed to the provost for the final decision.
The FPC looks at the entire folder, including all of the additions that have been made along the way, and submits its own recommendations.
At long last, Provost Linda Brady determines the assistant professor’s fate.
“Every step of the way it is advice and discussion that is designed to help the provost make the final decision,” Doxsee said.
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