I've always enjoyed novels set in academe. Even though many of them contain somewhat unflattering parodies of academic life, they can be very entertaining.
Lately, when I read news articles about U.S. universities, what I read reminds me of the fictional settings, characters, and plot lines of some of those novels. I don't, however, enjoy reading the nonfictional accounts, because their descriptions of academe are disturbing, not entertaining, and truly remote from my experience.
Is my life as a professor so different from the norm? Is my university unusual? I could be wrong, but from what I've seen, my experience is fairly typical of that of a science professor at a major research university. So why is there such a disconnect between apparently factual depictions of academe in newspapers and magazines, and my experiences as a professor? There are several possible explanations.
Some news accounts of academic issues are intended to be inflammatory. Especially in these difficult economic times, who wants to read about why professors need the lifetime job security that comes with tenure? Perhaps it is much more satisfying to read articles claiming that professors might, in fact, be harmed by tenure. A prime example is an August 11 article in Slate that was called "Finishing School: The case for getting rid of tenure."
When I read such articles, I can't relate to the claims that are made about how much most professors are paid (and from what sources), the role of academic freedom in our professional lives, the responsibility of professors for the publish-or-perish ethos, and the opinion that tenure "incentivizes" faculty members to maintain the status quo.
Like the vast majority of my colleagues, I am not freezing up "tens of millions of otherwise-liquid endowment money for a generation," as the Slate article suggests. I do the work I am supposed to do (teaching, research, advising, and service) in exchange for my salary. I bring money to the university in the form of grants that pay the salaries of students and other researchers. I did not slow down once I got tenure.
Teaching and research are not mutually exclusive. Undergraduates are not harmed if their professors also do research, even if research is of equal or greater priority compared with teaching. Certainly you could find spectacular examples of star researchers who are horrific teachers, and I feel great sympathy for students subjected to them. But the vast majority of professors I know who do research are also dedicated teachers.
The question of whether being a researcher makes someone a better teacher has been much debated. I am sure that the answer varies from person to person, but I know that being a researcher makes me a better teacher because doing research gives me new ideas and insights for teaching, even for courses I have taught many times before. I know many talented teachers who are intellectually engaged without being active researchers, but what works for me is to rejuvenate my courses via my research. Furthermore, being an effective researcher requires some of the same skills that we need to be effective teachers: To get grants and publish our results, we need to be able to communicate what we did in a clear and compelling way, and explain to nonspecialists why our work is important. So, too, do we need to do that with the concepts, facts, and ideas we want to teach our students.
In addition, I typically advise undergraduates who are active members of my research group. I request money in my grant proposals to pay the students' stipends and research expenses, and I help them write their own proposals. My colleagues all do the same. Some of those students decide that they want to continue on to graduate school and pursue more research; others decide that that is the last thing they want to do. Either way, we all learn something.
Research is valuable to a university in some ways that can be quantified, and in many ways that can't, such as the creation of a stimulating intellectual environment (presumably a good thing at a university) and the involvement of students (undergraduate and graduate) in research. We are training the next generation of researchers who are going to invent things, cure diseases, and/or provide new insights about the world (past, present, future). Despite the claims made by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus in their book, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids, and What We Can Do About It, research activities are not responsible for the inadequate emphasis on undergraduate education at some universities.
The effect of tenure on professorial productivity is misunderstood and misrepresented. Deadwood professors do exist, and I think many professors would agree that some sort of constructive post-tenure review, with real consequences, would help with those few problem cases. Nevertheless, most of us do not kick back and spend our days on the golf course or polishing the fixtures on our yachts. Most of us continue to care about teaching and research after we get tenure.
It can take years to build a research group, attract a good cohort of graduate students and postdocs, and keep everything up and running well. By the time some of us get tenure, our research group is rolling and things are getting interesting. Tenure gives us the freedom to spend more time delving into problems, to try riskier ideas that may or may not pay off as quickly with an interesting discovery, and to organize larger-scale collaborative projects than we could pre-tenure—just as tenure is supposed to do.
After tenure, our service commitments ramp up, and we serve on committees at our own university and beyond. Some of us edit journals and hold other positions in professional organizations. And we spend a lot of time advising students and other researchers, helping them reach their career goals. Most of us are busier after tenure than we were before. Universities get what they pay for: hard-working faculty members.
When I look at my colleagues in my own department, elsewhere at my university, and at other universities, I see a large group of dedicated, highly active people. The problem cases are vastly outnumbered by faculty members who care about both teaching and research.
Some of the disconnect between what I read and what I live as a science professor may be related to the fact that the debate is dominated by writers immersed in the humanities. But I don't see this as a humanities-versus-science-and-engineering issue. Although most of my colleagues are scientists, I see the same care for research and teaching when I serve on interdisciplinary committees and interact with faculty members from the humanities. It therefore puzzles me that the image of the overpaid, tenured, deadbeat professor is so pervasive, and that some of the severest criticism comes from within academe.
Of course universities need reform. Of course we should improve how we integrate research and teaching and how we guide students and other researchers. But we don't need to start by pointing fingers at hard-working professors who earn average-to-high five-figure salaries. I would also suggest that the actual time we spend on teaching-related activities (not just the scheduled hours of class time) should be considered in discussions of how much professors work. And, finally, reports on any crises in higher education should include serious consideration of the benefits that research brings to universities, including to undergraduate education.
Comments
1. fiona - September 16, 2010 at 03:31 am
This is a very good column. I'll only add that the image of the deadwood research university humanities professor presupposes that someone would go to grad school for a decade (it takes 11 years on the average to get an English Ph.D.), then spend 6 years arduously writing a book for tenure--and then, at 40 or so, suddenly decide not to write or read or think again.
That's an arduous and very risky way to get to the deadwood state, especially since the vast majority of humanities Ph.Ds don't get tenure track jobs anyway. Who's that crazy?
If we didn't love our subject matters, we wouldn't do this career.
2. landrumkelly - September 16, 2010 at 06:36 am
Your arguments would yet have a lot more force if you signed your name. If it is isn't worth signing, then it isn't worth sending or submitting.
Landrum Kelly, Jr.
3. rickw - September 16, 2010 at 06:40 am
During the past summer a group of faculty at my university took up the task of working with an important but financially and organizationally troubled local non-profit institution. The majority of the faculty involved were senior, tenured faculty. Their experience and the insight gained by both their academic ability and dedication to community service, including a wide array of research projects, made them indispensable in helping an important community assest start the process of reorganizaiton and moving into the future.
None of the tenured faculty involved seemed to coasting to retirement, or uniformed as to the challenges facing non-profits in the current economic environment. In fact they were especially valuable because of their experience and the validation tenure extended to them via recognition of their maturation as scholars and doers, and the fact that they did not have to walk on eggshells around administrators seeking to create the New American University Sweatshop.
So tell me again, what is the problem with the 30% of us left in higher education who have tenure or a tenure-track position? Perhaps the status and security tenure provides is not such a bad thing after all. We're not getting older and lazier, we're damn good at what we do and would like a little respect.
4. 22027212 - September 16, 2010 at 06:54 am
I disagree, Landrum Kelly, Jr. I don't need to know Female Science Professor's name to be persuaded by her column. Thank you, FSP, for writing a fine and reasonable defense of what we professors do and for including those of us in the humanities.
5. rab60 - September 16, 2010 at 07:46 am
Tenure is not a guarantee of "lifetime job security." It is a guarantee of a process which must be followed in order to fire a tenured professor. That process includes a faculty review, etc. Faculty with tenure who do not do their job can be fired. I've seen it done.
6. dashwood - September 16, 2010 at 08:22 am
This is a beautifully written column that conveys well the essence of what it means (and should mean) to be a tenured professor. Well done, FSP!
The one thing that I would say is that, unfortunately, there are some faculty members who take advantage of tenure and who do their universities and students a disservice by failing to remain productive in research and/or teaching. Of course post-tenure review can solve some of this problem if utilized properly. But I find that the "deadwood" problem is usually predictable based on pre-tenure productivity. In my experience (public R1) there is often pressure to promote colleagues with borderline research records, but these borderline cases for promotion and tenure rarely become more productive after tenure. The individuals who are very productive are the ones like FSP, who demonstrates in her column a love for the research enterprise and a keen interest in integrating her research life into her teaching life. Her students are better for it.
For me, all this suggests that cases for promotion and tenure should be very clear. I suspect that FSP and her colleagues were not weak or borderline cases in their pre-tenure years. We in higher education can help to overcome at least some of the perceptions relating to high-paid tenured deadwood by holding firm on promotion and tenure standards in the first place. Many of us do, but others do not.
7. educationfrontlines - September 16, 2010 at 09:05 am
Unmentioned is the fact that yet-to-be-tenured assistant professors may remain quiet or self-censor themselves in their roles in faculty governance and curriculum oversight since they feel vulnerable if they oppose pressure to inflate grades (increase retention) or offer coursework that is inappropriate online just to gain SCH. Sometimes there may be no greater gift to a tuition-driven administrator than a curriculum committee full of untenured faculty. Once tenured, this timidity can remain a habit.
I see few "deadwood" tenured professors in my region, but there may be an occasional problem with faculty promotion committees not fulfilling their gatekeeping duties. But it only takes a competent administrator to get rid of an incompetent faculty member, so if there are incompetent faculty members....
Landrum Kelly, Jr. has a very good point about signing our names. Just exactly what does it say when we try to remain anonymous, especially when communicating about a concept that is intended to protect/nurture appropriate criticism without vindictiveness?
John Richard Schrock
8. tuxthepenguin - September 16, 2010 at 09:31 am
Great article. I have a long comment about two additional points.
The myth that the majority of tenured professors are deadwood misses one vital observation: most of us are not paid well enough to go without a raise for the next 30 years. Yes, there are deadwood professors, and I've seen their salaries.
There is also an assumption that the academic world is different from the professional working world (doctors, lawyers, managers) in this respect. The ability to fire is not the primary motivational tool for working professionals. They have financial incentives to work hard. The same is true of tenured faculty.
On the question of "research vs teaching". This question implies that only introductory (freshman and sophomore) undergraduate courses is "real teaching".
If your university is offering the senior-level undergraduate courses that it should be offering, then research is not optional. I know that some would say you can "keep current" without doing research. That's BS from those who are too lazy/disinterested to actually learn the latest research.
Beyond that, however, the places where research expectations are high offer graduate programs. Graduate teaching is real teaching, and it is not controversial to say you need to do research to be qualified to teach graduate courses.
9. andrewhacker - September 16, 2010 at 09:59 am
Dear Science Professor: Two comments:
(1) Since you have a guarantee of lifetime employment, this is supposed to give you the courage to express your views openly.
(Unlike intimidated assistant professors.) So why don't you write under your own name and institutional affiliation? Your apparent fear to do so, shows that tenure doesn't work.
(2) It was so nice to read your self-assessments. You give yourself the grade of A for both your teaching and research.
Since you have tenure, you should be secure enough to give us the full range of your student evaluations. And since your research is so groundshaking, are you being inundated with offers from higher-tier institutions?
Keep up your A work! Cordinally, Andrew Hacker.
10. texasguy - September 16, 2010 at 10:14 am
If I could add something to this excelleny column, it would be to say that academia has three ways to penalize deadwood professors. First, they never get promoted to full professor. Second, they get no raises. Third, they often are given an increased teaching load.
I know the case of a full professor whose yearly salary is less than 25 percent of the salary of the highest paid faculty in the department.
11. 11328851 - September 16, 2010 at 10:33 am
I don't think the "deadwood" issue is about reduced productivity... it's lack of innovation that is the key characteristic of isolated, comfortable academia. That and a real lack of true community participation (speaking very generally here, mind you... wonderful exceptions abound).
12. soc_sci_anon - September 16, 2010 at 10:42 am
I'd take texasguy's second penalty a bit further. Tenure does not guarantee your salary. If you're only doing half the work that is expected of you, your university has the right to pay you half salary, tenured or not. Assigning a pay *cut* to an individual faculty member requires an enormous amount of paperwork and administrative energy, just like any potentially litigious HR decision in the private sector. But, it can be done.
As for Slate: this isn't the first such article that sacrifices fact and logic to the altar of contrarianism.
13. cwinton - September 16, 2010 at 10:45 am
I have to agree with tuxthepenguin (#8). Ctitics of tenure inevitably resort to anecdotal examples, the likes of which are present in any organization, public or private (and lampooned regularly in Dilbert). The award of tenure protects faculty from arbitrary behavior of future administrations, not from failure to do their jobs. Faculty tend to be workaholics, especially those who make it to tenure-track positions. From my rather lengthy time in the professoriate, I saw few actual cases of dead wood, and virtually none of those were slackers in the sense of what one encounters in the private sector (i.e., to maintain their employment they did what they were assigned to do in a minimally satisfactory manner, but fell short in the eyes of others regarding their course materials, failure to carry their share of administration, or failure to noticeably pursue any form of intellectual development). I also witnessed a small number of cases of real (tenured) slackers who lost their jobs after the kind of due process one would expect from any employer.
14. quoog - September 16, 2010 at 11:08 am
I feel uncomfortable reading such an article written anonymously. She is just stating her own view of herself and her department, which might differ considerably from the views of an objective outsider. We really have no way of knowing whether or not she is keeping pace with her pre-tenure research. I think it would be hard to admit otherwise. I'm sure she's not "deadwood" but it's really not for her to judge herself, or even her department.
As for the deadwood issue, I am in the sciences and I have seen departments with lots of inactive professors. They tend not to be the best departments and also were hired in an era when the standards were lower. I think with the increasing competitive job markets though this will decline with time.
15. travisnturner - September 16, 2010 at 11:40 am
If a person is so productive as claimed above, they have no need for tenure. They would gladly embrace no tenure because it means that standout professors would make more, while the unproductive ones would have to find new jobs. Instead, all professors are lumped together and get the same 1.2% pay raise.
16. neoconned - September 16, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for writing an article that is neither self-flagellating or sensationalist. Much of the deadwood problem could be eliminated by having a rigorous tenure process that functions as a true gatekeeper. Departments that do not have the courage to deny tenure to faculty who are non-productive or problematic because of lack of courage, mispaced sympathy, etc., may deserve the deadwood they get but they do a disservice to their entire university. Post-tenure review at research institutions should come ever 5 or 6 years; colleagues who are not productive in research should be reassigned to a teaching stream (6 or 8 courses instead of 4) with the opportunity to move back to the research stream on their next review.
17. tuxthepenguin - September 16, 2010 at 01:06 pm
@neoconned
That's what happens at my university, automatically, and not after 5 years. That policy is independent of tenure. You will, with no publications in a five-year period, be teaching 8 courses per year.
@travisnturner
"If a person is so productive as claimed above, they have no need for tenure."
Tenure protects faculty members doing politically unpopular research and teaching. Your comment is not relevant.
"They would gladly embrace no tenure because it means that standout professors would make more, while the unproductive ones would have to find new jobs."
Why would standout professors make more than they do now? How does tenure protect the unproductive professors? If they are not meeting the minimum requirements for productivity, they can be fired, with or without tenure.
"Instead, all professors are lumped together and get the same 1.2% pay raise."
What does this have to do with tenure? (Aside from the fact that your statement is false at most universities.) Tenure has absolutely nothing to do with how raises are handed out. That's a matter of university policy.
18. neoconned - September 16, 2010 at 04:00 pm
@tuxthepenguin
that's very interesting. i'm genuinely curious as to how it has been working. has the system been effective? do faculty who are put on the 8 course load have the opportunity to re-classify as reseaerch-stream after a subsequent 5-year review? have faculty been happy with he policy? has it resulted, do you think, in more research activity on the part of faculty? and, perhaps, just as importantly, quality research (as opposed to, uh oh, it's been 4 years I'd better place something somewhere...)?
19. facultydiva - September 16, 2010 at 05:49 pm
#13 is correct about the anecdotal evidence. The professor who mows his lawn at 2pm is seen by others as slacking. However, no one bothers to see that the professor may have taught two morning classes and has another night class which will be over at 9pm or later. If they stay to answer student questions, they may not get home before 10pm. Since they are still wired from teaching class, they might write until 2am instead of going to bed at 11. But since they don't sit in their office from 9-5 like their neighbors do, they are considered to have it easy whereas the 9-5 neighbor might be able to leave work at 5 and be done with it until the next day.
20. tuxthepenguin - September 16, 2010 at 05:53 pm
@neoconned
On the last question, we have a list describing in detail what is acceptable research activity. The standard is not too high. It doesn't result in high quality research. It wouldn't be difficult to modify the system if we wanted to though.
It's not that we have a five-year review or anything like that. We have an annual review (for determining the merit raise) when the numbers get crunched. If a certain amount of time has passed without meeting the minimum requirements, you go to a teaching load of 6 courses a year. If you still haven't published, the next year it goes to 7, and then the year after to 8.
As soon as you meet the minimum research productivity, you immediately return to 4 courses a year.
Not many faculty have had their teaching loads raised, so I would say it works pretty well. Nobody has ever complained about the policy. It's written out carefully in a document that's available for anyone to see. If someone doesn't like it, he/she can propose changes for a vote of the faculty.
21. neoconned - September 17, 2010 at 12:39 am
@tuxthepenguin
sounds pretty reasonable. can i ask what the institution is?
22. unusedusername - September 17, 2010 at 10:57 am
@tuxthepenguin
I agree. That is a great policy. An added advantage is that it provides tenure for people who would rather teach than do a lot of research. Unlike Female Science Professor, I don't believe you have to do much research to be an effective teacher. Arguments like "Undergraduates are not harmed if their professors also do research, even if research is of equal or greater priority compared with teaching." tend to be self-serving: made by people rationalizing their personal preference for research over teaching.
I will defend Female Science Professor's anonymity, for 2 reasons:
Anonymous writing prevents personal attacks. "You only think that because you're a _____" doesn't work. Anonymity forces you to address the argument, not the person.
Anonymous writing, just like the secret ballot, prevents people from being intimidated or fired for expressing their views. Frankly, there are some views that I express on this blog that I wouldn't want my bosses knowing about. If that makes me a coward, so be it.
23. dr_mcmom - September 17, 2010 at 11:50 pm
I don't have tenure yet, but I hope to. Nevertheless, I'm not striving for tenure. I just thoroughly enjoy what I'm doing - I love teaching my grad students - in the class and in the context of research. I love research! So, in my (naive) worldview, tenure is a by-product of doing well what one loves to do.
Ditto w/ promotion to full. Those who simply love their work, whether teaching, research, etc., and do it well (as demonstrated by the standards of their fields and institutions) will likely earn tenure and promotion. The full profs I've seen don't stop working. They might shift focus, including putting aside their own research to help others, taking on tremendous service loads, etc., but I've yet to meet a full prof in my dept who is languishing on his/her yacht (never mind we're land-locked! LOL).
24. panacea - September 19, 2010 at 08:55 pm
"Landrum Kelly, Jr. has a very good point about signing our names. Just exactly what does it say when we try to remain anonymous, especially when communicating about a concept that is intended to protect/nurture appropriate criticism without vindictiveness? "
Nonsense. Anonymous writing has a long history in this country; many of the Federalist Papers, and other major criticisms of various sorts in the early history of the US were written under psuedonyms like "Publius", "Brutus", and "Cato."
25. csgirl - September 20, 2010 at 08:11 am
Female Science Professor is a well known blogger. I follow her blog myself. I presume that she is using her blog name so that people WILL, in some sense, know who she is. If she used her real name, people would not connect this article with the blog as readilly.
26. 988776 - September 20, 2010 at 08:50 am
Good grief. Who cares if she signs her name or not? She has a regular column that sometimes addresses difficult issues that might actually require anonymity. It's just an opinion, anyway. Would it really matter if she put "Jane Doe" at the bottom?
Also, good points on productivity after tenure. In our department it was definitely the contested cases that slipped through that are now problematic. People don't change.
27. texasraised - September 20, 2010 at 09:15 am
To build on the first point, the collapse of science journalism at major news outlets has contributed much to the wrong-headed state of news articles about the university workplace.
1) How many journalists know that this country has over 4000 colleges and universities which are autonomous from a ministry or department of education by design? And, because they are autonomous then no two are alike. So how can any journalist generalize? To do so would the same as lumping USA Today, CNN, Fox News with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
2) Of these 4000, only 700 actively combine research and teaching in the form of integrated scholarship. Scholarship built on both is the cutting edge of modern learning. Let's conduct a survey: how many journalists attended one of these 700? And how many attended one of the 62 elite AAU universities? And even the journalist did attend then one must remember that a student's experience bears no resemblance to the faculty and administrative workplace.
3) Let's re-think making all kinds of journalism stronger. Hold workshops, residency stints and writing classes -- all at major research universities.
28. new_theologian - September 20, 2010 at 01:39 pm
I agree that there is no good reason to think that tenure would lead to professorial slacking. Although, some institutions deny tenure on that basis (at least as their official reason)--I can state that for a fact.
One thing is clear to me. If an institution wants a faculty who will really participate in governance and speak their minds openly, the institution will award tenure to make that possible. When faculty can be fired for seeming disagreeable, argumentative, or insubordinate, your articulated policies don't matter. Your policy of keeping faculty perpetually vulnerable trumps any other procedure you may think affords them protection. They will be very careful about what they say and in what forum. That will be bad for institutional growth.
It is also the case that professors have to be able to explore controversial theses. The whole point of original research is that there is not a prevening body of proof, and that the thesis is unproven and possibly wrong. But if we don't create a guarantee of a professor's right to explore these theses, then the work will never be done. In an age in which it virtually impossible to get a post without a doctorate, we would have to ask ourselves what on earth we were doing. Why would we insist upon hiring only people with doctorates if we didn't intent to make possible the very sort of discovery we associate with that level of education? Why not just hire a bunch of master's-qualified faculty and tell them only to teach from the established body of knowledge, leaving exploration to the doctorally-qualified at other institutions?