Texas proposal to eliminate tenure at universities: will destroy research in Texas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another state whose leadership aims to destroy public education in their state.

What will happen if this passes:
Complete inability for Texas to recruit new science professors who are able to compete in the market of ideas.
Those smart faculty will head to other states - or other countries. (Britain, China would love to have them.)

If this happens I wouldn't send my kids to Texas universities - because Texas universities won't get the best faculty.

We have a modern global talent economy, and if a state education system is anti-intellectual, why would I want my kids to go to school there?

I'm not a Republican and have voted for them zero times but this is one proposal I can stand behind. I can understand tenure when the supply of teachers is low. I keep hearing that it's the oppisite. Too many PhDs looking for too few jobs. Kill tenure and hire the best. If old geezer wants to leave because his tenure is gone, he's welcome. Don't think research funding will be impacted by this.

Why would the best ever accept a non-tenured job if they are offered tenured jobs elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

This is how these proposals are often presented—it’s a budget management thing!—but that’s not how they work in practice. Weakening tenure protections results in targeting of academics with non-mainstream/controversial ideas, the ones who challenge university leadership, and those who take risks in their research or do research in more obscure areas. It is used to reduce academic freedom, which stifles inquiry and discovery. That’s a huge cost.

[Anonymous]

They should just end tenure at age 80. Put a term limit on it.

[Anonymous]

Surprised a republican would propose such a leftist idea

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

This is how these proposals are often presented—it’s a budget management thing!—but that’s not how they work in practice. Weakening tenure protections results in targeting of academics with non-mainstream/controversial ideas, the ones who challenge university leadership, and those who take risks in their research or do research in more obscure areas. It is used to reduce academic freedom, which stifles inquiry and discovery. That’s a huge cost.

Over time, an institution's track record will influence the size of the "no-tenure premium" it needs to pay to attract the faculty it wants. The more authoritarian/abusive the practices, the higher the premium required. (Before the track record is established, the size of the premium will turn on how badly the market thinks the university will behave--which, given the current "state of Texas," probably is pretty badly.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

Texas does not pay top dollar…more like the bottom 15%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

This is how these proposals are often presented—it’s a budget management thing!—but that’s not how they work in practice. Weakening tenure protections results in targeting of academics with non-mainstream/controversial ideas, the ones who challenge university leadership, and those who take risks in their research or do research in more obscure areas. It is used to reduce academic freedom, which stifles inquiry and discovery. That’s a huge cost.

The proposal is best defended as a quality control measure, not a budget management thing: the savings from being able to trim the deadwood is wiped out by having to pay everyone more to accept the lack of tenure; but that's fine if you're actually able to keep your best performers and jettison your worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

This is how these proposals are often presented—it’s a budget management thing!—but that’s not how they work in practice. Weakening tenure protections results in targeting of academics with non-mainstream/controversial ideas, the ones who challenge university leadership, and those who take risks in their research or do research in more obscure areas. It is used to reduce academic freedom, which stifles inquiry and discovery. That’s a huge cost.

Even if you believe the rationale, why on earth would you choose a job where you may be laid if in a lean year vs a job where you can't be laid off? There will have to be a salary premium, but I very much doubt Texas will be willing to pay it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University of Wisconsin has seen a real brain drain since the state weakened tenure. Same thing will happen in Texas.

My DH is a professor and I guarantee you he would not consider working at a University that didn't provide it.

There are issues with tenure, as mentioned above, but it is a key element in academia and getting rid of it would be an absolute disaster for any University that chooses to do so.

I was a university Trustee for many years and saw exactly zero situations where a professor had to claim tenure for academic freedom. It was only claimed when they were harassing/threatening other employees, sleeping with students, screwing their secretaries in their office, trumping up their papers for post-tenure review and the like. The problem is that professors are giving the GOP enough ammo to pull this kind of stunt. And I also agree with PP - if you get rid of tenure, it will be the death knell for that school or system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

This is how these proposals are often presented—it’s a budget management thing!—but that’s not how they work in practice. Weakening tenure protections results in targeting of academics with non-mainstream/controversial ideas, the ones who challenge university leadership, and those who take risks in their research or do research in more obscure areas. It is used to reduce academic freedom, which stifles inquiry and discovery. That’s a huge cost.

The proposal is best defended as a quality control measure, not a budget management thing: the savings from being able to trim the deadwood is wiped out by having to pay everyone more to accept the lack of tenure; but that's fine if you're actually able to keep your best performers and jettison your worst.

I get what you’re saying, but it’s theoretical, not practical. Weakening tenure is never used to “keep your best performers and jettison your worst.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

This is how these proposals are often presented—it’s a budget management thing!—but that’s not how they work in practice. Weakening tenure protections results in targeting of academics with non-mainstream/controversial ideas, the ones who challenge university leadership, and those who take risks in their research or do research in more obscure areas. It is used to reduce academic freedom, which stifles inquiry and discovery. That’s a huge cost.

Also, this is a proposal to get rid of tenure TRACK jobs, not just tenure.
Tenure decisions are made 6-10 years after a hire.
If the researchers are not given tenure, they have to leave.

Great academics want tenure-track positions. And they want tenure, because if they don't get tenure they'll be fired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a university Trustee for many years and saw exactly zero situations where a professor had to claim tenure for academic freedom.

That's because the academic freedom comes from their work not being judged by administrators and political appointees.

The academic freedom comes in every single day in what they choose to work on. You don't see anyone "claiming tenure", it just protects ideas every single day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenure is a bad idea. This divide between tenured professors who can get away with anything except "buggering the bursa" and the precariat of adjuncts who are treated like crap is a disaster.

Why would a top professor in their field deciding between offers that have a tenure track and offers that are strictly at will ever choose the at will option?

For more money. Tenure has obvious costs; it also has a price. Texas will need to pay more to get the same caliber of professors while not offering tenure than they needed to pay while also offering tenure. Tough to tell how much more, and whether the benefits of doing away with tenure (being able to trim the deadwood, primarily) outweigh the costs, but it'll be interesting to see. (Or maybe they won't increase salaries at all and everyone with options will go elsewhere...)

This is how these proposals are often presented—it’s a budget management thing!—but that’s not how they work in practice. Weakening tenure protections results in targeting of academics with non-mainstream/controversial ideas, the ones who challenge university leadership, and those who take risks in their research or do research in more obscure areas. It is used to reduce academic freedom, which stifles inquiry and discovery. That’s a huge cost.

My guess is that Texas universities will hire and fire based on teaching ratings only. No decent researcher will touch them, so PhD programs will wither on the vine. This will cause a brain drain, which Texas politicians will promptly blame on wokeness and CRT.

[Anonymous]

My guess is that Texas universities will hire and fire based on teaching ratings only. No decent researcher will touch them, so PhD programs will wither on the vine. This will cause a brain drain, which Texas politicians will promptly blame on wokeness and CRT.