When the economic recession hit, no one could blame university administrators for trying to cut corners. The cessation of construction projects and the slow spread of wireless on campus were taken with a grain of salt. But there may have been one corner in particular that administrators were wary of cutting back on: the hiring of tenure-track professors. While the path to tenure is by no means a simple one, its benefits can often prove an integral part of the intellectual atmosphere of an academic institution.
Originally instated to ensure academic freedom among faculty, tenure refers to an academic's right to not be terminated without just cause. It comes into play on multiple levels — tenure protects educators who may support a controversial line of thought, it provides them with the freedom to explore their own interests and it encourages them to devote time to helping junior colleagues who wish to establish themselves.
In other words, tenure leaves academics without the anxiety of precarious job security or pressure from university politics and gives them the flexibility needed to explore their intellectual interests.
"If you work for a government, they tell you what to do. If you work for a company, they tell you what to do. But the university really does not tell a tenured faculty member what they should be doing research on," Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Sheldon Krimsky said.
But every rose has its thorns, and the perks of tenure do indeed come with a price tag. Receiving tenure is a tedious process, both for applying professors and the board that reviews them. According to Krimsky, who will chair the Tenure and Promotion Committee for Arts, Sciences and Engineering starting in May, a professor who has been hired on the tenure track must apply after five years of work.
Along with the application, student evaluations and solicited letters from experts in the field are also submitted for review by a number of committees. Once the information is compiled, it goes through a slew of reviews, including the faculty members of the applicant's department, a subcommittee of the Tenure and Promotion Committee and later the full body, the university's senior deans, the provost, the Board of Trustees and finally the university president.
"It usually takes about a year," Krimsky said. "It's a very scrupulous process. It's one of the most serious decisions any university can make."
The complexity behind the process, Krimsky said, stems from the fact that the university, in offering an employee tenure, is effectively endowing the individual a lifetime of employment as long as they meet the general qualifications of the position.
"They're not given a year-to-year contract or a multi-year contract, but they're given life employment," he said. "It's a very unusual position to be in."
And while it takes time and scrutiny for each committee to review an application, for the professors who are on the tenure-track, the process is even more stressful. At the end of five years, these academics face one of two circumstances: earning tenure or losing their job.
"As an assistant professor, if you don't get tenure you're basically leaving the university — you're done," said Professor and Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering Kurt Pennell, who received tenure in 2009. "That's the sort of pressure you feel as a junior faculty member."
Associate Professor of Psychology Samuel Sommers said the stressful tenure application process he went through in 2009 was worth it in the end. With total security in his position, Sommers now feels free to research interests that are completely his own.
"It has enabled me to branch out in new directions with my scholarship," Sommers said in an email. "I can take on a high-risk research project for which I don't know how the data will turn out without losing too much sleep in the process. And once I received tenure, I decided to write a general-audience book, something that isn't really expected or prioritized in my field of psychology."
For many universities facing troubled economic times, the lengthy tenure application process and the full benefits that must be paid to tenured professors are increasingly difficult to provide — a fact that has resulted in the increased hiring of adjunct professors, those who teach on a part-time, non-salaried basis.
According to Krimsky, however, the place for tenured professors on campus cannot be replaced.
"There's no substitute for a person who is invested in lifetime employment at the university," he said. "His or her role advising students and commitment to the governance of the university is very strong. You don't get the same kind of commitment with an adjunct appointment, and usually adjuncts don't go through the screening process that we go through when we appoint a tenured professor at a university."
Provost and Senior Vice President Jamshed Bharucha, who is involved in the final stages of the tenure application process, stood firm in asserting that economic strain does not mean fewer tenured professors at Tufts.
"We're committed to our tenure professoriate," Bharucha said. "We're an institution with a very strong student-faculty ratio. We're committed to the permanent faculty who are committed to the institution."
The benefits of working at a university, Krimsky said, are nearly endless, and allowing for tenure only encourages academics to pursue their work on campus.
"A lot of people want university jobs," he said. "It's probably the one place where they have the most autonomy to do the research and the teaching that they would like to do."
