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[wd813]

I have applied for a couple of chair positions and one ad read, "Associate Professor, Tenure-track", while the other ad read, "Tenure-track/Tenured".  I know that I really won't consider either position (if lucky enough to get an interview) without tenure.  After reading the recent post from dandywarhol, I was wondering a couple of things:

1.  Have you or anyone you know accepted a chair position without tenure? If so, why no tenure with the appt., and how'd it work out?  What was the timeline before tenure was granted?

2. Do universities, search committees, etc. really expect that someone will take a chair position without tenure or are they just hoping someone will?

I really don't want to work on any syllabi.....

Thanks for any comments.

[scheherazade]

FWIW, my undergrad advisor was chair in his tenure year.  'Course, it's an extra-small department in an LAC (think 3-4 profs in the dept.), so YMMV.

Man, I'm rather, acronym-laden, tonight, aren't I?

(Oh, and yes, he got tenure.)

[larryc]

We are desperate for a new chair right now and the administration has been saying "well, there is no rule that the chair has to be tenured...."  No rule maybe but common sense dictates as much.

I would go ahead and apply then demand tenure if offered the job. Some institutions may not be able to offer tenure to a new hire, but they should realize that it is going to make if hard to recruit chairs from the outside.

[aandsdean]

We are desperate for a new chair right now and the administration has been saying "well, there is no rule that the chair has to be tenured...."  No rule maybe but common sense dictates as much.

I would go ahead and apply then demand tenure if offered the job. Some institutions may not be able to offer tenure to a new hire, but they should realize that it is going to make if hard to recruit chairs from the outside.

It depends.  I went to a new chair job w/o tenure (state rule there).  The 86% raise I got made it pretty tempting even without tenure.  Also, knowing that my work was more than comparable to the tenured faculty's in the department, and that I wasn't going to have any problem with teaching evaluations, made it not that hard. 

I suppose it's partly contingent on the kind of chair job it is.  That one was a "chair for life" position with a pretty big salary, a greatly reduced teaching load, and a great deal of power--as much as I have now in some instances as dean in a different setup.  I would never have moved into a less attractive position without tenure.  My current job came with tenure, but I do believe I am the first person ever to be hired to tenure at this institution.

You do need to be careful.

[dandywarhol]

I've been thinking about what has been said about "how" tenure is earned--that perhaps there is a difference between earning it the old fashioned way (through School, College, and University review, then Provost and President) vs. getting it as a consequence of an administrative position (i.e. we are offering you a chair position, so we are also offering you tenure).  But wouldn't either process require an intensive review of one's research, teaching, and service credentials?

I would NOT go to battle in the position I am looking at unless tenure was a part of the offer.  Can you imagine trying to make difficult decisions with the prospect of someone voting against you at your review because of those decisions.  It doesn't add up.

I am curious how administration at my CURRENT university would respond if I told them that I had been offered a chair position (perhaps with tenure) at XXX University.  Would they care?  Would they do anything?  Conincidentally, at the moment, the department I am currently in is looking for a chair, as well.  But no one has approached me about whether I would be interested--largely because I don't have tenure at the moment.

[wd813]

"Can you imagine trying to make difficult decisions with the prospect of someone voting against you at your review because of those decisions.  It doesn't add up."

I absolutely agree.  In addition to perhaps having to make difficult personnel decisions with/about those who may one day vote on your tenure, I believe it's the chair's job to be the chief advocate for the department.  However, if one is concerned about their own job (which, I don't care where one is or how good their tenure case is, everyone worries to some degree) one can't possibly give their total attention to the needs of the department if worried about their own employment.  As a faculty member I expect the chair to "go to bat" for us, but I realize he/she has to have some sort of security (=tenure) to do that.

So, again, I wonder if SC's write tenure-track in their ads, but realize, a smart person applying for a chair position is going to want/need tenure to do the job that the department is hiring them to do.

[dr_strangelove]

I know someone who was hired as a chair. The school's original plan was to have him go through the tenure process his first year, but he convinced them as part of the negotiations to do an expedited review during that current year (i.e. his last at his old institution), and they did, so he was tenured when he started. BTW, he was full professor at his old school.

[prof_tournesol]

I interviewed for a chair position three years ago and in meeting with the provost was told in no uncertain terms that neither I nor my spouse would be granted immediate tenure if we took the job(s). I thanked him and changed the topic to something having nothing to do with the job since I was no longer considering accepting under any conceivable circumstances.

Their search failed, btw, and then it failed again the next year and then I think they hired someone internally. I'm sure their strong position on tenure worked out the best for them.

[wd813]

In line with what we've been discussing on this thread as well as others...

Today I saw a chair position advertised, again, with a later deadline.  Originally the ad ran in the early fall with a December (I think) deadline.  Now the ad has a February deadline. 

Either something quirky happened and the SC had to re-run the and extend the deadline, or they didn't get enough qualified applicants, if any applicants at all.

This is pretty well known college and I really thought they'd have no problems.  Guess it shows that finding people who want to be chair isn't easy.

[sibyl]

It's right that most significant chairships need to be filled with persons with tenure.  (Departments of one, or departments where the chair has minimal decision-making authority or responsibility, are excluded.)  That said, it's at least understandable that institutions are reluctant to make hires with tenure, since they often create animosity among the faculty who are not thus hired.  ("She would never have gotten tenure here if she'd had to go through the regular process," "They obviously don't value my work if they give him tenure, since my pubs record is much better," etc.)  It makes it that much harder for a chair to make unpopular decisions if she is also the focus of animosity.  So to some extent a strict no-tenure policy suggests a consideration for the faculty and the regular process.  Which is, most of the time, a good thing; but it is necessarily going to limit the pool for hiring chairs from outside.  A case of being hoist on their own petard.

[moleqlz]

I interviewed for a chair position several years ago.  I really liked the faculty and got along very well with them, at least considering the brief time we had together.  The seminar went well, the students were engaging, and my research interests lined up well with and complemented those of several of the faculty.  But it was also apparent very early that there were two significant factions within the department, an both were vying for dominance, one comprised of the "old timers" (aka the naturalists)and the other the "up and coming youngsters" (aka the molecular biologists) and that there would be difficult issues to work through, and that the chair would have to navigate the waters very carefully. Still, I really liked the department and really thought it was the place for me.  But while interviewing with the VPAA I learned that due to a regent policy I would not be hired with tenure (this had not come to light before in spite of all the research I had done) I knew immediately that I could not risk leaving a tenured position for an untenured position, and the VPAA also read that.  The naturalists (gels? we don't run no stinking gels) prevailed and they hired an untenured internal candidate, presumably one who they could boss around.  Three years later they have the same chair, still untenured.

Becoming chair without tenure is not an option I would be willing to accept!

[wd813]

"That said, it's at least understandable that institutions are reluctant to make hires with tenure, since they often create animosity among the faculty who are not thus hired."

Again, I agree with this assertion; however, I still maintain that whatever the situation, a chair must have tenure because she must fight/negotiate for the department.  If she has a split focus (her job vs. the job of being chair) the department pays the price.  An ideal situation would be one in which a chair could "prove" her worth by securing more (define your own definition of more here) for her department and thus earn the respect of her colleagues.

I do understand how scary it must be for a university/department to grant tenure to someone they don't know, but it's a gamble that has to be played by the university, not by the candidate.  The candidate's job is to gain individual security and then she can work toward the security of the department.

[deleteplease]

One strategy I've encountered in both senior and chair searches:

1. Accept the job at the new department with the guarantee that you will be evaluated for tenure in your first year.

2. Take a one year leave of absence from your current institution.

If you do get tenure, you're safe and happy at your new job (and your old institution has a year of salary savings). If you don't get tenure, you can still fall back on your old job

[yemaya]

We are desperate for a new chair right now and the administration has been saying "well, there is no rule that the chair has to be tenured...."  No rule maybe but common sense dictates as much.

Yes, accepting a chair without tenure is bad news.  My undergrad advisor took chair as an untenured junior prof.  So he had no protection in an environment fraught with some really nasty politics.  To make matters worse, the Dean promised him all sorts of things, such as teaching releases, etc to allow him to finish his book and the Dean and the university had no intention of keeping those promises.  He did not get tenure.  The university lost a good professor.

[fannie]

My friend just finished a chairship in a big department at an R1.  They hired a chair from outside.  The entire tenure process was done--as it would have been done from a TT candidate--in order to award the new chair tenure.  The offer was contingent on the new university awarding tenure before the contract began.

Pretty obvious from the amount of work that the outgoing chair had to do that the tenure criteria were rigourous.  It wasn't like there were two routes to tenure at the university.

I know of a previous outside chair hire, in same university, where tenure wasn't granted prior to contract start date.  In that case, the new chair was baited-and-switched into a VP-ship until the following spring, after the tenure process was completed.  Needless to say, the baited-and-switched chair did not stay.