The Corporatization of University Libraries

The Chronicle recently published a piece discussing the effects of corporatization on academic libraries, which can have wide-ranging effects on undergraduate, graduate, and other scholarly research.

Why We Need Tenure

As a faculty member who is not eligible for and will never be eligible for tenure, I admit that I sometimes find it difficult to support a system that I can never enjoy. I can also admit that I have seen the tenure system abused: professors who are supposedly being protected for the purposes of academic freedom end up treating tenure instead as a shield against being fired for poor performance, teaching poorly (if they teach at all); lecturing about the same material the same way 20, 30, of 40 years later; nominally doing research, which sometimes means they go to conferences occasionally (if they go at all) while retreading old ground. I have also read the stories that suggest tenure is a myth anyway: if 70% of faculty are contingent as I am, that means 70% of faculty are not eligible for tenure, and that does not include the number of professors who are on the tenure track but have not yet received tenure; meanwhile, professors who do have tenure can be fired for causes that should be protected by tenure (e.g., espousing ideas or publishing research that criticizes institutions that provide funding to the school by which the professor is employed or that otherwise fly in the face of the establishment). Many of my friends who do not work in academia do not understand tenure since other professions do not have such a system in place, and it can be hard trying to explain why colleges and universities enjoy this privilege while other equally important institutions do not.


Nevertheless, tenure is an important system (ideal? goal?) that protects academic freedom and integrity. Cary Nelson, President of the AAUP, recently wrote an editorial in The Chronicle that argues why we must have tenure. Interestingly, Nelson targets the parents of college students in his article; given the amount of obscurity and controversy around tenure, his purpose is both to inform and to persuade.


I absolutely believe we need to reform the system, yes: let's extend eligibility to contingent faculty; let's compel universities to clarify their tenure requirements so that young faculty are not in the dark about how to achieve this coveted status; let's make sure that the requirements for receiving tenure are reasonable rather than Herculean; let's make sure abuse of tenure continues to be an anomaly rather than becoming a norm. But Nelson's reasons are valid. The comments on the article are also revealing about this controversial aspect of higher education.