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"are we not at a time where you can simply do all of those things and people won't crucify you?" Are you in the US? I'd say it's pretty clear you can get cruci

"are we not at a time where you can simply do all of those things and people won't crucify you?" Are you in the US? I'd say it's pretty clear you can get crucified for stating an unpopular opinion. "I'd also like to point out colleges aren't the end all be all of R&D." And they shouldn't be. They should primarily do work that the private sector is not willing to fund. "I think this is a much more complete answer then what I've been told before, but it's still quite fishy." There are no doubt advantages and disadvantages of tenure. Whether tenure is a good system is definitely up for debate, but the tradeoff is that some research will not be done and some topics will not be addressed in the classroom. There's little incentive to risk your career by jumping into controversial situations. Perhaps we are willing to move to a different model.

gravypod 10y ago
Let me be clear for others who come across this because I'm completely sure that since you've been a student and now work in the system you know where I am coming from as a student. Surely there will be people who read this who have not had the 'pleasure' of being graced with the "bad kind" of tenured professor. In my college experience, which has only been one year, I've met a few types of professors. There is the kind who LOVES teaching and who is amazing at it. This is the only kind of teacher that I'll give a real life example of. If you're going to NJIT and need a math teacher you're going to want to look for these two names: Jimmy Hayes and Kenneth Horwitz. Both don't only want you to learn but they also want to be the one who teaches you. If I could have every professor I meet conduct themselves like this I'd have no problem with tenure. And that's coming from someone who failed the class taught by Hayes. The reason I'm giving such praise to these professors is there is absolutely no way my failing grade was their Hayes fault, it was my own (I had some problems going on in my life at the time). They spent all the time they could preparing us for the exams and also gave us points back if we did something that was incorrectly graded and we could prove it was right. Next there is the kind who "believes in the system". They teach because they enjoy it, they are usually charismatic and good at teaching but that isn't their main focus. They either do this while engaging in research or other projects to help the school or further their field. I have no problem with this second group. It is again someone who puts time and effort into their job. Someone who cares about their work. It's altogether someone who is furthering humanity while not harming others around them. The last professor is someone you don't want. It's the professor who is tenured. That's how all of us students refer to them since these seem to be the only kind of people, in the eye of a student, who actually has it. They are the professor who comes in 15 minutes late to class, consistently, refuses to answer emails or questions, and leaves randomly through the semester. I've actually had one of or physics professors come in on the first day 15 minutes late. He started the lecture (for the class that was meant to be taken along side of Calculus 1) by saying "So does everyone here know how to take the derivative." When everyone is confused, he does a 10-second-basic drawing of what it was. Asked if anyone had any questions. He scanned the room full of raised hands and said "Ok" then went on with the lecture. This happened 10-15 times across the semester. Another incident was that the physics department cobbles together a "sort of practice exam" for each test. I found this out from a friend as my teacher had never talked about nor handed this exam out. The last story I'll share of this horrible professor took place around the time of the 3rd exam. I took the exam and went in the next class to get my scores only to find he had absconded with the only copies of our exam on a "business trip"; we had to wait 3 weeks to get our exam scores. (I had given up at that point and started randomly answering on the exams. For this test I got 17/20 placing me in the top 20% of the test takers.... that might tell you a bit about our exams) So this is my problem with tenure. It's often the WORST of the worst you notice have it while the best of the best struggle to get it since it seems they aren't one to shut up and play ball with the stupid processes needed to get it.
- arghnoname 10y ago
  The confusion here is that you seem to think tenure has something to do with teaching. For a research university, tenure mostly (but not entirely) is a reward for research (and grant-getting) excellence. It's a quirk of our system that excellent world-class researchers are obligated to teach basic materials to undergraduates, and sadly not all of them are very good at it. Further, while poor grading reviews don't help someone seeking tenure, a poor publishing record and no grants will kill it. The incentive is to prioritize research at all costs. One of the best researchers I know is also one of the worst rated instructors in course evaluations I've seen. This quirk is why coursework from non-research universities might on average be better in your standard topics. For 101 stuff, you're better off being taught the material from someone who is a great instructor but isn't on the research frontier than the other way around.
  - bachmeier 10y ago
    These days many (probably most, though I don't have that kind of data) research universities are moving away from intro classes taught by tenured faculty. It's more common to have non-tenure track faculty teach intro classes, along with the tenured faculty that enjoy doing it. Interestingly, I've heard many complaints about tenure based on complaints about non-TT faculty.
  - gravypod 10y ago
    Well you'd say that, but coinicdently the teacher I'm talking about has no published research listed on his profile page for our school, only "research interests." It doesn't look like he's done much, just that he's friends with the type of people who are in charge. This is mirrored in the CS department where I am. One full time professor was given an offer by the school, a "retirement package." It was rumored to be in the 250k range. He is unanimously refereed to as "the weed-out professor" by everyone of my peers since he is the only teacher for one of the mandatory CS classes. Sadly he has not taken the retirement package and has one of the highest failure rate classes in the college. He has not been fired due to his tenure. This is the reason why I and many other students have this distaste for tenure: because whenever we are confronted with it, it is because our lives are made infinity more difficult because of it. In the years to come as students who have been poorly treated by tenured professors seep into administration of colleges there will be problems because of this. I can't fix it and I don't mind at all if professors loose tenure as an option. That being said, if the research community wants to keep it they are going to need to shift public opinion of it and that will only happen by hiring professors who are good at teaching to replace the brilliant researchers in that regard.

gravypod 10y ago

Let me be clear for others who come across this because I'm completely sure that since you've been a student and now work in the system you know where I am coming from as a student. Surely there will be people who read this who have not had the 'pleasure' of being graced with the "bad kind" of tenured professor. In my college experience, which has only been one year, I've met a few types of professors. There is the kind who LOVES teaching and who is amazing at it. This is the only kind of teacher that I'll give a real life example of. If you're going to NJIT and need a math teacher you're going to want to look for these two names: Jimmy Hayes and Kenneth Horwitz. Both don't only want you to learn but they also want to be the one who teaches you. If I could have every professor I meet conduct themselves like this I'd have no problem with tenure. And that's coming from someone who failed the class taught by Hayes. The reason I'm giving such praise to these professors is there is absolutely no way my failing grade was their Hayes fault, it was my own (I had some problems going on in my life at the time). They spent all the time they could preparing us for the exams and also gave us points back if we did something that was incorrectly graded and we could prove it was right. Next there is the kind who "believes in the system". They teach because they enjoy it, they are usually charismatic and good at teaching but that isn't their main focus. They either do this while engaging in research or other projects to help the school or further their field. I have no problem with this second group. It is again someone who puts time and effort into their job. Someone who cares about their work. It's altogether someone who is furthering humanity while not harming others around them. The last professor is someone you don't want. It's the professor who is tenured. That's how all of us students refer to them since these seem to be the only kind of people, in the eye of a student, who actually has it. They are the professor who comes in 15 minutes late to class, consistently, refuses to answer emails or questions, and leaves randomly through the semester. I've actually had one of or physics professors come in on the first day 15 minutes late. He started the lecture (for the class that was meant to be taken along side of Calculus 1) by saying "So does everyone here know how to take the derivative." When everyone is confused, he does a 10-second-basic drawing of what it was. Asked if anyone had any questions. He scanned the room full of raised hands and said "Ok" then went on with the lecture. This happened 10-15 times across the semester. Another incident was that the physics department cobbles together a "sort of practice exam" for each test. I found this out from a friend as my teacher had never talked about nor handed this exam out. The last story I'll share of this horrible professor took place around the time of the 3rd exam. I took the exam and went in the next class to get my scores only to find he had absconded with the only copies of our exam on a "business trip"; we had to wait 3 weeks to get our exam scores. (I had given up at that point and started randomly answering on the exams. For this test I got 17/20 placing me in the top 20% of the test takers.... that might tell you a bit about our exams) So this is my problem with tenure. It's often the WORST of the worst you notice have it while the best of the best struggle to get it since it seems they aren't one to shut up and play ball with the stupid processes needed to get it.

arghnoname 10y ago
The confusion here is that you seem to think tenure has something to do with teaching. For a research university, tenure mostly (but not entirely) is a reward for research (and grant-getting) excellence. It's a quirk of our system that excellent world-class researchers are obligated to teach basic materials to undergraduates, and sadly not all of them are very good at it. Further, while poor grading reviews don't help someone seeking tenure, a poor publishing record and no grants will kill it. The incentive is to prioritize research at all costs. One of the best researchers I know is also one of the worst rated instructors in course evaluations I've seen. This quirk is why coursework from non-research universities might on average be better in your standard topics. For 101 stuff, you're better off being taught the material from someone who is a great instructor but isn't on the research frontier than the other way around.
- bachmeier 10y ago
  These days many (probably most, though I don't have that kind of data) research universities are moving away from intro classes taught by tenured faculty. It's more common to have non-tenure track faculty teach intro classes, along with the tenured faculty that enjoy doing it. Interestingly, I've heard many complaints about tenure based on complaints about non-TT faculty.
- gravypod 10y ago
  Well you'd say that, but coinicdently the teacher I'm talking about has no published research listed on his profile page for our school, only "research interests." It doesn't look like he's done much, just that he's friends with the type of people who are in charge. This is mirrored in the CS department where I am. One full time professor was given an offer by the school, a "retirement package." It was rumored to be in the 250k range. He is unanimously refereed to as "the weed-out professor" by everyone of my peers since he is the only teacher for one of the mandatory CS classes. Sadly he has not taken the retirement package and has one of the highest failure rate classes in the college. He has not been fired due to his tenure. This is the reason why I and many other students have this distaste for tenure: because whenever we are confronted with it, it is because our lives are made infinity more difficult because of it. In the years to come as students who have been poorly treated by tenured professors seep into administration of colleges there will be problems because of this. I can't fix it and I don't mind at all if professors loose tenure as an option. That being said, if the research community wants to keep it they are going to need to shift public opinion of it and that will only happen by hiring professors who are good at teaching to replace the brilliant researchers in that regard.