Faulty Towers: Tenure and the Structure of Higher Education - Softcover

Amacher, Ryan C.; Meiners, Roger E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0945999895 ISBN 13: 9780945999898

Verlag: Independent Institute, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

In Faulty Towers: Tenure and the Structure of Higher Education, Ryan C. Amacher and Roger E. Meiners examine the internal and external reforms necessary to bring competitive forces to American universities and thereby improve them.

As debate accelerates over the declining standards in higher education, academic tenure is viewed with suspicion by many, who see it merely as job protection for incompetent teachers. Even many professors believe tenure is a guarantee of lifelong entitlement, whereby only the commission of a crime can lead to dismissal. Faulty Towers sets the record straight by elucidating the history, legal status, and common misunderstandings regarding tenure.

Tenured professors who have become incompetent are rarely dismissed, and superior teaching is rarely rewarded, although there is little to prevent universities from doing so. Tough administrators are also hard to find—in part because university trustees seldom hold them accountable. Faulty Towers explains how restructuring university incentives to be more in line with those of market-based enterprises would produce greater accountability, stronger boards of trustees, more effective administrators, and a tenure system that protects academic freedom but not substandard education.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Ryan C. Amacher (1945–2016) was Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and former President at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia, and served as Dean of the College of Commerce and Industry at Clemson University, Chairman of the Department of Economics at Arizona State University, Senior International Economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Oklahoma, Economist at the General Electric TEMPO Center for Advanced Studies, and Consultant to the Federal Trade Commission.

Roger E. Meiners is the John and Judy Goolsby and E.M. (Manny) Rosenthal Chair in Economics and Law at the University of Texas at Arlington, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute, Fellow of the George W. Bush Institute, and Senior Fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center. Having received his Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Tech and J.D. from the University of Miami, he has served as Director of the Center for Policy Studies at Clemson University, a faculty member at Texas A & M University and Emory University, Director of the Atlanta Regional Office of the Federal Trade Commission, Associate Director of the Law and Economics Center at Emory University, and a Member of the South Carolina Insurance Commission.

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Faulty Towers

Tenure and the Structure of Higher Education

By Ryan C. Amacher, Roger E. Meiners

The Independent Institute

Copyright © 2004 The Independent Institute
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-945999-89-8

Contents

Preface, 
Introduction, 
Chapter 1 The Origins of Tenure, 
Chapter 2 The Legal Meaning of Tenure, 
Chapter 3 Roots of the Structural Problems in Higher Education, 
Chapter 4 Eating the Fixed Pie, 
Chapter 5 Managing Faculty as a Valued Resource, 
Chapter 6 Reforming Tenure or University Structure?, 
Chapter 7 Internal Reforms, 
Chapter 8 External Reforms, 
Chapter 9 Conclusion, 
Appendix, 
Notes, 
References, 
Index, 
About the Authors, 

CHAPTER 1

The Origins of Tenure

When Harvard's first president, Henry Dunster, espoused a theological argument about infant baptism that differed from the more popular view, he had to resign from office. That was typical of the orthodoxy required of college faculty until late in the nineteenth century, by which time the churches lost their influence over many of the colleges they had established, and religious ties at state colleges were disappearing. Before the twentieth century, those employed by a college were expected to follow the accepted norms of behavior of a particular religion or the views espoused by founders and benefactors. However, orthodoxy within individual colleges did not mean that competition in the market for ideas did not exist.

Many new colleges were created as alternatives to the views espoused at existing institutions. Students could attend colleges that offered widely divergent religious and nonreligious views. The diversity across colleges was the bulwark of academic freedom (Brubacher and Rudy 1958, 299). Individual faculty had less freedom within particular colleges than they do now, but there may have been more diversity in the range of positions espoused across colleges a century or two ago than is the case today, when most colleges look very much alike.

The end of the nineteenth century saw the rise of what is now called academic freedom. By 1900, the presidents of Chicago, Columbia, and Harvard all asserted that no donor would be allowed to interfere with the ideas espoused by university faculty. Then as now, college presidents and trustees did not care much for public pronouncements by faculty about controversial political issues, but they still defended the faculty's right to speak out. Although outlandish faculty opinions are often not good advertising for a college, especially when it is time for legislative funding, even a century ago there appears to have been little monitoring of faculty members' politics. There is, rather, a practical concern about the reputation a university could earn because of the radical statements made by some faculty members about issues outside the university.

Much is made in academic circles about cases in the past in which faculty were fired because of their political pronouncements. Fortunately, such instances were few, and restrictions on speech were not severe even by current standards. A famous controversy involved the case of Richard T. Ely of the University of Wisconsin. It is often cited as an example of how academic freedom can be infringed. Ely, a prominent economist, publicly advocated labor strikes and boycotts, not an acceptable view in 1894, and he was roundly criticized by the press and state legislators. The board of regents of the university issued a strong document on behalf of academic freedom, stating "We could not for a moment think of recommending the dismissal or even the criticism of a teacher even if some of his opinions should, in some quarters, be regarded as visionary" (quoted in Hofstadter and Smith 1961, 860). Ely, who did not have tenure as we know it today, was not touched.

Nevertheless, the folklore of academic freedom is that the formation of the AAUP was stimulated by attacks on Ely and on other faculty "brave" enough to weather the blows inflicted by stinging newspaper editorials and haughty speeches from legislators incensed by faculty pronouncements on political issues. As one eminent historian of higher education notes, it is interesting that although the AAUP has always made much of the nonsubstantive "persecution" of left-wing faculty members, "purges of conservative professors in certain populist institutions [never] aroused this group to similar indignation" (Metzger 1973, 139). Little has changed in that respect over the decades.

The AAUP's "General Declaration of Principles," issued in 1915, asserts that institutions of higher learning must not have restrictions on faculty members' ideas. This document contains most of the traditional pronouncements on behalf of academic freedom (reprinted in Joughlin 1969, 155–76). It states that the role of college trustees is to raise money; they "have no moral right to bind the reason or the conscience of any professors" (Joughlin 1969, 160). It claims that people are drawn to the academic profession not because they seek financial reward, but because they are "men of high gifts and character" (Joughlin 1969, 162). Scholars must be allowed to do what they think is best; "once appointed, the scholar has professional functions to perform in which the appointing authorities have neither competency nor moral right to intervene" (Joughlin 1969, 163). Universities exist for three reasons: (1) to advance human knowledge (research), (2) to provide instruction to students (teaching), and (3) to develop experts for public service. These functions require the acceptance and enforcement "to the fullest extent [of] the principle of academic freedom" (Joughlin 1969, 165).

To protect academic quality, the AAUP founders recommended that universities take several steps. First, faculty members should be judged only by committees composed of fellow academics. Such committees would determine what questions of academic freedom were involved and whether the faculty member in question should be disciplined or dismissed. Second, such academic committees should protect college administrators and boards of trustees from unjust charges of infringements of academic freedom. Third, faculty appointments should be made only with the advice and consent of a faculty committee. When faculty are hired, their contracts should be clearly written. Full and associate professors should have tenure. Assistant professors should serve ten-year probationary terms prior to consideration for tenure and promotion. The grounds for dismissing faculty should be clearly stated, and faculty committees should be involved in such decisions.

The experience of the AAUP, the primary investigator of charges of infringements of academic freedom, indicates that violations of academic freedom are in fact unusual. In 1932, the AAUP reprinted ten years' worth of reports by its Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The 1928 report was typical. Various faculty members had filed twenty-plus complaints, seeking assistance from the AAUP. "In only one case was an investigation ordered" (Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure 1932, 341). Instances of invasions of academic freedom, from the AAUP perspective, were rare. As today, most cases alleging violations of academic freedom were brought by faculty who were denied tenure owing to poor performance or to the administration's failure to follow proper procedure, which is still the most common factor in tenure disputes.

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Tenure as we know it today was initialized in the early 1900s, but...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Independent Institute
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0945999895
• ISBN 13: 9780945999898
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 96
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
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