Academic Job Security Threatened As Anti-Tenure Wave Sweeps U.S.

SIDEBAR: For Further Information .. Academic Job Security FLEXIBILITY WANTED: University of Minnesota regent Patricia Spence cites budgetary uncertainty. Colleges and universities all over the United States are making changes-both major and minor-to the tenure system. Some have abolished it, opting for multiyear contracts with faculty, while others have adopted new codes that make it easier to fire tenured faculty members. Like other academic employees, scientists are feeling the constraints of these changes, particularly the increasing tendency to depend on grant funding to supplement salaries. "It's the largest anti-tenure wave in 25 years," notes Jordan E. Kurland, associate general secretary of the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of University Professors (AAUP). "The climate is stormy." According to Matthew Finkin, Albert J. Harno Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and author of the new book The Case for Tenure (Ithaca, N.Y., ILR Press, 1996), no fewer than 23 state legislatures have considered or are considering changes in tenure at their public institutions. A November 1995 survey of college and university provosts conducted by Cathy Trower, a research associate at the University of Maryland, College Park, under the auspices of the Washington, D.C.-based American Association for Higher Education (AAHE)-found that 69 percent of the 280 institutions responding reported changes to traditional tenure policies. (See list on page 8 for information on obtaining this report and other material mentioned in this article.) The changes ranged from greater flexibility in the pre-tenure probationary period to elaborate post-tenure review procedures. Thirteen institutions, including the Boston University School of Medicine and Dartmouth Medical School, actually abolished tenure. Increasingly, scientists are not even getting the chance to compete for tenure, observes Richard P. Chait, a professor of higher education at Harvard University. He notes that many medical schools now commonly offer clinical appointments, instructorships, and part-time and adjunct faculty positions that do not lead to tenure. "Usually they're not attacking tenure frontally," says Chait of these institutions. "They're working around their edges and working their way through the crevices and cracks by appointing more and more people in positions that are not tenure-eligible. I've referred to non-tenure-track appointments as a 'silent killer' of tenure." Chait notes that the reasons behind the call for tenure reform have changed. "I'm not sure [the current climate is] anti tenure per se as much as anti-tenure as it's currently practiced," he says. "Twenty-five years ago, there was a huge political animus. There were many legislators who were quite enraged that faculty seemingly had too much time on their hands and they used that time to seemingly foment the left wing into various kinds of protest. I don't hear much of that at all now. The discussions I hear of tenure are much more couched in terms of financial conditions, institutional flexibility, strategy, competition." "I am concerned that under the guise of greater accountability, we will institute systems that will eviscerate tenure," adds Finkin, who notes that old stereotypes die hard. He believes that "the latent and perhaps unarticulated assumption that there are droves and droves of somnolent, lethargic, unproductive, underworked, and overpaid college professors" is a force behind recent tenure changes, but throwing away the whole system is an overreaction. "Somebody who has not read a book in five years, who's teaching the phlogiston theory out of dog-eared, yellowed notes, or more commonly the alcoholic, the manic-depressive-those are not hard cases. We all know who they are. . . . In fact, all it takes is a dean or a department chair with some guts, and you negotiate a segue"-early retirement, for example, or a transfer to a harmless administrative post. The tenure system serves many purposes, according to its supporters. Their main argument is that tenure ensures academic freedom: Tenure makes it difficult or impossible to dismiss someone for advancing unpopular views. It allows life scientists, for example, to continue their studies while protecting them from political backlash over controversies surrounding issues such as genetic engineering, animal experimentation, and the biology of homosexuality. 'AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE ACADEMY': Provost Barbara Leigh Smith of tenure-free Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., maintains that academic freedom is not compromised at her institution. Others argue that academic freedom does not require tenure. For example, the founders of tenure-free Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., which opened in 1971, believed, in the words of provost Barbara Leigh Smith, "if anyone needs to have academic freedom protected, the people who need it most are the young ones. We see academic freedom certainly as a right and an important part of the academy. . . . The very first paragraph of the faculty reappointment policy says in writing that faculty are guaranteed the right to academic freedom and that the college subscribes to the standards of the AAUP." OVERREACTION: Matthew Finkin believes that throwing away the whole tenure system "under the guise of accountability" is unncessarily extreme. And there are other protections for academic freedom, as well, contends James J. Parry, associate vice chancellor of academic programs for the Florida Board of Regents. Parry helped develop the faculty employment policies at Florida Gulf Coast University, which will open in Fort Myers in the fall of 1997 with many of its faculty members employed under two- to five-year contracts. Parry explains that in the collective bargaining agreement with the faculty union, United Faculty of Florida (UFF), there is a provision guaranteeing academic freedom and a mechanism that staff or faculty members may use if they believe that their academic freedom is being infringed upon. Moreover, says Parry, the First Amendment of the Constitution provides additional freedom-of-speech guarantees. "While the First Amendment protects expression in a lot of ways, there are many things that would not be First Amendment issues you could go to court with-something like selecting one's own textbook," replies AAUP's Kurland, who points out that issues of academic freedom can easily affect even apolitical scientists. He relates a story he heard about an aeronautical engineering department whose new chairman insisted that all faculty members switch their research focus to helicopters even though many preferred to continue studying fixed-wing aircraft. And even if one's selection of a textbook or a research project could be considered a free-speech issue, UFF president Brian Nelson notes that few faculty members have the resources to engage in First Amendment court battles. There are other arguments for tenure, notes Finkin. For example, since the consequences of individual tenure decisions are so significant, and since the burden of proof rests on the individual after a lengthy probationary period, the institution of tenure promotes the highest levels of scientific research and scholarship. "If that process were simply an annual renewal or a three-year renewal of a contract, I don't think anyone would spend the kind of time and energy that goes into the process as it's built right now." 'NATIONAL TREASURE': Biophysicist Arthur Sowers calls tenure a way of "preserving intellectual accomplishment." Membrane biophysicist Arthur E. Sowers, author of "Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" (available on the Web; see accompanying list for address) and a long-time observer and critic of the scientific employment scene, advances what he calls the "national treasure argument" for tenure: "I think that tenure is important as a way of preserving intellectual accomplishment. I think that it's very sad to see highly dedicated individuals go into very, very specialized fields of study and scholarship and spend 10 or 15 or 20 years of their life only to end up with a kick in their rear." Sowers, 52, recently resigned from his long-term, non-tenure track position at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, after he failed to obtain continuing grant support. He has started a scientific consulting firm, Arthur E. Sowers Inc., which is based in Grasonville, Md. "Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" by Arthur E. Sowers can be found at http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/homepage.htm. The American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) is publishing a series of monographs called "New Pathways: Faculty Careers and Employment for the 21st Century," several of which are particularly relevant to the issue of tenure. To obtain any of these monographs, telephone AAHE Publications at (202) 293-6440, Ext. 11, or write to AAHE at One Dupont Circle, Suite 360, Washington, D.C. 20036-1110 Fax: (202) 294-0073 C. A. Trower, Tenure Snapshot (published March 1996) R. Chait, Campuses Without Tenure (published Spring 1996) P. Byrne, Uncoupling Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure (Published summer 1996) R. Chait, Innovative Modifications of Traditional Tenure System (Scheduled for publication shortly) J.M. Gappa, New Employment Alternatives: Full-time nontenure-tract appointments (Scheduled for publication shortly) C.M. Licata, Post-Tenure Review: Policies, Practices, and Precautions (Due to be published Winter 1996) D.Breneman, Voluntary Incentives to Forgo Tenure (due to be published Winter 1996) But those who argue for changes to tenure cite the need for greater flexibility in the face of uncertain budgets. That, according to regent Patricia Spence, is what drove the University of Minnesota's Board of Regents to propose a radical revision of the institution's tenure code. The board's proposed code would have allowed tenured faculty members to be fired if their programs were eliminated, provided for reductions in base pay without formal procedures, instituted a system of rigorous post-tenure review. Moreover, it would have allowed tenured faculty to be disciplined for failure to "maintain a proper attitude of industry and cooperation with others." In response, at least 30 percent of the faculty signed cards asking for union representation. This effectively delayed the implementation of any new tenure rules at least until after the union election, which may not take place until early next year. Meanwhile, both the faculty and the regents seem to be searching for a compromise. At a regents meeting in early October, Spence unveiled a new proposal, which Virginia Gray, a professor of political science and chairwoman of the faculty consultative committee, describes as "modest progress over their original position. It was better, but it's still unacceptable. They took out the so called bad attitude provision, thankfully, [but] you can still have your pay cut without any formal procedure at all, just kind of on the whim of your boss." Several days later, E. Thomas Sullivan, dean of the University of Minnesota's law school (whose faculty are not participating in the union election), proposed a set of tenure rules that Gray describes as "at first glance much more palatable to the faculty. . . . It looks like it might be the basis for a reasonable compromise." The board of regents was scheduled to revisit this issue during a meeting on November 7 and 8. CHANGING TIMES: Richard Chait notes that the current anti-tenure movement is focused not on suppressing the left but on "institutional flexibility". While the University of Minnesota is agonizing over changes to long-established tenure rules, other universities are starting their lives under nontraditional tenure systems. According to Brian Nelson, president of UFF, which represents faculty at all 10 state universities in Florida, the union was pressured by the regents and the state legislature into agreeing to allow Florida Gulf Coast University to open with many of its faculty employed under multiyear contracts. Tenure has not been abolished entirely at Florida Gulf Coast. Faculty transferring from other institutions will retain tenure, and the institution itself will have the option of offering tenured and tenure-track positions to new faculty. Associate vice chancellor Perry says the regents would like to extend the policy of encouraging multiyear contracts to the other nine institutions, but so far the union has not allowed that to happen. According to Nelson, "the union's point is, wait and see what happens at Florida Gulf Coast University for a while. If you're going to do it, at least find out what works and what doesn't work." Finkin doubts that it will work. "What they're building into their system is a kind of two-tier faculty. . . . I think that's a perfectly dismal way to run an institution of higher education. If I'm right, if the tenure system in fact serves a real need, then the institution will either be relegating itself from its very inception to second-grade status, or eventually it will come around and adopt a cognizable system of tenure." Even a complete abolition of tenure would not have a significant impact on the dismal job market in the sciences, according to many observers of tenure issues. Sowers, for example, points out that the number of faculty jobs in the sciences is dependent far more on federal research funding than on the percentage of the professoriate that has tenure. While an abolition of tenure might create a few more jobs for younger scientists if older ones were forced out, the net number of jobs would remain more or less constant. Not all changes to traditional tenure are anathema to tenure supporters, however. According to the AAHE survey, some institutions are allowing people in tenure-track positions to stop the tenure clock for a year or two to bear or raise children or for elder care. And other institutions are extending the probationary period from the typical seven years to nine or even 11 years. "It is generally in the sciences that there has been this push for an extended probationary period," observes Chait, "because scientists more than anyone require time to establish a research program, build a lab, get a grant, conduct the research, and publish the results." Among science departments, which are generally highly dependent on grant funding, it's becoming more common to tie tenure to only a portion of the faculty member's salary, Chait notes. The tenured faculty members in these departments are guaranteed only a small amount of base pay-typically $20,000 or less-and are expected to obtain the rest of their salary from grants. Finkin disparages such arrangements, referring to them as mere "permanent hunting licenses for grant money." Despite the current ferment on the tenure scene, Kurland says, "I think the worst of the storm may have passed. The tenure system has been around since the Middle Ages in one form or another. Tenure has always been under attack. I think that's generally healthy. It certainly keeps us on our toes to have people constantly critical of it." "I don't think you're going to see a fundamental change," concludes Finkin. "This is not because this is a privilege tenaciously clung to by entrenched centers of power. I don't think professors have any power. . . . I think the tenure system exists, and indeed has been strengthened over the past 30 years, because it serves a very important purpose." Robert Finn, a freelance science writer based in Long Beach, Calif., is online at finn@nasw.org.

Academic Job Security Threatened As Anti-Tenure Wave Sweeps U.S.

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