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Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

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Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#61

Post by tedivm »

notch898c wrote: post #57
quantified wrote: post #2

Not the law yet, but as Scott Aaronson (I'm positive along with others) has pointed out, this would make their universities vastly less attractive to various incoming faculty. Whether that would be as impactful in STEM as in the humanities or human-interest areas like law remains to be seen.

I would think a top performer would like least the tenure system, as they're in demand but their job outlook stunted by (perhaps numerical minority) crusty elements that can't be supplanted.

The few people I know with tenure are just happy to be out of the academic grind, as it's absolutely brutal. Being tenured also doesn't lock you into a specific university- one of my professors had tenure but took a job elsewhere on a tenure track.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#62

Post by kevinmchugh »

orange_joe wrote: post #9

I’m skeptical that tenure is good for students, I knew so many teachers that just didn’t much care for their work and probably would have been fired if not for tenure. I understand the arguments in favor of tenure, particularly when it comes to recruitment, but given the bloated pipeline into academia, I’m not sure they hold.

At the university level, good teaching is a value only some institutions hold. They'll all say they care, but research schools are paying way more attention to grants, publications, parents, etc than to student evals. There are universities that prioritize teaching over research and, unsurprisingly, they tend to have better teaching professors. I went to a school that didn't emphasize research and never had a TA teach a class, for instance

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#64

Post by [deleted] »

notch898c wrote: post #57
quantified wrote: post #2

Not the law yet, but as Scott Aaronson (I'm positive along with others) has pointed out, this would make their universities vastly less attractive to various incoming faculty. Whether that would be as impactful in STEM as in the humanities or human-interest areas like law remains to be seen.

I would think a top performer would like least the tenure system, as they're in demand but their job outlook stunted by (perhaps numerical minority) crusty elements that can't be supplanted.

[deleted]

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#65

Post by [deleted] »

ModernMech wrote: post #34
all2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we started an institution that automated most of the admin, hired and based admissions on pure skill/ability/talent? It seems to me that something so simple couldn't possibly work...

> It seems to me that something so simple couldn't possibly work... Well, what kind of knowledge do you have of university internals? Most people here on HN who want to get rid of university admin are on the outside looking in, and find it very hard to understand what all the admin do. In my experience, when I start to explain that a university is more like a town than a school, and "admin" are in fact the people who…

[deleted]

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#66

Post by PuppyTailWags »

notch898c wrote: post #57
quantified wrote: post #2

Not the law yet, but as Scott Aaronson (I'm positive along with others) has pointed out, this would make their universities vastly less attractive to various incoming faculty. Whether that would be as impactful in STEM as in the humanities or human-interest areas like law remains to be seen.

I would think a top performer would like least the tenure system, as they're in demand but their job outlook stunted by (perhaps numerical minority) crusty elements that can't be supplanted.

I would disagree but only, specifically, academia's already broken system. Tenure takes the heat off an academic such that they can deeply, deeply study a system. Academia's still stuck in lines-of-code style measuring sticks of performance so the rush to tenure is often pumping out salami slices worth of papers to secure future funds.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#67

Post by kevinmchugh »

tombert wrote: post #53
edrxty wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rid of tenure is fine but they'll need to pay much more to stay competitive. The calculous is fairly simple. Tenure track and then have an easy work life but less money, or go to industry and make lots of money but work more. Nothing wrong with either but if you get rid of the upsides to academia expect to replace them with something. That's just how market economies work. The issue isn't stem so much as the…

I find the likelihood of paying professors appropriately to be very unlikely; it's not like non-tenure-track professorships are making bank. I mean, it's not apples to apples, but I do part-time adjunct stuff in NYC, and the extra income is nice enough but even if I extrapolated it to full time, I'd barely have enough to pay my mortgage.

Adjuncts get treated like dirt everywhere, afaik

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#68

Post by drstewart »

bsder wrote: post #51
mkl95 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't plan on staying in academia forever, tenure vs no tenure shouldn't really matter.

Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching American history and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you had the temerity to talk about slavery. Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching English literature and have a bunch of people who want you fired because you have the temerity to point out that Chaucer's characters have the symptoms of syphilis. Tenure matters if you happen to be teaching biology…

[flagged]

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#69

Post by drstewart »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #40
themitigating wrote: post #3

This is the republicans punishing groups of people they don't like.

Specifically people who can say what they want because they have no fear of losing their jobs. Pretty rich coming from the party of "free speech".

>Specifically people who can say what they want because they have no fear of losing their jobs.

Ah, like the Supreme Court. Good thing we don't see anyone suddenly wanting to do away with lifetime appointments there, otherwise there might be some hypocrisy floating around.

Re: Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate

#70

Post by mgbmtl »

y-curious wrote: post #54
orange_joe wrote: post #9

I’m skeptical that tenure is good for students, I knew so many teachers that just didn’t much care for their work and probably would have been fired if not for tenure. I understand the arguments in favor of tenure, particularly when it comes to recruitment, but given the bloated pipeline into academia, I’m not sure they hold.

Much like the lifetime appointment of Supreme Court judges, tenured professorship is a great idea that gets warped in practice.

Prof jobs might be researched-focused, teaching-focused, or a mix of both.

Some universities really pushed research, in order to go for grants and donations. It also helps attract grad students. They usually make less enjoyable undergrad experiences.

Then again, having profs that only teach, not research, can become very disconnected after a while. You may as well have a grad student repeat from the book.

I know a few tenured profs (and my partner is one). I think most of awesome ones are those not pressured to run after grants constantly, and those that brag about them are red flags.

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