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[mozman]

Well, he's not really deadwood if he is at least good at two out of three things.

No, he's not deadwood.  But the standards for tenure have changed - while it is still a teaching institution, research requirements have risen substantially without relaxing the requirements for teaching and service.  He is on the tenure committee and I have no doubt that the youngin's in the department resent being judged by someone they perceive to be their inferior.  I know I would.

[prytania3]

Here's the thing: to complain about senior colleagues or "deadwood" is the same as saying, "I don't believe in tenure," and if you don't believe in tenure, so be it, but if you do, then you need to consider your senior colleagues as a product of their times and remember that one day you might be a senior colleague as well.

[mozman]

Here's the thing: to complain about senior colleagues or "deadwood" is the same as saying, "I don't believe in tenure,"

I'm afraid I am going to have to disagree with you there.  Tenure gives freedom to pursue unpopular or long-term research.  "Deadwood", by definition, do not do this. 

I support tenure, but I also support post-tenure reviews (say every 5 years or so) with some teeth.  Maybe one negative post-tenure review - if the next one is still negative then termination proceedings start.  This still gives 5-10 years job security which is more than most anyone gets.

This allows the freedom afforded by tenure without letting people slide into uselessness.

[mignon]

Who is going to elect the Uselessness Judge(s)?  This is scary on so many levels, and I speak as someone who is both senior and productive.

[mozman]

Who is going to elect the Uselessness Judge(s)?  This is scary on so many levels, and I speak as someone who is both senior and productive.

I nominate myself!

More seriously, it is the same problem with giving tenure in the first place - "Who decides who is tenurable?"  I think both tenure and post-tenure review need to be both transparent and fair, with clear-cut guidelines.  If done properly, why should it be any more scary than tenure itself?

[msparticularity]

Who is going to elect the Uselessness Judge(s)?  This is scary on so many levels, and I speak as someone who is both senior and productive.

In my previous position, I was in a department with a couple of people who had not published in 30+ years. One of them was clearly contributing through service; he chaired the department, did grad advisement, served on numerous time-consuming committees, and so on. The other taught only grad-level seminars (that were way out of date). The department also had other problems, since it was very small and this individual had enough power to effectively halt any change.

Toward the end of the accreditation visit, the dean from another institution who was the visitation committee chair told me that she would be recommending that our dean begin enforcing a 4/4 teaching schedule--including large intro courses-- for tenured faculty members who were not appropriately productive in research and/or service. I actually think this is a terrific approach: contributions to the life of the department must be made by all tenured faculty, but the individual mix can be quite different as appropriate.

[ruralguy]

Prytnia's point was (I think), that if you believe so many people are going to become deadwood, then why would you invest so much in a process that tends to create them? So, if you are really saying that the nature of the process inevitably creates deadwood, then you are really saying you don't believe in the process.

Janewales makes an excellent point though...when talking about "senior colleagues", at some schools we
are mainly speaking of folks who got tenure within the last several years out to maybe 20 years....maybe a few out to 30 years or more, but not tons.

But in general you should default to respecting people for who they are. Respect is what is due for being a human. Lack of respect has to be earned, you know...for purposely acting like a douche. So, don't cut down respect for your colleagues because they last published a paper in year that begins with a "1".

As I said before, if they are on T&P, its their responsibility to only be most critical in areas they themselves have achieved in. They can let someone else be critical in the other areas.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Although senior deadwood does exist, it might not be appropriate to compare senior and junior productivity on a 1 to 1 basis.  Part of the reason why professors were less productive in 1975 was that there were far fewer resources available in many fields.

In addition, when you are senior there is no longer a need to publish just any old thing, no matter how crappy it is.

The original article points out that the older standards might not have been less in terms of actual quality of research:

Many in the older generation of scholars were tenured with standards that, while not necessarily lower in quality, were lesser in terms of frequency of publication.

(emphasis mine) - DvF

[prytania3]

Here's the thing: to complain about senior colleagues or "deadwood" is the same as saying, "I don't believe in tenure,"

I'm afraid I am going to have to disagree with you there.  Tenure gives freedom to pursue unpopular or long-term research.  "Deadwood", by definition, do not do this. 

I support tenure, but I also support post-tenure reviews (say every 5 years or so) with some teeth.  Maybe one negative post-tenure review - if the next one is still negative then termination proceedings start.  This still gives 5-10 years job security which is more than most anyone gets.

This allows the freedom afforded by tenure without letting people slide into uselessness.

You aren't disagreeing with me. You are making my point. You clearly don't believe in tenure as it exists now. You want it revamped.

[dundee]

I wholeheartedly agree with mozman about making sure post-tenure reviews have teeth. The majority of the faculty in my dept. are Associate Profs. who do the bare minimum but have no incentive to do more. They will not be promoted to Full because they don't publish, but the pay bump to Full is so small that it's not enough to make anyone want to seek promotion. I don't have a problem with senior faculty who don't publish but pull their weight through service, admin. and strong teaching. I do have a problem with senior colleagues who only come to campus twice a week, teach small upper-division courses, give away grades like candy, and skip meetings, meanwhile leaving all the heavy teaching and service to the junior faculty, chair, and the couple of other senior faculty who give a toss. I would like to see the tenured slackers given a heavy teaching load or required undergrad courses full of non-Majors and told that that will be their lot until they lift their game. If that sounds harsh, so be it, but I'm tired of working my butt off while others do as little as possible.

[post_functional]

But he is a great guy, and a good teacher, and he doesn't skimp on service.  Still, most of the young hires in the department had a better research record in their last year of grad school than this guy had in his whole career.

Well, he's not really deadwood if he is at least good at two out of three things.

Would I be correct in assuming that the two things to which you refer are "good teacher" and "not skimping on service", the unmet third would be "good research record", and being a great guy doesn't factor into your calculus at all?

[post_functional]

Here's the thing: to complain about senior colleagues or "deadwood" is the same as saying, "I don't believe in tenure,"

If deadwood-is-bad=tenure-is-bad, does this reduce down to deadwood=tenure?  Does tenure inevitably lead to deadwood?  Are you saying that deadwood is a tolerable consequence of the greater good of tenure?

[prytania3]

Here's the thing: to complain about senior colleagues or "deadwood" is the same as saying, "I don't believe in tenure,"

If deadwood-is-bad=tenure-is-bad, does this reduce down to deadwood=tenure?  Does tenure inevitably lead to deadwood?  Are you saying that deadwood is a tolerable consequence of the greater good of tenure?

That is basically what I am hearing on this thread. Yes, tenure is going to engender some deadwood, but that's the nature of the beast, and if you don't like that, then you don't like tenure because you want the deadwood out, which is antithetical to how tenure works.

Who the hell would stay in this business without tenure? If you're only as good as your last trade, you might as well work for a hedge fund and make the big bucks.

[nocalprof]

I don't want deadwood out - I just want them to act a little less arrogant and a little more sympathetic.

[edwidge]

I think tenure is super-duper, but I echo the desire to see a post-tenure review process with some teeth. My department sounds a lot like Onion's and Dundee's: there are a few tenured faculty members who carry heavy administrative loads (and wield almost complete power within the department), but the majority of the tenured faculty are less-than-stellar teachers, do not publish much, do not chair dissertation committees (or even sit on them as members), do not chair teaching committees, do not get grants and so consequently do not mentor/supervise/train graduate students, etc.

I know all of this because I was elected to an advisory committee to our director during my second year on the tenure track; in this role I review all of my colleagues' merit review files each year. All of the aforementioned service obligations fall to the junior faculty members. So, we have tons of responsibilities, we can't say no when we are pressed into service, and we must be compliant and cooperative in doing this service, because we do not yet have tenure. We do most of the service and yet have almost no power. And the drumbeat is funding, funding, funding, publish, publish, publish (I am at an RI), with service counting almost nothing toward tenure. It can make a person bitter.