After posting “Are Universities a Thing of the Past?”, I have come across a few interesting changes in the subject sent to me which I would like to share with you on this subject.
Two very important changes have been made since my departure at our university which might be of interest to my readers. Many colleges and universities are doing away with tenure. For those who may not be familiar with this term, I will explain.
“Tenure, length and conditions of office in civil, judicial, academic, and similar services. Security of tenure, usually granted in the civil service and in academic appointments after a probationary period, is considered an essential condition of maintaining the independence and freedom of those services from political or partisan control. Judges in the permanent judiciary, for example, hold office during “good behavior”—i.e., for life. Tenure, in services in which it is granted, can be terminated only on grounds of serious misconduct, incompetence, or behavior. Such allegations have to be considered by a duly constituted body”.
To many, this sounds like a guaranteed, lifelong government job and at face value, you may be correct. Gaining tenure does give the person a more secure feeling with their job continuance. The sentence “Tenure, in services in which it is granted, can be terminated only on grounds of serious misconduct, incompetence, or behavior”, is often times overlooked by those opposing its use. Tenure is only continued as long as the percipient is doing his/her job. The most important factor in this last statement is the fact that a person’s value and accompaniments are determined by the person doing the evaluation. In my case, tenure was valuable for my continued employment. I was granted tenure in the minimum amount of time by my department head.
Being tenured did not affect my contribution to the department in any way other than encouraging me to work even harder to sustain my employment. It is true that some faculty members will begin to coast after receiving this job assurance. I observed this even at our university. There will always be those kinds of people. In other words, the granting of tenure is a good thing as long as the recipient continues to perform at the expected level. Unfortunately, the granting of tenure can be miss used if the evaluation process is not tainted by bias or favoritism which I have also witnessed.
Now that the term tenure has been defined, I will discuss the two changes being implemented currently in colleges and universities around the country which will never be addressed on most television stations and newspapers.
- Universities are now beginning to phase out the option of tenure positions.
This move will drastically change the number and quality of job applicants applying for positions at our upper levels of educational institutions. Few individuals applying for these positions will want to be considered if there is no reasonable assurance of continued employment. The typical person applying for these positions will be the ones who are willing to take a chance on this move.
- Universities are now beginning to hire new faculty at lower levels of experience. There are so many college/university graduates entering the market that it is a buyer’s choice.
The less experienced educator is willing to forgo the tenure incentive in order to get a job. Gone are the days that well qualified applicants with years of successful achievements will be considered for an open position.
You may ask why these changes are being impediment and that is a very good question. The answer is very simple. Colleges and Universities are willing to hire the less experienced students and eliminate tenure for the simple reason that the positions can be filled for much less money than they are now experiencing.
Attempts to lower cost is not new in the field of education for earlier attempts were called term contracts. In this case, a person is hired for a specific period of time, usually for a couple years and at that time their position is fill by another applicant. This does keep the cost down but also creates a revolving door policy which has been proven to lower the quality of the program.
In closing I would like to address these new policies by saying that cutting cost and removing job security at the higher levels of education will have long term effects on our colleges and universities.
If you believe that it will not affect America, I suggest you look no further than China for this is one reason why we are never going to even catch up to the Communist State let alone return to dominance in the world market.
