COLLOQUY

"I just dropped out of the market for a tenure-track position because of three stories..."

-- Anonymous (posted 4/3, 1:30 p.m., E.S.T.)

"Perhaps tenure can be tuned and adjusted to changing conditions of modern academic life and some of its institutional and financial concerns, and perhaps..."

--James Fenelon, Assistant Professor, John Carroll University, University Heights, Ohio (posted 3/31, 9 a.m., E.S.T.)

"Tenure is poisoning academia. We all know how adjuncts are being mistreated by this system, but newly hired "tenure track" faculty are put in a position of eating large amounts of..."

--Patricia Stoll, Adjunct Faculty, Harper and Wright Colleges, Illinois (posted 3/21, 5 p.m., E.S.T.)

"I can speak only for my own field of chemistry, but Brendan McManus' proposed salary alignment seems..."

--Rebecca M. Chamberlin, Technical Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M. (posted 3/19, 6:20 p.m., E.S.T.)

"I speak as one who has worked in a college that does not have a tenure system. I have been here for 11 years. I have also..."

--Kenneth J. Zanca, Professor, Marymount College, Palos Verdes, Cal. (posted 3/19, 11:20 a.m., E.S.T.)

"Part of the difficulty in discussing the issues of academic freedom, job security, and tenure is that the three have become conflated in our discourse. I offer a set of questions that..."

--Kerry S. Kilburn, Lecturer, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va. (posted 3/13, 12:40 p.m., E.S.T.)

"I have yet to see, here or elsewhere, an argument in favor of tenure which would not equally apply to virtually all other occupations. Like journalists, lawyers, farmers, and any other group with organized political clout, we are constantly..."

--Stan VerNooy, Instructor, Gateway Technical College, Batesville, Ark. (posted 3/6, 10:30 a.m., E.S.T.)

"I would have no problem at all with eliminating tenure if college professors earned, on the average, as much as other professionals with significant postgraduate education. How about an average of..."

--Brendan McManus, Adjunct Lecturer in Medieval History, State University of New York, Oneonta, N.Y. (posted 3/2, 7 p.m., E.S.T.)

"I have just witnessed the issuance of a terminal contract to a tenure-track faculty member who was keenly intelligent, well liked by his students, a fine and newly published scholar whose real crime was..."

--Gerald Davey, Assistant Professor, Trinity University, San Antonio, Tex. (posted 2/28, 11:45 a.m., E.S.T.)

"C. Peter Magrath asks, "If freedom of expression and intellectual exploration can be guaranteed, contractually or otherwise, then what is wrong with the concept of long-term employment contracts for faculty members, which would offer far more job security than most of our fellow citizens have?" The answer has two parts..."

--Anonymous Professor, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Edinboro, Pa. (posted 2/28, 10:15 a.m., E.S.T.)

"This may be the single toughest issue at the governing-board level. Board members are frequently pragmatists, fully imbued with..."

--Jim Kaze, Montana Board of Regents, Havre, Mont. (posted 2/27, 11:30 a.m., E.S.T.)

"Dr. Magrath presents an administrator's point of view. I do not believe that Dr. Magrath has been in a situation where he needed tenure to protect his academic freedom. Speaking as a faculty member..."

--Mark A. Prelas, Professor, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. (posted 2/27, 11:15 a.m., E.S.T.)

"The reason tenure is needed in higher education has less to do with what happens inside the classroom or in publications than with the..."

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

"Tenure, as it currently exists, doesn't protect academic freedom. Getting tenure requires getting through five to eight years without offending anyone. It's a system that..."

--Toni Levi, Washington (posted 2/26, 2:30 p.m., E.S.T.)

"I see both sides in the tenure debate, but as a part-time faculty member, I think..."

--Victoria Shannon, Instructor, DePaul University, Chicago, Ill. (posted 2/26, 9 a.m., E.S.T.)

"Indeed Janet, to stop at only eliminating tenure would be a bad solution, since it would still leave the administrative hierarchy in place to bend those below them to their political will. A solution of Kelly Services would simply..."

--Tom Billings, President, Institute for Teleoperated Space Development, Oregon (posted 2/25, 10:30 a.m., E.S.T.)

"Peter Magrath's article about eliminating tenure didn't really surprise me..."

--Janet, Unemployed Ph.D. in Sociology, Ohio (posted 2/24, 5:15 p.m., E.S.T.)

"There is virtually nothing in Mr. Magrath's piece with which I can agree. I especially condemn his base toadying to the..."

--Robert C. Marshall, Associate Professor and Chairman, Department of Anthropology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Wash. (posted 2/24, 3:15 p.m., E.S.T.)

"The worst possible argument for abolishing tenure is that since industry treats people like Kleenex, so should academia. Industry's predisposition to string employees along on short-term contracts and then drop them at a whim is inhumane and counterproductive, although it's not surprising that..."

--Marc Mentzer, Associate Professor of Industrial Relations and Organizational Behaviour, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada (posted 2/24, 2:45 p.m., E.S.T.)

"I have just read Bill's comments about possible reprisals by newly tenured faculty. It sounds as though..."

--Dan Powroznik, Professor, Chesapeake College, Wye Mills, Md. (posted 2/24, 2:45 p.m., E.S.T.)

"Years ago, on the back page of The Chronicle was an article called "Veritas at Harvard." The article gave adequate evidence that members of the faculty at Harvard were hounded out of their jobs during the McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s. The lingering feeling I got..."

--James R. Brett, Director, Office of University Research, California State University, Long Beach, Cal. (posted 2/24, 2:30 p.m., E.S.T.)

"As a staff/administrative employee of eight years, I have seen that problems revolving around tenure cannot be prevented due to the process. Professors will behave admirably until..."

--Bill, Research Assistant, Southern University System, Baton Rouge, La. (posted 2/24, 11 a.m., E.S.T.)