I want my scholarship to also have relevance to real-world problems.
**
Now, the tenure system also involves an onerous review process, in which academics need to submit detailed documentation of their value. The criteria frequently come down to contributions in research, teaching and service — but the last two factors often don’t count nearly as much as the first.
In addition, tenure criteria can be unclear or open to interpretation, and there are often unwritten requirements that faculty members become aware of only through word of mouth. Plus, tenure committees frequently focus on the factors that are easiest to measure — such as journal impact factors and student course evaluations — rather than looking deeper into the applicant’s contributions.
According to the US National Center for Education Statistics, 79% of full professors are white; only 4% are Black and 4% are Hispanic. In comparison, about 60% of the US population is non-Hispanic white, 14% is Black and 19% is Hispanic. “Just like every other institution or anything that is influenced by people, bias is baked in,” says Pittman.
**
writes up his accomplishments and intentions for each 5-year contract.
**
Each year, the Olin system assesses professors on activities that support three key purposes: (1) development of students, (2) support of the institution and (3) impact beyond Olin.
**
The road less travelled
Some individuals and institutions eschew tenure.
Columbia University in New York City has been trying to give David Helfand tenure for nearly four decades. Each time, the astronomer has refused.
Tenure “does more to suppress academic freedom of those who don’t have it”, because its protections aren’t available to the bulk of academics today, who hold adjunct or non-tenure track positions, he explains. “It just seemed like a system that was in desperate need of reform and that I didn’t want to participate in.”
So, when he came up for tenure at Columbia, he said no thanks. It took two years of negotiation to convince the university’s provost to put him on five-year contracts. As each term expires, Helfand writes up his accomplishments and intentions, an exercise that he finds useful.
His process is similar to what happens at Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, which was founded in 1997 with a no-tenure policy as one of its precepts. However, the college still had to come up with a way to evaluate faculty and promote their development, says emeritus associate provost Vincent Manno.
Each year, the Olin system assesses professors on activities that support three key purposes: development of students, support of the institution and impact beyond Olin. Biases and other problems that pop up in tenure reviews can happen in Olin’s reviews, too. But more than half of the current faculty members have been at Olin for more than a decade, and several are approaching the 20-year mark, says Manno, suggesting that professors can thrive without tenure.
As for Helfand, he’s thrived, too. But in July 2022, the provost refused to give him a new limited-term contract, so he has de facto tenure after all.
Tweaking tenure practices
ut, Coates warns, these metrics are so new that it’s hard to say what a ‘good’ social-media statistic looks like. Is 1,000 paper views good? 20,000? The answer will vary by research area. “Use them with caution,” Coates says.
Nature 620, 453-455 (2023)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02498-5
Is it time for tenure to evolve?
After a spate of high-profile tenure denials, US academics are rethinking how this beleaguered academic process can be made more fair.
