Can anyone explain this process of getting "tenured" as a professor?

[Mike 03]

I have been trying to understand this since I was a college student. What do you have to do or be to get tenured? Are there any links anyone can provide about this process of getting "tenured" or what the ramifications are of being "tenured."

Thanks. I think this is important, and the sources I was able to access were disappointing, insufficient and not as informative and detailed as I had hoped.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. ..........

Adj. 1. tenured - appointed for life and not subject to dismissal except for a grave crime; "an irremovable officer"; "a tenured professor"
irremovable - incapable of being removed or away or dismiss; "irremovable boulders"; "irremovable obstacles"

For more info see...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure

[rcrush]

2. I always thought it was just don't get fired for as long as you can.

:shrug:

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. You are EXACTLY FUCKING RIGHT.

Achieve "tenure" by not getting fired, or "let go" for a certain amount of time and you're somehow "SPECIAL".

[truedelphi]

3. I think it probably is very much like getting through college

Though even more political.

I was watching a mystery/thriller TV show a while back. The detectives were investigating athe murder of a university department head.

And one detective said to the other: "AH, academia! Where never before have so few fought so hard over so little."

Also, it never seemed to me that the college teachers that were universally liked by students had any more ability (and maybe even less) to make it to tenured status.

[readmoreoften]

11. It is actually very little like getting through college.

It is more like wading through a snake pit peppered with black holes.

[truedelphi]

13. I think this is the first time ever on DU

Where I stand corrected, while LMAO !!

[stray cat]

4. Brief version below - from a tenure track female assistant prof who shot her brother with a bb gun

I was six but still.....

Most places have an up or out policy meaning when you come up for tenure - usually around 6 years in you either get it or you have a year to find a new job. During the year you can appeal but thats often not successful. The tenure process involves putting together a tenure package which generally includes maybe 10 experts world wide in the field who promote you as tenure material with a letter (you don't get to choose the majority of those they contact), your grants you have received , the classes and your evaluations and "service" Usually they say I think you are evaluated in scholarship, teaching and service but in science its usually grant money and publications that carry the most weight.

To get tenure you normally have to have a Chairman of your department that supports you for tenure, your tenured colleagues in the department also vote. It then goes to a school wide promotion and tenure group that can veto the choice of the department and then someone higher up signs off on it.

Tenure can mean different things at different institutions. First, it means you are not fired for not getting tenure. Second, it is harder to fire you but they can eliminate your salary or decrease it depending on the bylaws. Some places you are guaranteed 50% salary and a job.

On a practical side - they evaluate you wondering if you will continue to bust your butt bringing in grant money, teaching and being un-replaceable to the effective running of the department.
It has to be proven that you are internationally recognized at the top of your field and excel in reasearch, scholarship, teaching and service or at least 2 and are really good at the others.

[bemildred]

5. I think there is a lot of sucking involved. And some luck. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

6. It varies from one school to another.

At a major research university, it helps to have a lot of publications in the "right" journals, and to be cited by others in the field. You will be valued, and therefore granted tenure, if you contribute to the academic reputation of the department & bring in grant money.

At some smaller campuses, where research is less important, things like community outreach count a lot: doing (good) things that get noticed by the local press, again contributing to the reputation of the department in ways that the department finds useful.

The exact mechanism of granting tenure also varies from one campus to another. Probably the most common system is by vote of the already-tenured department faculty.

Typically, the tenure vote is held in about your 7th year in a "tenure-track" position. "Tenure track" starts with being appointed an assistant professor. In many places, granting of tenure is coincident with a promotion from assistant to associate professor, although not always. If you are not granted tenure, you may be given either a 1-year terminal contract or, if they still think you have a chance of making it, the tenured faculty may grant you a 3-year contract, at the end of which you will come up again for a tenure vote.

There are a lot of variations from one system to another, but what I described here is fairly typical.

[tonysam]

15. It is NOT to be confused with public school "tenure."

Only ONE person can award a public school teacher tenure, and that is the principal. There is no committee, nothing. There is NO appeal if you are denied, and therefore you are shit out of luck because you are an "at-will" employee. There is little legal recourse if you are denied tenure as a public school teacher unless you can prove discrimination or some other narrow ground.

Also unlike university tenure, a public school teacher who is "non-renewed" can never again work as a teacher in the public system in the United States. His or her career is finished, kaput.

There is something criminally wrong when a person's very livelihood depends on the whim of ONE person. Principals have absolute power to destroy your career at the stroke of pen. They don't even need a reason to get rid of you.

[hfojvt]

27. that's not true in my limited experience

In one case, a cousin of mine got fired and the union contested it and he was re-instated. In another case a teacher got fired, quietly asked to leave for sexual mis-conduct and she left the state and is teaching as a professor now for the last twenty years or so.

[Goldstein1984]

7. I have several friends who have negotiated the tenure process

both successfully and unsuccessfully. It really depends on the discipline in which the professor works, and the emphasis of the institution in which the professor works.

Basically, a tenure-track professor accumulates a body of work, including public outreach, work on committees, teaching and original research. The emphasis in those different areas will vary among disciplines, among institutions, and among departments within institutions.

In engineering and science, my own fields, a huge emphasis is placed on research and publication of that research. The number of papers published increases the exposure of both the professor and the institution. The real motivation for the emphasis on research is success in obtaining grants: the more one publishes, the more likely to obtain grants; the more grants obtained, the more publishing. And here's the kicker: institutions receive huge overhead payments from grants. One grant I worked under was relatively small (~$250,000 to study the sex lives of several subarctic plants), but the university received about 45% of that in overhead, which supports the physical facilities and pays for worker bees.

So, likelihood of tenure in research fields supported by grants is much higher for someone pulling in $1 million in grants than for someone pulling in $250,000 in grants. For fields like chemistry and molecular biology, patents are also a huge factor.

There is also the much-denied but true fact of politics and personality. I know an entomologist who, in spite of being a good researcher and teacher, was immediately marginalized because his politics didn't mesh with those he worked with. He ended up taking a higher-paying position with the U.S. Forest Service, but he would have been a much-needed addition to the faculty and museum staff where I was a volunteer research associate in entomology.

The truth is, there are a lot of intangibles that go into tenure. I stepped out of academia because I just didn't enjoy the grant-writing emphasis, which is the primary factor in my fields.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. I opted for non-tenure track

I am retired from the big job, and followed my wife around for the last few years of her international career doing guest lectures and seminars in several universities abroad. When she retired as well, we both returned to teaching. We had no problem finding positions since we were both very senior, very low cost, no interest in tenure or campus politics. My department chair has offered several times to move me to tenure track, but I continue to decline. It would do nothing for me and there are those who desperately want it.

[kevinbgoode]

22. I'm thinking about the same thing. . .

I find the politics rather tiring. . and rather demeaning to the profession. And the tenure process seems a bit unrealistic for me, who is starting out in late middle age as an ABD. While I know it means lower salary and little job security, I'm much more of self-motivating than many younger faculty - and I'd rather put my energy into teaching/research interests than look for ways to protect perceived territory and stroke fragile egos.

[Goldstein1984]

23. I don't have a PhD...

just an MS in Biology and an MS in Environmental Science/Engineering. I don't want to retire completely, so I want to find a place to teach at the community college level (my favorite level of college). Non-tenure, just adjunct--teaching, no politics.

[FarCenter]

18. Research grants are important to establishing a laboratory, and supporting grad students & post-docs

A significant effort will go into writing multiple grant proposals to funding bodies and playing the politics of getting government and industrial grant money. If successful, these grants will name the assistant professor as principle investigator and confer the ability to support research fellowships for post-docs, graduate students, and undergrad lab technicians. They also support procurement of laboratory equipment, and control of important equipment that may be useful for other professors research is an important way of trading favors for support.

A group of capable post-docs and graduate students will conduct most of the actual research under the direction of the principle investigator. Generally, the professor will be last named author on the publications of the lab, with the post-doc or grad student doing most of the work being the first named author. If another professor's group publishs work that used your equipment or your lab provided other assistance, then the tenure-seeking professor will be one of the authors in the middle.

Shootings are rare in biology laboratories. However, many poisonous chemicals are available.

[Goldstein1984]

26. Poisonous Chemicals...

That's true, as an entomologist, I kept a 2-pound jar of potassium cyanide for killing jars. Picric acid was everywhere, used for marking the exoskeletons of arthropods, and a very potent explosive. Now that I work independently from my lab at home, I limit the hazardous chemicals to less potent killing agents.

I know of only one case where failure to get tenure resulted in violence, and it was nothing approaching murder.

[frazzled]

8. I can speak a little to it

A junior faculty member who has been hired into a tenure-track position (meaning he or she is eligible for review to become a tenured professor) usually must teach for a specified period of time at the institution (usually around five years), after which time the academic department for which this faculty member works will collect information about their teaching, publication record, research, standing in the field, work on committees, etc. The department will vote on whether to recommend this person for tenure. After that, a separate tenure committee will review this material, along with outside evaluators who review materials, write reports, and make recommendations. If tenure is recommended by the committee, it usually has to then pass one more step: approval by a high-ranking official of the university (the president or provost).

It works differently in different universities an colleges, and in different departments. Some stress teaching more than research, and some vice versa, some both equally. But the common thread is that someone must prove their merits to a committee of peers.

[readmoreoften]

9. Post Ph.D. life....

Aw crap, I lost the beginning.

After one gets a Ph.D. one looks for an assistant professorship. In order to get this job, you need, more and more often these days, a major research program, teaching awards, service to a research society, and tons of publications and conference participation. Even if you have these things, there is no guarantee. After you get this job, after 7 years, if they like you, you get to become an associate professor. I've read more than a few articles about assistant professors who bake brownies and do other people's dry cleaning to be "collegial" in order to win their department's affection to win tenure. In order to get this rank, you need to publish at least another book or at minimum 5 articles (really, it's more like 8). If you make this rank, your job is permanently secure--unless the university dumps your department, then you are once again unemployed.

If you publish another book after that, have a massive amount of university service, write grants for your department, etc. you become a full professor--maybe. Many professors don't ever get there. Full prof usually takes 15-20 years.

Many big name schools now (Yale, NYU, Columbia, Harvard) hire multiple assistant profs knowing that they'll only keep one after the seven years, leaving the others to move on to try to get tenure in lesser schools. In 2006, 82% of NYU's courses were taught by untenured contract labor--and that doesn't include the assistant profs they intend to use and can at the end of 7 years.

If you don't get an assistant professorship (tenure-track)--which, in many fields is approaching 80% of Ph.D.s (in fields like English, way more) you become an unpaid contract laborer, an adjunct, earning $3000-$4000 per course, with no job security and often no benefits. Others with tenure, and on the tenure-track, consider you a failure and your work is not generally taken seriously, so you have a hard time publishing and moving ahead. If you're a researcher in the sciences, access to necessary materials becomes much more difficult.

Post-doctoral grants and visiting professorships are a step above adjunct or lecturer after a Ph.D. (However, they may not lead anywhere in this tough economy.)

What salts the wounds is that many who decide tenure are full professors who made it to "full" long before there were publishing requirements; hence, you have 65-70 year old folks with little or no record judging (often quite pompously) 30-40 year old folks with major publications and research programs who are consummate teachers.

If I had a kid who wanted to be an academic, I'd tell her to try to become an actress in Hollywood instead. The odds are about the same and the pay in Hollywood is much better.

[Orangepeel]

10. A professor's job is generally a combination of teaching, scholarship and service

What a professor is evaluated on
A professor's job includes teaching, scholarship (e.g., conducting original research and writing academic articles or books) and service (serving on committees, reviewing papers for journals, advising students, etc.).

Different universities weight the components differently. Research universities will put almost all of the emphasis on scholarship. Liberal arts colleges will put most of the emphasis on teaching. Mid-level state universities are usually "balanced", with maybe 50% of the emphasis on teaching, 40% on scholarship and 10% on service.

The Process
Again, it depends on the school, but professors are usually evaluated every year in order to determine if they get a merit raise and their teaching schedules, etc. But the big evaluation happens (usually) in a professor's sixth year when they are being considered for tenure. The professor puts together a big portfolio with evidence of teaching effectiveness (e.g., student evaluations and comments, peer evaluations, copies of syllabi and class exercises, etc.), quality of scholarship (number of publications, who has cited the research, letters written by other professors about the research, etc.), and a description of the service a professor has engaged in.

The portfolio is then evaluated at several levels -- for example, first the department that the professor is a member of, then the department chair, then the dean of the college, then a university committee, then the university provost, then the university president. It is ultimately the president's decision, but he/she is probably unlikely to grant tenure if the evaluation isn't positive at every level.

Ramifications
If a professor doesn't get tenure (which happens after six years at a university), he or she is fired and will have to try to get a job at another school or leave academia. Whether or not the professor can get another job depends in part on why he or she was denied tenure. If he/she is an excellent teacher but didn't have the research productivity necessary, he/she might be able to get a job at a school that places more emphasis on teaching.

Professors with tenure have greater job security. The historical purpose of tenure is to protect academic freedom. A tenured professor can't (in theory) be fired because they teach or research controversial ideas. They are still (probably) evaluated every year to determine if they get a merit raise. They can still be fired for dereliction of duty (e.g., if they don't show up to class) or moral turpitude (e.g., if they get convicted of a crime). But, it is a big involved process to fire a tenured professor (untenured professors are at will employees). Tenured professors can also be fired if their whole department is eliminated and their job no longer exists.

[kevinbgoode]

12. While ideally the process is about an assistant professor's

progress in academic publishing, presentations, community service and teaching, (and securing grants for some programs), the level of political manipulation and maneuvering inherent in the process is sometimes astounding. Originally, the idea of tenure was, in part, to protect academic freedom, meaning some kind of insulation from an Administration which could otherwise pressure a faculty member to work on certain projects and forego some kinds of research. However, since the system is set up that a senior faculty member (or tenured professor) serves as department mentor, that faculty member can often impose the same tyranny over the interests of a new assistant professor.

So when someone says this involves "luck," that's often true. A faculty member can make excellent contributions to a department, develop original research interests that gain attention, score excellent student evaluations and maintain a cordial relationship with other faculty, but the level of territorial bickering and insecure egos among some professors can sabotage the best candidates. I remember one associate professor friend of mine who told me once that "the fields of academia are littered with the bodies of the innocent who were sacrificed for someone else's (petty) self-interest." Note that I'm rather a critic of the tenure process - mainly because from what I've seen, some professors have used it to create a hostile work environment for others and are just as tyrannical as an Administration.

[timeforpeace]

14. Your "peers" get to award this taxpayer funded lifetime income stream. First rule of Tenure Club:

well, you know the rest.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Here's how my process worked at a small private school

I had six years as a tenure-track assistant professor at a college that stated that teaching was the most important factor and that publications and grants were essential, but not weighted as heavily as at research institutions.

Everyone told me that I was a shoe-in for tenure.

I was denied.

In retrospect, I figured out that it was partly a matter of bad timing.

The tenure committee, made up of already tenured faculty, changed from year to year.

The year before my year, the committee was made up mostly of friends of mine.

During my year, the committee was made up of people I didn't know plus a senior professor with whom I had foolishly shown to be an idiot (not in my department).

But on the whole, they did me a favor. Most of the people I know still in academia are depressed.

[anonymous171]

19. You kiss lots and lots of ass so no one can fire you.

That's how I understand it.

[stray cat]

20. Then I won't get tenure - but so far so good - of course I have a great Chair

[UTUSN]

21. Besides some "cred" publishing, got to KISS ASS as in anywhere,like the military!1 n/t

[JCMach1]

25. Profs here work on a rolling contract basis...

Which is roughly the equivalent of tenure. However, if you do something bad, you essentially have a 4 year contract to work out before you have to move. If you continue normal activity and behavior, each year you have one year added to your contract.

But yes going through any TENURE process is a pain in the a$$... even in the best of circumstances.