A friend recently commented that their uni was revisiting tenure and merit standards.
Resource declines, faculty turnover, & increasing rigor at journals had caused the dept to question the number & quality of papers required to tenure.
The logic being that absent funding, it was difficulty to ask for X number of elite papers.
The senior faculty were in conversation about what was reasonable to expect, what paths should be available to tenure & who should they apply to.
While I felt dismayed that any school experienced a sharp resource decline, I felt impressed that the faculty acknowledged that tenure requirements must change.
For once, the senior faculty were doing what they could to help the early career faculty!
We chatted for a while about possibilities.
So what options could the school pursue? To adjust to shrinking resources?
First, understand that all schools will have a research requirement.
You will still have to have journal papers accepted - if you want tenure.
Second, understand that many schools emphasize teaching more.
They want higher quality teaching to and demand more class preps or new courses from faculty.
Third, understand that resource cuts have changed how faculty allocate time.
For example, by cutting summer support, uni’s are making faculty teach in the summer to make ends meet.
Against this backdrop of constrained resources, changing requirements, and shifts in time, smart schools under stress will revisit the paths to tenure.
One path could be to do nothing.
This means keeping the original terms of employment - in terms of performance outcomes.
The idea here is to buckle down, weather the storm, & hope resources come back.
Note: it could also mean people thought a shift in requirements is unfair, for people in process.
A second path is to create a balanced approach to tenure.
Lower the research bar and elevate the teaching bar.
This would mean calibrating the number and target outlets for faculty.
It would also mean demanding better #teaching bc, in theory, lowering the research bar means freeing up time.
A third path is to create a teaching option for tenure.
This would mean redefining the focus of tenure evaluations - with less on innovative ideas and more on innovative teaching.
Smart schools will likely offer a combination of paths - some research intense, some more balanced, and some teaching.
By doing so, they make possible hosting a portfolio of faculty with diverse faculty - which should confer the ability to better respond to the environment.
More importantly, it acknowledges that the professoriate is changing- and needs flexibility to survive.
My guess is many schools do nothing - inertia is tough to overcome.
My hope is that senior faculty show courage & ask what is reasonable, & offer more nuanced paths to tenure.
If we do, we will build a more sustainable academy.
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