Ban on Tenure for New Faculty Hires Passes Texas Senate • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by jacobr1 » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

caddemon wrote: post #213

ano-ther wrote: post #140

Scott Aaronson who has tenure in Texas describes the effect as this: > […] it would be the end of UT Austin and Texas A&M as leading research universities. More precisely, it would be the immediate end of our ability to recruit competitively, and the slightly slower end of our competitiveness period, as faculty with options moved elsewhere. This is so because of the economics of faculty hiring. Particularly in STEM f…

I don't agree with this as a state policy, but I don't know if it is as disastrous for UT as Aaronson makes it out to be. The academic job market is an absolute fucking bloodbath. Plenty of very qualified up and coming researchers struggle to get TT positions at major research universities. If they stay in academia, many postdoc for an absurdly long time or settle for career stagnating instructor positions (even thou…

> An actual professorship at UT even if it were not possible to be tenured would surely be preferable to those options I'd think.

And also it includes a gamble that texas will reinstate tenure.

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

#222

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 9:58 PM UTC

ano-ther wrote: post #140

Scott Aaronson who has tenure in Texas describes the effect as this: > […] it would be the end of UT Austin and Texas A&M as leading research universities. More precisely, it would be the immediate end of our ability to recruit competitively, and the slightly slower end of our competitiveness period, as faculty with options moved elsewhere. This is so because of the economics of faculty hiring. Particularly in STEM f…

Is that a bad thing? I think part of the problem with modern college education is the lack of industry experience and the another part of the problem is that professors are more interested in research than teaching

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

#223

Post by haweemwho » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

ok_dad wrote: post #77

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.

Tenured researchers shouldn't be teaching, IMO. They can be doing research full-time, and leave teaching to those who care to teach. I, personally, dislike research, but I would love to become a CompSci professor and teach the next generation of software developers and technologists. The problem is, I do NOT want to do research. Give me a Master's in CS with some sort of "teaching extension" on it and I'll go teach a…

Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldtian_model_of_higher_ed...

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

#224

Post by romwell » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 9:59 PM UTC

fn-mote wrote: post #151

Someone1234 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If tenure goes away, then you have to pay more to compensate. If you're getting rid of tenure while keeping wages low, you'll still have bad teachers but for that reason instead. A lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too: No tenure AND low wages. It won't work out.

> A lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too: No tenure AND low wages. It won't work out. Sure you can. That's what the current system of adjuncts is like. The problem is that you lose the people who are the most competent. Those who know what they are doing, have valuable skills, etc.

>> A lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too: No tenure AND low wages. It won't work out. Sure you can. That's what the current system of adjuncts is like.

>The problem is that you lose the people who are the most competent. Those who know what they are doing, have valuable skills, etc.

So, you can have your cake and eat it too... provided that the cake is half-off because it's not competitive.

Which is what Scott Aaronson said.

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

#225

Post by HarryHirsch » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #193

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.

I'm not sure if the core duty of a professor at a research institution should even be teaching vs research...

You can't believe how stale an introductory course can get when the teaching staff is left to its own devices and research staff looks the other way. And that's at a name brand top-10 university.

Man, I wouldn't hire out of here.

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

#226

Post by romwell » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #199

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.

Here is how I look at it. Major universities have two functions: (1) teaching and (2) research. Teaching is further split between (1a) undergrad (basic) and (1b) graduate (advanced). You could definitely sustain (1a) without the incentive (or carrot) of tenure. This is how most community colleges work. (1b) and (2) currently rely on the existence of tenure. Teaching advanced courses (1b) requires research experience.…

>You could definitely sustain (1a) without the incentive (or carrot) of tenure. This is how most community colleges work.

Spoiler: this is how most universities work.

They have teaching jobs that are either filled with adjuncts, or are contract-based; or pay such small salaries that tenure is the only thing that would attract anyone to work them.

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

#227

Post by haweemwho » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

nextos wrote: post #41

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.

IMHO, right now, tenure is the only edge Academia has in many areas of STEM compared to industrial labs. Other countries have suppressed tenure in the past, Denmark comes to mind, and this scared tons of great faculty.

> IMHO, right now, tenure is the only edge Academia has in many areas of STEM compared to industrial labs.

This.

Even with tenure in place, I'd never go to academia. So much politics, worry about grants, immobility in what to do research in, low compensation compared to industry jobs, so much frustration, frustrated and bitter colleagues... It's terrible. I love working with colleagues that all have the best interest of the workplace in mind. I find that in industry a lot. In academia it's really rare.

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

#228

Post by malshe » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #85

Clarifying a bad headline: it's not that tenure can't be offered (only) to new faculty. It's that henceforth nobody would be given tenure, even if they were already employees. Existing employees who are already tenured would be grandfathered. And obviously only for public institutions.

That's my understanding too. I was surprised to see the headline because we have a couple of assistant profs in my department going up for tenure next year and I was told that if this law passes they won't be able to do that anymore.

Edit: Looks like it applies only to new hires. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/04/20/texas-senate-tenure-...

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

#229

Post by romwell » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

aborsy wrote: post #6

Honestly, it may not be a bad thing. Tenure was meant to protect the academic freedom, and pursuit of the long-term scientific research. Today, most academics chase money, grants, trends, citations and status. It’s a job like any other, and doesn’t need protection, at cost to those outside the ivory tower (unless perhaps for a very small subset).

>Tenure was meant to protect the academic freedom, and pursuit of the long-term scientific research. Today, most academics chase money, grants, trends, citations and status.

These two statements are written as if there's an implication; there isn't one.

>It’s a job like any other, and doesn’t need protection, at cost to those outside the ivory tower (unless perhaps for a very small subset).

Bold claim! Let's see if it's more than just, like, your opinion.

(Again, it isn't).

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

#230

Post by Gabriel54 » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

As a TA at a certain public institution in Texas, the level of some students' incompetence by the time they reach their final year in undergraduate studies is shocking and saddening. And yet, almost no one fails, because there is pressure to pass everyone. One would literally have to do nothing in order to fail. Few professors have the time or energy to deal with these issues, so standards get lower and more students pass without knowing their subject. The only thing protecting professors from retaliation (not acquiescing to pressure from administrators / deans to pass students) is tenure. We can see clearly what will be the effect of this legislation.