"Tenure is the gold standard of academia," Classics Department Lecturer Anthony Tuck said.
Professors constantly scan the world of higher education for open positions, and the availability of tenure is often an important consideration.
Professors can gain tenure - a lifelong guarantee of employment barring severe misconduct - only after being hired in a tenure-track position and being promoted within a certain department.
Chemistry lecturer Chris Morse, community health lecturers Bonnie Chakravorty and Charlene Galarneau, and history lecturer Awad Halabi all left the University this year - and for some of them, part of the decision came down to tenure.
Morse joined the chemistry department seven years ago as a temporary assistant professor with the possibility of gaining tenure. He taught large introductory classes, summer courses, and a summer program for graduate students.
Morse said he is interested in educational research on new and better ways of teaching chemistry. "The problem is, when you're just a lecturer, there's no motivation for doing anything other than your plain job description," he said.
After a few years at Tufts, Morse said he found out that his position would not become tenured.
"I want a job that has more prestige, and is designed to let me grow as an academic," Morse said. He now teaches at Olin College, a new, small engineering school in Needham, Mass. designed to foster innovative teaching methods.
His new position provides him not only with greater opportunities for advancement, Morse said, but also smaller classes and more focus on education.
"[Tufts] either wanted me to be bringing in huge grants and running a lab, or just being a lecturer and teaching the classes that no one else wanted to teach," Morse said.
There was little motivation to work on his independent research, Morse said. "Work you do before a position is tenure-track doesn't count toward the later tenure decision," he said.
Candidates for tenure are reviewed by several levels of faculty and administrative committees and subcommittees, in addition to the University's Board of Trustees.
When making tenure decisions, the University looks for "excellence in teaching, research and service," according to Dean of Academic Affairs Kevin Dunn.
These qualities are determined by student evaluation forms and whether or not the faculty member has "begun to make an impact on their field, an impact comparable to the best of their peer group," Dunn said.
Tuck said an offer of a tenure-track appointment at another school would likely take him away from Tufts. "Somebody like me would leave Tufts because another position is more consistent with what I want professionally," he said.
"Tenure provides stability," Tuck said, "It would be to my professional disadvantage not to look around."
The direction of one's career is often more important than tenure, though, Tuck said. He also said he "would love the opportunity to be reviewed for tenure at Tufts."
Neither Chakravorty or Galarneau were eligible for tenure at any point because they taught in the inter-disciplinary community health program.
The program's director, Edith Balbach, said tenure was not one of Chakravorty or Galarneau's primary motivations.
Galarneau moved to a similar non-tenure-track position in the women's studies department at Wellesley College.
Chakravorty is starting a community health graduate program at Tennessee State University, a position that makes her eligible for tenure.
Halabi taught Middle Eastern history at Tufts for two years - his first major teaching position. He is now an assistant professor at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
"Basically, I got a tenure position," Halabi said. His time at Tufts, Halabi said, was the first step in his academic career. Tenure was the main reason for his decision to leave.
This role of tenure in higher education also has its downside. "Tenure doesn't really provide an atmosphere were institutions can perform at their peak efficiency," Tuck said.
Once their jobs are secure, Tuck said, some professors become less productive. "I can think of a lot more instances where it's been abused."
Tuck said, though, that the competition for tenure-track positions "makes me more efficient."
