Tenure Guards Academic Integrity and Intellectual Freedom

By Jonathan Penner, UA Profesor of English

Pima County is getting a new university. A grand name has been proposed: Arizona International University. But will it be a university in more than name?

One clue emerged when Dr. Celestino Fernandez--Executive Vice President and Provost of the new institution--urged that it have no tenure system.

What does tenure do? It protects professors--if they survive a seven-year probation--from unjust dismissal. They can still be fired for incompetence, but not for political or personal reasons.

Without tenure, administrators can impose their will (which they tend to call their "vision") more easily. Many of them would love to see tenure abolished--not only at the new university, but also at the UA, ASU and NAU.

The Board of Regents is, in fact, now considering whether tenure should be kept or dumped system-wide. Here are seven reasons to keep it.

1. Tenure protects faculty from unjust dismissal.

What endangers faculty jobs? The merry-go-round of management fads. The ebb and flow of cultural warfare. Grandstanding politicians. Napoleonic Deans.

The clear and present danger isn't political persecution a la Senator Joseph McCarthy. It's that so much of knowledge itself has now been politicized.

2. Dropping tenure would hurt the universities.

In teaching, easy graders would have an immense survival advantage. Realistic grading often generates student complaints. Under a no tenure system, complaints could cost professors their jobs. They'd protect themselves by awarding whatever grades their students wanted.

In research, there'd be pressure for swift, visible results. No longer could a scholar embark on a lengthy, ambitious--far less a controversial--project. Yet great work often proves its worth only after many years.

3. Faculty recruitment would be hurt.

Every university needs a core of continuing faculty--professors who understand its values, care for its future, and provide its institutional memory.

Scrapping tenure would make teaching a revolving door. The faculty du jour would lack continuity, tradition and direction.

And it would be a weak faculty. Only those wothout any choice would accept such insecure jobs.

4. Comparisons with other professions miss the point.

Dr. Fernandez argues that, since coaches don't receive tenure, faculty don't need it either. Other critics of tenure compare professors to doctors and lawyers.

But professors are in a uniquely vulnerable position. They don't deal in goods, or even just in services, but with ideas--the most explosive products of all.

Few people care what a doctor or lawyer thinks about homosexuality, or immigration, or the heritability of intelligence. But in academe, every cultural topic is grounds for war. Without tenure, "wrong thinkers" would be blown away with each shift of the ideological wind.

5. Flexibility is a perilous convenience.

Administrators decry tenure because it limits their "flexibility." Thank God it does. Without tenure, departments could be axed overnight. A correct line of teaching could be imposed on those remaining.

Administrators want the flexibility of corporations. General Motors, could, if it wished, abandon cars and make toasters. But universities don't--and shouldn't--have similar latitude.

What is a university? Society's chief organ for creating, preserving and propagating knowledge. It is not a production line for intellectual toasters.

Only tenured faculties are able to insist on that.

6. Professors and professionals.

Sure, professors know they're labor, paid by management. But they do extra, better work because they also consider themselves professionals.

Yes, they serve a boss, but they also serve a discipline. That's why they work through so many unpaid evenings, weekends, and summers. And that's why, years past graduation, students still turn to their professors for help--and receive it.

Abolishing tenure would toss away these fruits of professionalism. A battle line would be clearly drawn: management versus labor. Today's collegiality--or what remains of it--would be replaced by an embittered militancy.

7. The system works, and it can work better.

Under the tenure system, whether or not to award tenure is always up to the administration. Rather than seek to abolish the system, administrators should consider how they can best use it.

And the new university? Will it be another jewel for Tucson, or a scene of conflict and degradation? Our existing universities--will they advance, or fall into mediocrity?

The Regents' decision about tenure will give us part of the answer. Stay tuned.

_______________________________