April 2, 2008
No Tenure for You, Says Baylor U.
The buzz in the blogosphere continues to focus on tenure, with special attention this week going to an unsettling story by the Baptist Press about the startling increase in the number of faculty members — most of them given the nod by their departments and the universitywide tenure committee — rejected for tenure by Baylor University’s administration (see recent posts at Tenured Radical, Lumpenprofessoriat, and Uncertain Principles).
According to the Baptist Press:
Forty percent of the 30 faculty up for tenure this year were denied, contrasted with 14 percent in 2007 and 11 percent in 2006, according to William Dembski, a former Baylor professor who now is research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
More significant than the spike in tenure denials is the fact that nine of the 12 faculty refused tenure by Baylor President John Mark Lilley had been approved by their departments and by the universitywide faculty tenure committee, Dembski said.
“In past years, with the rarest exceptions, every professor who was approved for tenure by his/her department and by the Baylor Tenure Review Committee was signed off by the administration/president and actually got tenure,” Dembski told the Baptist Press. “This year, nine people who were passed for tenure upstream ended up being denied by the president. This level of tenure denial is unheard of even at top institutions.”
The case bears a striking similarity to a 2004 battle at the University of North Texas, where 12 professors denied tenure cried foul, claiming the administration had raised its tenure requirements without telling them. The provost said the university had to raise its standards.
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Wednesday April 2, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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The same thing happened at Arizona State while I was a grad student. When the new president came in, he made it known that “Higher standards were required”.
For “Higher Standards”, the only acceptable currency was research grants.
— alchemist Apr 2, 04:40 PM #
In my 25 years in academe, I have seen this happen several times and was victimized by it once. Tenure is abused for political reasons by administrators who take a dislike to a nontenured faculty member. The only way to combat this is to ensure that standards are clear, and that standards in place at the time of original hire on a tenure track are the ones observed at the time of the tenure decision. Changing the applicable standards while the candidate is awaiting tenure is ethically indefensible, yet it is commonplace. Changing the rules after the game begins is just wrong.
— oleditor Apr 3, 06:29 AM #
I’ m no expert but could any of this have been because of financial reasons? If you deny tenure and then replace all these people with lecturers and adjuncts, it’s certainly cheaper. Perhaps they never really intended to tenure all these people.
— Another thought Apr 3, 07:21 AM #
In response to Another thought: that’s been discussed too. But if they rejected the faculty because their research wasn’t good enough, and administration wants to be more of a research institution, why would they want to hire lecturers?
— Yed Apr 3, 09:39 AM #
Perhaps, rather than quoting a story reported by the Baptist Press, the Chronicle should ask Baylor directly about this. If the story is true, it will certainly have a chilling effect on Baylor’s ability to hire new faculty — after all, who would want to begin a tenure track position there, knowing that such arbitrary and uneven tenure denials may be waiting down the line?
— Mary Apr 3, 03:10 PM #
I’m sure it’s because Baylor didn’t make it past the 1st round of the NCAA tourney. The administration is just taking it out on the faculty.
— Jetskibear Apr 4, 02:22 PM #
More shocking than a 40 % overall denial of tenure at
Baylor is the fact that 2/3rds of the women canidates were denied tenure.
— Rex Vail Apr 11, 10:11 AM #
That’s my Dad! (grinning)
— Amy Vail May 1, 12:51 PM #