Tradition of Lifetime Tenure Is Under Assault

Who can count on all of these bennies on the job? Flexible hours. Summers off. Paid sabbaticals to do virtually anything. Lifetime employment guaranteed, no matter what the boss thinks.

College professors, of course. But for how much longer?

The lifetime tenure granted to college and university professors--long the hallmark of academic freedom--has come under increasing scrutiny by college presidents squeezed between leaner budgets and swelling enrollments.

And so on Tuesday, a group of higher education leaders recommended that state colleges and universities tighten up on tenure, including: periodic reviews of tenured faculty that makes it “easier to remove chronic nonperformers”; closer monitoring of sabbaticals; and an end to the practice of awarding tenure simply based on length of service.

The report issued by the American Assn. of State Colleges and Universities stops short of calling for abolishing tenure.

But it pushes for nearly 50 changes, drawing the distinction between tenure’s original intent--to give faculty the freedom to seek the truth and speak it freely--and the misperception that it is “merely job security.”

“When it is incorporated into collective bargaining, it takes on the appearance of an employment benefit, perhaps equivalent to a dental plan,” the report said, in a slap at faculty labor unions.

Mary Burgan, general secretary of the American Assn. of University Professors, criticized the report as an effort “to undermine tenure because administrators don’t like the idea.” She dismissed it as a “management document,” spilling over from corporate America to “downsize, outsource, re-engineer” the workplace.

College leaders expected a chilly reception from faculty. But California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed, who led the national reassessment of tenure policy, expects professors to like the recommendations that colleges help faculty stay at the cutting edge of their disciplines and award raises to those who do well in post-tenure reviews.

“Once you get promoted to tenure, there’s not much else to strive for,” Reed said. “We advocate that every six or seven years, that everyone go through a rigorous evaluation process just like they did to get tenure. If you do well, there should be rewards.”

If they do not do well, they would get time and help to bring up their performance before harsher steps are taken.

The debate over tenure has grown since a 1994 federal law abolished a mandatory retirement age, allowing professors who would have retired at 65 or 70 to keep their appointments for life.

Reed said college leaders wanted to propose their own reforms to strengthen tenure rather than wait for state legislatures or business leaders to demand more radical changes to make state colleges more cost-efficient.

The report, “Facing Change: Building the Faculty of the Future,” is available on the association’s Web site at: www.aascu.org/fpr