Preserve The Roles Of Tenure, Teaching, And Research

Both tenure and the involvement of academic faculty in research are under increasing attack by legislators and other leaders outside of academia. These critics from the business and other worlds often show little understanding of what makes a great university or the reasons for its procedures. Indefinite tenure is not a lifetime guarantee for an individual but rather a distinguishing characteristic of certain positions in some institutions--including, but not exclusively, universities. U.S. Supreme Court justices, judges in federal courts, and certain senior civil servants also have tenure, and it is not difficult to see why society has bestowed tenure on these positions. The purpose is to protect people holding these positions from possible retaliation for their ideas or decisions, should these turn out to be unpopular. Our society has recognized the importance of upholding the law, even in the face of various pressures. That some judges may be regarded as out of step, or that certain laggards or outright incompetents will climb to a judgeship from time to time does not invalidate the reasons for giving them tenure. Rather, it is the price paid for the higher good of having a judicial culture that operates without fear of reprisal. One safeguard against rogues or incompetents is a rigorous initial appointment and confirmation process. A final safeguard against gross transgressions is the existence of the mechanism of impeachment and conviction for removal of even a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Tenure in the academic world in principle is no different. The historical memory and the continuity of our culture and civilization rest on knowledge. Today, knowledge, its critical analysis, its creation, and its transmission have come to rest overwhelmingly in our universities. It is the importance of this function that has led to, and justifies, the institution of tenure for professorial faculty. Tenure is an integral part of university culture, specifically its spirit of free inquiry to follow ideas where they may lead, even if this be out of favor with or anathema to society and governments of the time. The spirit of free inquiry is a habit of the mind, a way of approaching all questions to get closer to truth and understanding, whether convenient or not. Tenure is needed to nurture this habit and to sustain a campus culture that values such inquiry, not just tolerates it. You cannot be free when you have to fear for your job, whether from political and other pressures from outside the academy or from differing styles and ideological pressures from within academic units themselves. A habit of critical inquiry that is free of concerns for personal safety is particularly necessary in a profession that analyzes received knowledge critically and generates new ideas--both of these activities, by their very nature, may upset the status quo. There are many examples of ideas, inventions, and basic research that at one time were seen as esoteric, academic, and devoid of any relevance to society but later became absolutely central to society and to our lives. History also provides countless examples of ideas that at first were part of unorthodox thinking prevailing eventually over established opinions. Predictions being fallible, society or academic units themselves must not censor creative and critical inquiry. Every professorial faculty member needs to be free to pursue a particular line of research even if it does not follow the current bandwagon. Critics who attack "meaningless research" in our universities do not seem to understand the nature of inquiry. Often, they exempt the hard sciences because they somehow are intimidated when it comes to physics or mathematics but feel no similar inhibitions with regard to the humanities and social sciences. But the fact is that a large percentage of research is indeed "useless," even within the hard sciences, in that many lines of inquiry do not pan out or lead to lasting results. If we were to let politically appointed regents, supervisors, and board chairpersons decide what is meaningful and what should be permitted, free inquiry and scholarship would incur lasting damage. The only criterion for judging a particular line of research is whether it is original and well done, even if only a subset within the profession finds the line of inquiry interesting or meaningful. A factor that is usually lost in discussions on tenure is the long path that leads to it. Only a small fraction of all the graduate students aspiring to become professors eventually succeed, and then only after years of exams and hard work at low pay. A lucky few complete a doctorate and several years of postdoctoral research before getting tenure-track assistant professorships. At the end of six years, after every aspect of their teaching, research, scholarship, and service has been carefully evaluated by their peers within the university and by outside experts in their professions, some may be recommended for tenure. That recommendation is then examined by faculty and administrative committees at several levels before tenure is granted. The successful individual, therefore, has passed a series of stringent screenings. Typically, tenure accrues when the person is nearly 40 years old, with many years of service to the institution and the profession. In later years, too, periodic reviews from both within the university and external investigating teams judge faculty performance. It is true that all these reviews need continuing examination and, in many cases, tightening. (See a recent opinion piece: Cary Nelson, Chronicle of Higher Education, 44[22]:B4, Nov. 14, 1997, particularly on the importance of stringent hiring onto the tenure track to ensure against later underperforming tenured faculty.) If, nevertheless, a particular tenured professor is grossly negligent of duties or performs incompetently, it is possible to revoke tenure. Most universities, and the American Association of University Professors, have spelled out guidelines for doing this. Further, while critics of academia glibly throw around unsupported numbers as the "deadwood" at universities, they do not mention the fact that there is deadwood in any group in any society. In the world of business, there are plenty of failures, large and small, that end up hurting people. The spectacular ones cost shareholders and taxpayers billions of dollars while the CEOs involved, more often than not, walk away with millions in golden handshakes. The cost of the few who continue in tenured faculty ranks while underperforming, with their salaries frozen at what are not inordinately large amounts, pales in comparison. There is a current trend to advocate a "two-track career system," in which each faculty member would choose either a teaching or a research professorship. But these advocates are misinterpreting the wishes of many students and their parents who have expressed dissatisfaction that many courses, particularly in the first two years at major universities, are taught by teaching assistants and instructors and not by the more prestigious professors. However, the very prestige of these professors derives primarily from their research and scholarship. University teaching differs from that in a high school, involving not only the transmission of knowledge but also the cultivation of the mind. This requires the ability to think critically, creatively, and fearlessly--abilities that are best learned by example from professors who have the habit of doing so daily in their research and scholarly work. The distinguishing characteristic of the United States' system of higher education--one envied the world over as contributing to the strength of the nation's economy, and one that attracts thousands from abroad into U.S. higher educational institutions--is the housing of research and teaching under the same roof. The lively atmosphere and success of higher education rests on the synergy between classroom teaching and pioneering research and scholarship, between the generation of new knowledge and perspectives and the imparting of them to the next generation of students. Further, not only is the housing of research in universities of obvious benefit to graduate education, but also undergraduate students gain when they participate in research projects, getting "hands-on" experience in research and its intellectual demands. Dominique G. Homberger (E-mail: zodhomb@unix1.sncc.lsu.edu) and A. Ravi P. Rau (E-mail: phravi@lsu.edu) are professors, respectively, of biological sciences, and physics and astronomy, at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. The former Soviet Union and many parts of Asia and Europe followed a different model that compartmentalized research mainly in institutes, leaving teaching as the main concern of universities, a decoupling now widely recognized as a failure. Students who do not see their teachers engaged in research and the attendant wrestling with ideas and issues are unlikely to develop the attitudes and taste for it. The result is that most university graduates are ill-suited to later hiring by the research institutes that find--even when they are well funded--that they cannot get enough recruits for their projects. And the expertise and new perspectives gained by the institutes are wasted or at least take longer in percolating down to inform teaching in the universities. Thus, both the impoverished universities and the well-funded research institutes suffer, failing to reach their full potential. In all, the forced separation of teaching from research, whether in an individual or in an institution, will cripple both functions. Fortunately, the great private universities are less susceptible to politically motivated tinkerings by politicians and politically appointed state boards, and they will continue to set the standard for major universities--namely, that most faculty members are engaged in both classroom teaching and research and scholarship. If public universities under political pressure dismantle the structure that has made them great--and some comparable to the best of the private universities--even more of the top students and faculty will congregate in private universities in the future. Just as has occurred in other countries, the great majority of the students will be confined to the substandard education that the "reformed" public universities are bound to provide.

Preserve The Roles Of Tenure, Teaching, And Research

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