4 ms·
Absent a radical retrenchment of reactionary-style teaching institutions, I don't see how "getting tenure" is a viable strategy going forward. The institutions
by pnf 4y ago
Absent a radical retrenchment of reactionary-style teaching institutions, I don't see how "getting tenure" is a viable strategy going forward. The institutions have radically shifted their construction to be administration/student-centered rather than professor-centered. It may be that tenure as an institution could not survive the massive growth of the university system. Like any guild, membership growth must be limited. Tenure is a kind of life membership that simply cannot be conferred willy-nilly. Modern university economics simply will not support it. The trend is to disempower labor. Meanwhile, existing tenures are precious resources inspiring perverse behavior. In some ways, the tenure system has badly back-fired for professors, hastening their proletarianization (like doctors in the hospital system). It hasn't helped that most professors have been complicit in their own disenfranchisement, refusing to fight for their non-ideologically-aligned cohort, supporting the administrators in their anti-professor actions on behalf of student-customers. The whole thing is a mess but tenure is done. We may as well lament the loss of the guilds at this point. The barn is open, the cow is gone.
- ModernMech 4y ago> I don't see how "getting tenure" is a viable strategy going forward. It's not, which is why many schools are moving away from tenured faculty and more toward contract instructors. They're paid like regular faculty (not pennies like adjuncts) but aren't on a tenure track. 3-5 year contracts give better job security than a typical job, but not a guaranteed job for life.
- pnf 4y ago3-5 year contracts are maybe better than employment at will for faculty but they are of a kind with deleveraging the profession vis a vis the institution. The institutional character has shifted to big-E Education. Like big-H Health it is a rationalization of the industry that disempowers the "productive" professionals in favor of the "managerial" professionals (administrators) who manage the economic relationships (means of production/distribution) of the whole shebang. Maybe the death of tenure will augur a new age of unionization for faculty (I have my doubts).
- ModernMech 4y agoHonestly I feel like it gives me more leverage. Every 3-5 years the administration has to be ready for me to walk, and they need to make competitive offers to keep me. These are not like tenured positions that only open up once a generation, so it's actually worthwhile to see what else is out there, so threats to leave for greener pastures are more credible.
- pnf 4y agoI wonder if it will really depend on market demand for your specialization. Free agent poetry profs may have to wait tables and go begging but STEM profs can write their own ticket? What kind of university does that create? I think it sounds better than it is. High-skill jobs always have some built-in leverage. Heck, this is HN. We all know this. But technics is not merely crystallized knowledge at a point in time. After a while, all but the top 20% are competing at a disadvantage. Factor in reach/amplification technologies and I wonder if the university's pursuit of market efficiencies isn't going to expose contract work as more precarious than not.
- smegger001 4y ago>Every 3-5 years the administration has to be ready for me to walk, and they need to make competitive offers to keep me. That is easy to say when you don't have family. Children don't do well being pulled out of school and moved to different school, they can suffer academically, emotionally and socially from having their lives disrupted. Then you have to consider your spouses career.