In a recent comment to an earlier posting of mine on this site (Tenure: Part II), Marc Bousquet asks that I elaborate on my suggestion that faculty be given more flexibility in changing their career paths and wonders why I appear to be pushing faculty out the door at the same time that I am suggesting ways to provide administrators with more job security. Here is a reply:
The two posts — “Safety Nets” and “Tenure, Part II” — are apples and oranges and not linked the way you imply. That is to say, the safety net suggested for administrators is proposed in order to protect administrators from retaliation in much the same manner that tenured faculty’s words and deeds are protected. Otherwise, arbitrary dismissals will negatively affect not only future hires but present performances, as well. See, for example, William and Mary and also Delaware State University.
My comments about providing vehicles for faculty mobility are made not with the intention that faculty will be asked to leave their institutions, but rather that they not feel bound to stay when they themselves would prefer to be otherwise engaged. The story I recounted about the faculty member who was afraid to risk her tenure at College A after Famous University B made her an offer but said she’d have to wait two years before coming up for tenure is a true one — no poetic license taken. Tenure makes one cautious and for good reason. The promise of lifetime employment is wonderful. But it can also steal our capacity for risk taking, not always a good thing. So, how to restore an appetite for novelty?
Institutions of higher education have traditionally been humane places for all constituencies — faculty, students and staff. Over the past 50 years, schools have expanded benefits for all parties. What I am proposing is another benefit — ways to creatively allow retooling for faculty. For example: Tuition remission allows faculty to take additional courses should they wish to retrain in another discipline. Sabbaticals are good but restricted. How about paid internships — mini or different kinds of sabbaticals — to apprentice in fields they would like to consider, in much they same way we offer students internships? How about fellowships similar to what ACE offers to nascent administrators — job shadowing? I’m sure our colleagues have many other suggestions.
I worked as a lawyer for the Federal government for about three years before I realized it was not the career path that I envisioned. I could probably have stayed forever. Perhaps, if I were older with a family and kids I would have. But I was single and young. So I took risks. I moved and moved again and moved again and yet again. People need to be assisted in retooling and reinventing as well as protected from adverse circumstances. For example, captains in the Navy are often allowed to become ROTC professors at universities. The federal government has a program that permits some civil servants to teach at universities or work for NGO’s while receiving compensation and benefits from Uncle Sam.
My idea is to look for ways to liberate faculty in mid-life to have aspirations and flexibilities similar to the ones they had when young and fancy-free.
Tenure is meant to protect professors from others, not themselves. It is meant to liberate them, not constrain them, make them risk-averse, or limit their horizons by making the price of trying something else confiscatory. Providing access to new career opportunities for a 45-year-old faculty member, who, when after two decades in the classroom, on second thought, might like to try something else, should be liberating not threatening. It will take some resources and imagination. What is surprising is that an idea like this hasn’t come from the AAUP rather than a beloved ex-university president.
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