tenure

How Media Discussions of Tenure Distort its Meaning and Undermine Academics

by Deepa Das Acevedo

Tenure absolutely does not provide "a job for life" for anyone, but the belief that it does is used to justify political attacks on academics. 

Statehouse Assaults on Tenure and Diversity are Impacting Hiring at State Universities

"In Florida, some candidates’ concerns are so profound that they’re turning down job offers in the state — despite not having other offers, said Andrew Gothard, president of the United Faculty of Florida, a union representing faculty at all 12 of the state’s public universities, a private one, and community colleges."

Greg Abbott Claims to Boost Texas Universities. Why Is He Attacking Tenure?

Attacks on tenure and diversity programs would threaten the improvements Texas politicians say they want to make in higher education in the state, say faculty advocates. 

North Dakota Prof: Tenure Reform Bill is About Silencing Whistleblowers

by Eric Grabowsky

A professor says that, aside from academic freedom implications, a bill proposed to reduce tenure protections is aimed at intimidating critics of the university system's management. 

This Round of Attacks on Tenure Might Stick

State legislatures and boards of trustees have long wanted to break the tenure system. Today, more university presidents seem willing to take sides against their faculty. 

The End of Tenure and the Transformation of Higher Ed

by Marc Stein

The decline in "tenure density"—the proportion of faculty in tenured or tenure-track jobs—is a dire threat to American higher education. 

We've Reached the Execution Stage of the Profession's Demise

by Jacques Berlinerblau

"The decisions which ravaged the future for coming generations of Ph.D.s were made not just by consultants and suits, but by those with Ph.D.s and likely a few peer-reviewed publications. This was scholar-on-scholar violence."

Tenured Faculty are the 18% – What Will They Do for the 82?

by Claire Potter

"Go to any faculty meeting, and you will hear what the 18% really believes: that if contract and contingent faculty deserved tenure-stream positions, they would have them."

On Going Back Off the Tenure Track

by Sarah Handley-Cousins

"I had watched my historian friends pack up their families, leave the towns where they’d earned their PhDs, and move to take jobs, but it became slowly and devastatingly clear my situation was different."

Putting the Tenure Debate in Historical Perspective

by Adam Sitze

Academic tenure has much in common with the historial practice of lifetime appointments for judges. Why are academics reluctant to embrace the comparison? 

The Decline of Tenure is the Greatest Threat to Higher Education

by Marc Stein

While states like Texas threaten tenure politically, in California the instititution is under attack by austerity and attrition; either way, higher education itself is threatened by the abandonment of employment security. 

The Increasingly Authoritarian War on Tenure

by Jennifer Ruth

"Democratic societies build in protections for university faculty so that we are not at the whims of whichever party is currently in power. When Patrick threatens tenure, he threatens those protections," and threatens the partisan control of knowledge in society.

Texas Lt. Gov. Links Tenure Abolition to Banning Critical Race Theory

The call makes explicit that academic freedom is on shaky ground in Texas. 

Academic Tenure: In Desperate Need of Reform or of Defenders?

by Steve Mintz

Tenure's defenders need to link the protection not only to the interests of the select few faculty who enjoy its protections but to the broader trajectory of academic institutions. 

Fights over Tenure Aren't About Tenure

by Molly Worthen

"The fight over tenure is not really about tenure. It’s a proxy for a larger debate about the meaning of academic freedom and the priorities of higher education." If academics want to successfully protect tenure, they must engage the culture war battle, too. 

Nikole Hannah-Jones Issues Statement After Passing Up UNC for Howard University

“I cannot imagine working at and advancing a school named for a man who lobbied against me, who used his wealth to influence the hires and ideology of the journalism school, who ignored my 20 years of journalism experience, all of my credentials, all of my work, because he believed that a project that centered Black Americans equaled the denigration of white Americans."

Nikole Hannah-Jones Finally Has Been Granted Tenure. But the Damage Is Already Done.

It's uncertain that the Board of Trustees' decision to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones will lead her to join the University of North Carolina, and unlikely that the decision will erase the damage done by conservative interference in university governance. 

Nikole Hannah-Jones Granted Tenure by UNC Trustees

The vote was 9-4, after a number of protesters were removed from the room. It is not now known if Hannah-Jones will now accept the appointment at UNC. 

Finally: Tenure Vote for Hannah-Jones

by Colleen Flaherty

The Board of Trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will hold a special meeting Wednesday, reportedly to vote on tenure for journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

It’s Time for an Overhaul of Academic Freedom

by Emily J. Levine

The idea of academic freedom doesn't account for the present precarity of most university teachers, and doesn't rest on a positive concept of what professors should do with students and the public.