To be honest, they may be bums. I am not the one who chose to give them nice pay increases to stay at UW.
I can just hope that the administration has rated them as top performers before they threw a few dollars at them to get them to stay.
I don’t think this policy change is interfering with the citizenry, at least not directly. There will likely be some trickle down effects but we won’t know what they are for quite some time.
It is the branch of gov with the money telling the branch of gov that wants the money to change their ways. This is one more tool in the tool box that will make it work for you in the long run…at least they hope it will work out that way.
I am just interested in seeing how this all plays out.
With 1300 tenured faculty, is 6 not shockingly low to you?
Really?
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it’s a public university, and therefore part of government. This is why Walker’s rules were able to affect it. A university run by “citizenry,” is perfectly able to dole out tenure based on shoe size or adherence to the principles of “Eat, Pray, Love,” if they wish with no interference from government.
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The general Republican compliant is not about intrusive government, but about intrusive federal government. More specifically, the GOP believes that the federal government is one of limited, enumerated powers, and that states retain plenary legislative powers. This is a state government action modifying a state government institution, and has as much to do with “intrusive government” as “Eat Pray Love,” has to do with contour integration.
Again, by what standard are they “top performers”? The administration might have been forced to rate them by standards which go against the spirit of tenure and higher learning. A lot of research takes years to complete and longer to evaluate and reach a conclusion. The university might have had to forego such research programs for some that might bring quicker results or produce more papers.
It’s the state’s prerogative to reduce funding if it feels it needs to. I get that. The intrusive part is telling the university how it should operate. That smacks of forcing an ideological agenda on a higher education institution that runs counter to what the institution stands for. Operating at arm’s length without outside interference is what gives universities their power and effectiveness. They have developed their own ways of operating, like conferring tenure, that uniquely suit their needs, and now a government is telling UW to change them. That is only a difference of degree, not of kind, from insisting that the biology program teach creationism.
See my reply above to TommyzNR.
And that university would lose all relevance and respect in academia, and would be shunned to the point of having to shut down. But of course, UW isn’t doing that anyway, so why the need for Walker to impose himself on it?
So the right’s objection to government intrusion doesn’t have a moral basis, just a legal one. And murder is bad only because the bible or the law says so.
Is your work such that:
- You perform a valuable service to humanity
- In the process of doing so you may piss a whole lot of people off by uncovering the truth
- People may step in and demand that you be fired not because they’re unhappy with the quality of your work but because they think you just shouldn’t be doing that work at all
If not, then there’s not a whole lot analogy between your job and tenure. And I think a whole lot of people here really need to spend some time learning about what tenure is and what its purpose is.
6 that they TRIED to retain. Others will leave academia, and are given a nice going away party without any attempt to counter.
No, tenure is not the ability to do whatever you want without consequences. Tenure simply is a part of the overall job package, provides protection from some political issues involved in research (say if you work with GMOs, research pollution associated with fracking, point out water supply issues, or write about the impact of minimum wage laws).
As there some faculty who not the best in the classroom? Yes - and that can be part of the tenure decision process. Teaching reviews, the advent of ratemyprofessor.com and other such data elements have made some adjustments to the overall teaching perspective.
What changes with the loss of tenure is that you have to make up for it with something else. It has value, and if you take away that value - someone will want something in return. Why is that so hard to understand?
Operating at arm’s length also gives universities isolation from what I might boldly term “The Real World.” Your view that a public-funded university should enjoy some sort of sacrosant immunity from oversight is patently absurd.
And as for your attempt to invoke the spectre of mandated creationist teaching, the answer to that is: no, but not because universities are somehow immune to such things. Indeed, I would expect a private fundamentalist Bible college to mandate creationism, and any complaints to the contrary to be disregarded by the people on charge.
But a PUBLIC university, while beholden to the state government for decisions on tenure, is also constrained by the state and federal constitutions – again, this is the difference between a government, public institution and a private institution. And the Supreme Court has generally determined that state governments cannot teach creationism.
That’s a decision made by the legislature and governor of the state, as a matter of public policy. The “why” has been answered. If you don’t like it, I suggest trying to recall Walker.
Oh, wait.
The Right is not monolithici. But as a general rule, no, I don’t think there is a moral component to the argument that our federal system does not allow unlimited federal power.
Your second sentence does not follow from the first and represents a strawman argument.
Murder is, as a general rule, a state crime, and not a federal one, prohibited by a state as an exercise of the plenary police power of the state. It’s also a moral wrong.
So what?
Sucked how? How do you know? Are you qualified to evaluate their research? (At a research university, like the UW-Madison, that’s a big part of what tenure is based on.)
Is this piece “research?”
Umm… that looks like a blog post. Sure it’s a blog post from someone who was a college professor, but that’s not relevant.
I don’t get why this is so difficult to understand from a free market perspective. The university used to offer something of value to those employees that earned it. It no longer does so while most other universities continue to do so.
Does anyone dispute that this weakens the university in hiring and retaining the best employees?
If the school wants research on the use of GMO’s or fracking or how to milk albino mosquitoes that’s their call and not tenure.
All you’ve done is restate what tenure is and that’s freedom to do whatever you want and not get fired.
I do.
I contend that the best employees are always in demand regardless of tenure, and that tenure actually attracts mediocre employees, who seek to cement their employment prospects by removing any need for them to continue to justify their worth.
You mean how did I and a classroom of frustrated students know a professor sucked? Because we collectively said so. Student’s don’t work their ass off to pay tuition so someone can do research.
Your “research school” argument is a complete load of educational nonsense. If professors are worth so much more in the real world doing research then they should follow their dreams and research their little hearts out on someone else’s dime.
Actually if you are at a university - that is exactly what you do. You pay tuition, the state might toss in some money, donors put in more and grants feed the rest. Your tuition buys you a seat in the classroom, it does not buy you the undivided attention of faculty. At a research university, there primary job is research and the supervision of graduate students. Second comes teaching, and third is typically service to the university.
The most important thing they are measured on is their research. They don’t get to do just whatever they like, however. If there work does not make it into recognized peer reviewed journals, they will feel the impact - tenure or not.
Again - most of the posters here don’t seem to know much about how a research university works or basic labor economics for that matter.
Now - if you just want a teaching school - The University of Phoenix, National University, Vanguard and others work with no protection AND as for profit operations will no doubt have you best interests at heart.
All you’re doing is digging a hole. Students don’t go to school to fund research no matter how many times you spin that fantasy.
No, he’s telling it like it is. Algher’s first two paragraphs are something that everyone should know, but far too few students are told when they’re deciding where to go to school.
There are plenty of public and private non-profit colleges and universities that do make the teaching of undergraduates their primary mission, and which hire, evaluate, and, yes, award tenure to faculty largely based on teaching. If that’s what’s important to you, you should attend one of those schools, and not assume that the most prestigious university is the one where you’ll have the best classroom experience as a freshman.
(There is arguably some educational value, even as a freshman, to being in an environment where cutting-edge research is being done; but it’s not the best educational fit for everybody.)
There is a non-arguable point that students go to college to get an education.