Well, some do; others go to college to get a credential, or to party.
But if they want to get an education, they have a choice where to go to get it. And I contend that some of them who choose to go to a research university to get an education would be better off going elsewhere. There is a non-arguable point that research universities don’t even claim that educating undergraduates is their sole reason for being.
Additionally it allows a university to remove under-performing professors.
It doesn’t matter if it’s their sole reason for being or not. Bad teachers have no more right to work than any other employee. It also doesn’t matter if a professor is God’s gft to research. If someone is teaching then they they are responsible for their actions. There is no debate on this issue.
Well, are you talking about the way things are, or the way things should be?
But, let’s unpack your claim.Which one(s) of the following things do you mean?
A. University professors are, or should be, teachers first and foremost: teaching classes should be their main job.
B. Regardless of how eminent or good at other parts of their job they are, university professors who are bad teachers should lose their jobs.
C. University professors who are eminent or good at other parts of their jobs but are bad teachers should have their responsibilities (re)assigned so that they do not involve teaching (or at least teaching things that they are bad at teaching).
If your claim is A, then either you do not understand what a modern research university is, or you want it to be something very much other than what it is (in which case there certainly is debate on the issue), or you’re not talking about research universities at all but about some other type of institution.
If your claim is B and/or C, I’m inclined to agree. The extent to which this is already true, and the extent to which it should be true, and the extent to which it is even feasible, are going to vary from university to university and from department to department within a university, for various reasons.
However, I don’t think the existence of tenure is any major part of the problem (though the basis for awarding it may be). In the case of the professors you had who “sucked,” I don’t know for sure, but I think it highly probable that they were not good teachers who turned sucky after receiving tenure, but rather that they were awarded tenure based on factors other than their teaching ability.
But what’s it going to take to change that? In a way, insisting that “students go to the U of Wherever to get an education” is a bit like saying “customers go to Walmart to buy TVs,” and that therefore the Walmart employees should be knowledgeable about TV brands and features and should be able to help customers select the right TV for them, and maybe help with delivery and setup. If that’s really important to you, you might be better off buying your TV elsewhere. But as long as enough people buy their TVs from Walmart, Walmart has no incentive to change the way they sell them.
Here’s a document (PDF) I found online explaining “The Tenure Process at the University of Wisconsin-Madison”. I think it’s certainly worth reading for anyone still interested in this discussion. Here’s the introductory paragraph (bolding mine):
Note also that the exact criteria for tenure are determined at the department level:
For a specific example, here are the “Guidelines for Recommendations for Promotion or Appointment to Tenure Rank” for the Biological Sciences Division, which is the first one Google turned up. I was interested to see that, in many cases,
while “extraordinary” cases might be based on excellence in only one of these three areas.
This isn’t helping your case in even the tiniest way.
I’m not sure what you mean. What do you think my “case” is?
You say that like it’s a bad thing. The purpose of academic freedom is definitively to protect academia from the ebb and flow of political ideology and social trends in The Real World. It would be just as wrong, and I know you’d be frothing at the mouth, if a Democratic government stepped in and told UW that it had to double the number of tenured professors and that it was inserting itself into its administration. That’s the same kind of overreach that Walker is guilty of. You’re looking crassly partisan by agreeing with him.
Universities need to be free of outside interference if they’re going to do their job effectively, doesn’t matter if they’re funded privately, publicly or by Martians. All are judged by the same criteria regardless of where the money comes from.
Walker’s moves aren’t about oversight. He got the state involved in the administration of the university. Big difference.
It was a hyperbolic example to make a point, that’s all. Substitute any suitable example of outside interference and the point still stands.
I am a professor at a research-intensive University. I have news for you - in practice they actually do. The main purpose of a research university is research and the discovery of new knowledge. Its not teaching. Teaching has its place but it’s not the focus.
I offer no defense or criticism of this here (that’s for another thread). My point is that most students (and parents and politicians) have no idea what actually happens at a University.
This is why calls from politicians to mandate teaching loads bug me. My appointment contract is 85% organized research, 15% teaching and admin. That teaching component includes not just classroom time, but also advising and supervising graduate students. Means I don’t spend a ton of time in the classroom. That’s by the design of the people who hired me.
Most of my colleagues are similar. This is why at a research intensive Uni the courses are usually taught by part-time faculty.
You want to be taught by faculty that really want to teach? Go to community college or a small liberal arts college. Don’t go to a large research university.
I don’t know why you feel you need tenure. If you are teaching a class (even if it’s only one class a year) and fail miserably at that then you should be held to account for that failure.
When I was in school we as a student body had a teacher removed. He was an asshole. There is no justification for his behavior. It would be unacceptable to keep such a person in a classroom under the guise of tenure.
As long as state money is used to support a school system the primary job is to educate people. That is true even if your contract specifies 15% of your time in that endeavor. That 15% represents 100% of the student’s time and purpose for being there. They are there to learn, not to feed your research.
If you want to do research then go to a private company. You will still be mentoring people in the process. Don’t go to tax funded institutions.
Define “Fail Miserably”. My teaching reviews are OK. Not stellar, but good enough.
Yeah, about that. Less than 5% of our operating budget comes from the state.
Not according to my contract.
You are aware that there are many Universities that are not tax funded, are you not? I spent almost a decade at a private Uni. The “Public” Uni I am now at is not really public (see above).
Also, we do have post-tenure review at my Uni, every 5 years. Its not a rubber-stamp. People have been eventually let go due to non-performance.
Assuming that universities and the like are capable of distinguishing between employees with different capabilities (since if they can’t, the subject is fairly moot anyway), why would they not be able to pick out the mediocre employees?
Are the definitions by which “best employees” are judged, or the extent to which they fill them, potentially altered by the points which others have suggested tenure works to aid, for example, research capabilities? That is, if a situation with tenure and a situation without tenure result in different requirements in a position, does that alter whether a potential employee is the “best” or not?
Your reviews define what is a failure.
Private universities can provide you hookers and blow.
I think that’s great.
You know that tenure does not protect underperforming faculty from termination, right? It protects them from political terminations.
Is this something that you think Governor Walker did - removed the protection of professors from political termination?
Regards,
Shodan
Certainly the President of the American Association of University Professors (and members of the U W faculty) believe so:
Elsewhere in the same piece:
This thread stopped being about Walker some time ago, and devolved into a discussion of the merits of the tenure system generally. But Walker unquestionably made it easier for the UW system to fire professors for political reasons.
No doubt he does. Is there any evidence that he is correct? I didn’t see any in your cite.
Regards,
Shodan
Do you dispute that the current ruling gives the politically-appointed Board of Regents the power he says it does?
I was wondering if you had any examples of professors being fired for their unpopular research. I don’t doubt that Professor Chicken Little, PhD., is going to react hysterically. I was wondering if he was including “the sky is falling” under his definition of man-made global climate change.
Regards,
Shodan