The 95 (give or take) Theses…on Tenure
There has been a lot of back and forth recently on physics blogs about the tenure process, sparked by Rob Knop’s airing of his grievances on academia’s tenure system, specifically about the criteria by which it is awarded. Reading the comments on that post, as well as Mark Trodden’s response and Chad Orzel’s post, gives me the impression that the general consensus about tenure is that it is the worst process for evaluating professors, except for all the other possible ways.
From growing up the son of a professor, I get the impression that the academic system is most broken and at its worst when it is used to bludgeon junior professors into submission under the giant thumb of a particularly powerful and autocratic senior faculty member or cartel of senior faculty. In this case, the tenure process becomes politics-driven and full of fear-mongering; it’s then no surprise that it would exacerbate in-fighting and personality conflicts, increase racial and sexual discrimination or tension, and cause in faculty depression, stress, and general unhappiness.
This might be categorized under a larger umbrella of any situation in which the senior faculty (or just the department in general) treat the junior faculty as fodder, rather than as respected colleagues. My dad once told me about rumors of a high-level university hiring ten junior faculty to fill one tenure spot, which is just plain disrespectful.
I get the feeling that the situations in which the tenure process breaks are similar to the ways in which graduate school and post-docs can get broken: when professors treat their lab members as fodder and labor, rather than as valuable students or research associates under their mentorship. The lack of respect seems to be the main lynch-pin in all of this.
