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The Limits of Tenure

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By V.S. Ravens

Tenure is supposed to mean carte blanche to speak your mind, to take risks you could not take as an assistant professor, to rest assured that your position was secure no matter how controversial your teaching, research, or extramural activities.

Upon receiving early promotion and tenure at my state university, I felt liberated. On a campus badly divided between long-time faculty members distracted by imminent retirement, and a smattering of new and idealistic assistant professors, I was pleased to be among the first of the newcomers promoted. I thought I had a future as a leader of the campus.

I would no longer have to silence the opinions I had formulated as an assistant professor -- opinions about the allocation of money at my university, the quality of communication between administrators and faculty members, the needs of professors, the needs of students, the structure of the college.

I had formed those opinions through sincere and somewhat compulsive participation in campus activities. I had served on a ridiculous number of committees, dashing madly from meetings, to the four courses I was teaching, to the academic senate, to grant-writing workshops, to scholarly conferences and administrative forums.

My dedication to the campus mirrored the panic and innocence of all too many newly hired faculty members. I produced, cooperated, and slaved, with an eye toward that coveted job security. In the process, I learned far too much about the campus. I was witness to false friendships, deals, grudges, acts of political sabotage, indecorous alliances, favoritism. I learned that many staff members had achieved their positions through unseemly relationships. I learned when and where incompetence was tolerated. In my insecure, workaholic state, I posed as everyone's political ally out of fear and hope.

Meanwhile, my industriousness paid off in the form of a job offer at a more prestigious institution. "What can we do to keep you?" asked my provost at a private meeting. I thought long and hard about my answer. I was not interested in more money. I had won the promotion and tenure without any special favors.

My thoughts turned to my little, struggling department. What would I like it to have? Almost immediately I thought about the department's ineffectual staff member -- someone who had been moved from department to department over the past 25 years, never mastering the job requirements, always being shifted in hopes of finding the "right" supervisory match.

Faculty members and students in the department had long complained about the staff member -- about the repeated closure of the office on short notice, the chaotic state and relative inaccessibility of department files and forms, and the general lack of student services because of a poverty of demeanor and competence.

As I sat before the provost, I recalled an occasion when that staff member had yelled at me in front of a student, and another in which I had witnessed a student getting the same mistreatment.

Here was my chance to take a stand. I would use my tenure and its power to demand quality service for our students and quality support for our faculty members. I knew how to make a political deal. I asked for a change of staff in our department, and the provost promised to make it happen, should I choose my humble state university over the impressive offer from afar.

I happily agreed to stay and was elected chairwoman of the department, a place I had come to consider my intellectual home. Given my good reputation on campus, I expected to be able to make a number of changes to improve our programs.

I soon discovered that I had overestimated my newfound security and power, and that the staff change was not going to happen News that I had requested the staff member's removal from our department was not smiled upon by all involved. Powerful campus figures were angry that I had made such a request. Administrators feared grievances, union actions, and lawsuits. One faculty member (never a political ally) publicly questioned my request as a scurrilous backdoor pact.

In an attempt to clear my name and defend my action, I produced copious evidence, publicly, to support my initial request. I demonstrated how the staff person was continually ill, unable to fulfill basic requirements of the position, rude to students and faculty members alike.

My request was again refused, but this time I was accused of poor supervisory skills and of violating the staff member's right to confidentiality. I was furious at the betrayal, baffled by the political storm, and trapped with a staff person who hindered my research and alienated my department's majors.

Professors in the department continued to complain ceaselessly to me about the staff member's inaction and incompetence (among many other complaints on many other topics, to be sure). They looked to me to solve their problems from my not-so-powerful position as chairwoman.

But the more I confronted top administrators regarding the promise that had kept me at the university, the more they were irritated and angered, reminding me of potential legal or union worries, and the less I was able to convince them of my view. The more I told my faculty members that nothing was being done despite my efforts, the more ineffectual I became in their eyes. Ultimately, I opted to step down as chairwoman, because of the administration's concerns about union action.

And what had I to show for my efforts? I had disappointed my faculty colleagues and alienated a significant number of administrators who would now hesitate to sign even the most modest of my request forms. I no longer had the ability to confidently request space, time, or money for myself or others because I had made too many administrative enemies.

Tenure guarantees that I will not lose my teaching job, but the controversy I incited has rendered me powerless to do anything except teach and collect a paycheck.

Does tenure have the strength to break the grip of campus politics? People in the private nonacademic world talk about how their employment is always at risk. But how is the position of a tenured, but shunned, professor more desirable?

I will not be asked to serve on important committees. I will not receive administrative blessings for new projects. I will be relegated to a life of disinvolvement with my campus.

Tenure turns out to be a theoretical promise that depends in part on political stature for the realization of its ideal.