4 ms·

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 f

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.

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.