Rethinking Tenure to Improve Higher Education

Dr. Chris Sharp

Issue Areas

Many academics work toward the milestone of tenure, but it is a practice that is widely misunderstood and counterproductive. Tenure is viewed as guaranteed employment for a lifetime and a reward for performance, while actually being neither of these. Tenure actually represents protection from arbitrary dismissal for exercising academic freedom in the classroom, but the very definition of what constitutes academic freedom is hard to pin down. In 1958, the South Dakota Supreme Court said, “The exact meaning and intent of this so-called tenure policy eludes us. Its vaporous objectives, purposes, and procedures are lost in a fog of nebulous verbiage.” That remains true today.

Regarding tenure as a right, the reality is that only around 24 percent of all faculty in the U.S. were tenured in 2021, down from 39 percent in 1987. And, while the University System of Georgia for example may report an increase in the number of its tenured ranks to roughly 50 percent, 43.8 percent of Georgia’s faculty are not on a tenure track at all but rather on a contract system that has no chance of achieving tenure. 

As far as protecting dead wood, the research is mixed. Some studies state that productivity stays the same before and after someone has achieved tenure, with about 20 percent of people experiencing a drop in productivity after becoming tenured. But, it also appears that the reduced productivity in research, writing, etc., is largely relegated to non-STEM fields, where cutting-edge research is often done, with 15 percent of professors (mostly STEM) accounting for 50 percent of all academic writing.  There have been attempts to correct this and keep tenured professors engaged through a post-tenure review process that takes two forms: a regularly scheduled review or a triggered review. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but the most problematic disadvantages revolve around faculty displeasure at the additional workload of creating and keeping a current portfolio, and a drive to do the minimum necessary to avoid a triggered post-tenure review. Regardless of the post-tenure review process, if an institution does engage in a post-tenure review, it remains unlikely to rectify professorial underperformance.

The standard workload of the average tenure-track professor is a total of 24 credit hours taught each academic year. However, that often drops to 18 credit hours post-tenure, which institutionalizes a lower workload. Boise State University found that roughly 52 percent of an assistant professor’s (untenured) workload is classroom teaching, which drops to 45 percent at associate professor (just after or at the same time as gaining tenure), and drops again to 28.9 percent for full professors.

There is, unsurprisingly, little research on “academic freedom” and the ability to say, teach, or research whatever one wants without reprisal. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that roughly 2.1 percent of tenured professors lose their jobs each year, but this includes jobs lost due to program cuts, financial strain, school closures, and contract violations, or illegal/immoral behavior.

With the problems associated with the tenure system, many colleges have transitioned to a system of adjunct professors, who make up approximately 47 percent of the faculty workforce. However, these adjuncts are offered limited support, experience high turnover due to low wages, and have insufficient resources to do their jobs effectively. The University System of Georgia has already moved to a system that gives greater flexibility, reduces costs, and makes it more agile in responding to enrollment and market needs through a contract system. While a form of tenure still exists at the school, the tenure and post-tenure review processes make it easier to terminate faculty positions based on criteria such as faculty performance, program needs, and assessments of student success. UGA is not alone. More than 40 colleges have completely moved away from the archaic tenure system to a more agile contract-based system.  While there are concerns that ending tenure will negatively impact workforce turnover, the University of Wisconsin found that there was little long-term impact on turnover.  With all the challenges facing higher education today, continuing to hold on to an archaic system because “that’s the way it’s always been” is the definition of insanity. Academic institutions need to rethink tenure to provide the best education for their students and stay on the cutting edge of academia.