BY EMILY HORIHAN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The road to achieving academic tenure is not an easy one. Just ask your professors. Tenure refers to the full-time, contractual employment of a professor at a college or university, which guarantees that individual almost absolute job security and academic freedom. Along with this job security, however, comes the problem of laziness among university professors. In an article in the New York Times, Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, proposes a solution to the problems that arise along with tenure.
Grant suggests restructuring professorships to allow for three types of tenure positions: research-only, teaching-only, and research and teaching. He believes that this restructuring would allow research-driven professors to focus more on producing publications, while combatting the bad teaching of some tenured professors in the classroom.
There are three problems with Grant’s proposal.
The first problem is that Grant claims that there is no relationship between research and teaching in order to support his proposal to separate the two jobs. Universities are unique in that they are an institution where both research and teaching come together to both generate and impart knowledge.
Joseph Tumolo, FCRH ‘14, expressed concern saying, “I don’t think that a professor can really help students if he or she is not abreast of developments within his or her field.” Michael Baur, an Associate Professor of Philosophy, defended the importance of a professor’s research as well. “The thing that gets taught by a teacher is not always just limited to what the teacher says in the classroom, but what the teacher stands for as a member of a community of other scholars,” says Baur.
It is not just being knowledgeable of developments in one’s field or standing for something amongst a community that makes research an important part of a professor’s job. As a student who pursued a research project through an undergraduate research grant and wrote a senior thesis, it was essential for me to work with a professor who was an experienced researcher. How can professors who solely teach hope to advise a student who is looking to contribute to academia through research?
The second problem with Grant’s proposal is that it is not realistic for some, if not many universities. According to an article in The Atlantic, since 1975 tenure and tenure-track professors have dropped from about 45 percent of all teaching staff to less than a quarter . It would not be economically feasible for many schools to hire professors for both full-time tenured research and teaching positions. This split would either cut the number of tenured teaching faculty significantly or require a substantial increase in funding to maintain a certain number of both teaching and research positions.
The third problem with Grant’s proposal is that it does not address the real problem among some tenured faculty. “The problem is not bad teaching or bad research. It’s laziness,” says Baur. Whether one is carrying out research, teaching, or both, there is room for laziness.
If the problem of post-tenure laziness is to be addressed, it must be addressed with greater accountability. “Tenure gives a level of job security that exists almost nowhere else,” says Baur. “We are the one-percenters, as far as job security is concerned.” While greater accountability would combat the issues that arise with tenure, it would contradict the importance of the job security and academic freedom that come along with tenure.
Grant offers a very simplified solution to the problems that arise with tenure. His proposal is shortsighted, unrealistic, and fails to address the issue sufficiently. “I don’t know if there’s any simple or easy solution, says Baur, “Though I could understand the need or worry of some universities.”
Where does Fordham fall when it comes to tenured professors?
Grant states that at research universities, tenure is awarded primarily on the basis of “research productivity and quality.” At Fordham, it seems that much more is taken into account when awarding tenure.
Tumolo, a student that has worked primarily with tenured professors at Fordham, believes very strongly that his professors have balanced both research and teaching well. “Some of the professors I would consider myself closest to are great teachers, very active and well-respected scholars, and in places of administration in their department,” says Tumolo. Many students agree that they have not found apathy among tenured professors to be an issue at Fordham.
The competition for tenured positions at a university is tough. “The tenured professors I have worked with are driven with the same passion you would expect from someone who chose a difficult and uncertain path for love of an academic discipline,” says Tumolo.
The road to achieving tenure is not an easy one. As Fordham students, we are lucky to have many professors who, with great dedication, both generate and impart knowledge long after they have navigated the road to tenure.
Emily Horihan, FCRH ’14, is an international studies major from Staten Island, N.Y.
