COLLOQUY

The reason tenure is needed in higher education has less to do with what happens inside the classroom or in publications than with the difficulties attendant upon the desire to let all defensible positions be argued within the university itself. Academic decisions as well as discussions become contentious. Tenure provides a containment vessel within which people must work things out together, because they know that they will have to continue to work as productively as possible with these same people for years to come. As a result, in the best cases, faculty members are required to let their approaches and presuppositions be questioned, because the questioners are assured of a seat at the discussion. Even in the worst cases, faculty cannot indulge in the kind of solipsism which would surely occur if inconvenient colleagues could simply be dismissed.

--Michael Slusser, Associate Professor of Theology, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pa. (posted 2/26, 4:15 p.m., E.S.T.)