Tenure. And stuff.
TENURE!
[Yes, I have tenure. Yes, I took a very bumpy road to earn it. No. I won’t tell the story.]
Tenure is an imperfect solution to a problem. Tenure protects a scholar from being fired for voicing unpopular opinions, or for researching unpopular or unseemly topics. Yet, it is giving someone a job that is hard to remove from them (except in some pretty dire circumstances [Yes, I’ve seen firsthand how someone lost their tenure; Yes, there were horrid circumstances over many years; No, I won’t tell that story either]).
There is policy that explains what is allowable. It outlines what types of things are supposed to count. The issue is that the policy is apparently open to interpretation by any decision-maker in the hierarchy. That means [a department | the department chair | the college | the dean | the Provost] can decide that items on the allowable list actually don’t count.
“Yes, it says that [insert name of scholarship product] is allowable, but [your name isn’t first | you got paid to write the report | it’s not clear what your role was in it | et cetera].”
Yes, it is important to serve on committees, but you don’t have any that serve [the University | the profession | the community].
Yes, you wrote grant four proposals that together would have brought $12M to the University, and devoted six months of effort to each one, but none of them were funded. So, they don’t count.
It’s similar to what Michael Apple said about “Official Knowledge.” And not what Francis Bacon meant when he said “Knowledge is Power.” Knowledge itself is important, but knowledge within a context of influence is more powerful than, say, trivial knowledge. I don’t mean to undercut Ken Jennings (and his GOAT status among folks who’ve ever played Jeopardy), but despite his giant brain, he’s not running the World…
I’ve been led to believe that there are rules and policies that give structure to our existence as faculty members: Do enough of the right kinds of work, and you may earn tenure.” With tenure, you have a protected job that will be yours as long as you want (so long as you remain productive, or don’t commit heinous crimes).
I’m sitting on my college’s Promotion and Tenure committee. And the institution is going through some changes. Changes that increase the profile of the institution, increasing the expectations upon its faculty members, and muddying the waters around promotion and tenure policy. Although things are written, folks don’t agree that they all count equally.
I will follow what is written, because (as I’ve been told, and expected to account for) what is written is what can be defended. An analogous example from a course syllabus is: “I do not accept late work. Late work counts as zero. I give partial credit for incomplete submissions.” And then when someone submits something late, I score it zero. When the student complains, the Chair asks if it’s in the syllabus. (Yes) The dean asks “is it in the syllabus?” (Yes.) The Provost asks “Is it in the Syllabus?” (Yes.) The Board of Regents calls the Dean and asks why this issue is on their desk, you get the point.
But the department decides that the artifact isn’t [good enough | published in a good enough journal | rigorous] scholarship and declines the application for tenure. What’s the prospective tenure recipient supposed to do?
I guess that person needs to point with all ten fingers and ten toes at the table that says specifically [scholarship artifact] counts, and never give up until the other person in the hierarchy [blinks | backs down | gives up | quits]. Because you know, it is written.
Frustrating.