Tenured and tenure track faculty are overrated rant

[Anonymous]

I work at a large university that is increasingly dependent on term faculty to do the teaching, leaving the research and grant-writing to tenured and tenure track faculty. As a result, we have fewer tenure track positions to offer, which make the tenured faculty crazy. They scream that the students are suffering because they are not getting the benefit of an education provided by tenured professors. Guess what? That's a load of crap. For the most part (and there are some notable exceptions), tenured faculty only have interest in their narrow focus of reearch and maybe their graduate students while they disdain the undergraduate students, especially those at the freshman or sophomore levels, not to mention an open hostility at being forced to teach lower level courses to those students. The term faculty are the heroes of colleges and universities everywhere as they are the ones doing the heavy lifting for far less pay and benefits than than tenured faculty, and for the most part, they are the ones with the stellar teaching evaluations because that is what they do: teach. Often, they are just as scholarly as those with tenure and also have professional experience in their field to boot. They tend not to reside in the ivory tower of academics, but rather have a solid footing in the real world and understand the issues and challenges their students will face as they enter the job market.

I'm just so tired of the baseless arrogance of these tenured professors who do so little for their students, but expect so much from their employers.

[Anonymous]

I understand your frustration but not all tenured professors are like that. I know some very dedicated tenured professors who care a great deal about teaching. And if you ask the non-tenure-track professors what they would like - the vast majority of them would say they would like to be in a tenure track position.

[Anonymous]

Well you certainly have to work extremely hard to get tenure in the first place.

I think you are guilty of the same over-generalization you are ranting about. I had some amazing tenured professors in college and some stinky ones. Same for the non-tenure. Its a mixed bag either way.

I'm guessing there was some kind of incident that sparked this rant.

[Anonymous]

Yes, OP is guilty of massive overgeneralization. Sometimes term faculty are great, sometimes not so much. My univ. uses a lot of grad students to teach - this is terrible. They may mean well, but they usually suck. Tenured faculty, well, we vary just as in every other profession. I do agree w/ OP that being taught be tenured faculty doesn't guarantee anything, but neither does being taught by term faculty. By the way, your complaint should be about the university administration that structures things this way, not the faculty.

[Anonymous]

The non-tenured faculty don't have the support, in terms of time and other resources, to stay fresh in their field and even if good teachers at first, their skills outside of teaching intro, are bound to erode or fail to develop. They are eaten up and spit out by the universities. It is not a career, but a stop gap. Many do a highly respectable job and behave like professionals even though their employers don't treat them like professionals. They and the students deserve better.

That said, the tenured faculty in many schools could have slightly higher teaching loads, and higher professional standards for the teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: . . . That said, the tenured faculty in many schools could have slightly higher teaching loads, and higher professional standards for the teaching.

That is really true, especially at universities (as opposed to liberal arts colleges). Even when I was tenured at a LAS, it was clear that my research mattered more than my teaching, though the latter had to be respectable. At my current research university, the only way teaching matters in gaining tenure is that you aren't an embarrassment; I've seen a lot of mediocre teachers get tenure based on research/grant-getting, and in our discussions about a tenure candidate, teaching of undergraduates is barely mentioned.

[Anonymous]

Most tenured faculty in my field are "one and done" - they write their single book in order to get tenure, and then do the bare minimum or even less for the next 4 to 5 decades.

And doing away with mandatory retirement for tenured faculty was a crime. My own dissertation supervisor is turning 80 this month, and he hasn't published a book since the 1970s!! And yet he is drawing a full time salary, teaching from the same notes he was using a decade agoand a decade before that, and basically leaving a huge void in a small department. He's the loveliest guy, but there is nothing to prevent this sort of outcome in the system as it is structured today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: My univ. uses a lot of grad students to teach - this is terrible. They may mean well, but they usually suck.

I don't see how tenure (or even a completed PhD) has any bearing on the quality of one's teaching. There aren't many graduate programs that require students to take courses in pedagogy. Some programs don't even require them to teach, and teaching is a skill that improves with practice, assuming the person teaching makes the effort.

Many of the crappiest teachers I had in graduate school had endowed chairs. They weren't hired or promoted for their teaching skills. They weren't even fired for not having any.

[Anonymous]

The difference is that grad students usually have very little experience as teachers. Pick your poison: newbies who haven't a clue, or old tired folks who use old notes.

Myself, I"m tenured and care a lot about teaching, and have always, and my evaluations show it. As do many of my tenured colleagues. And others do not. It is really quite individual.

[Anonymous]

I'm a grad student finishing up my diss. I have a B.S. in education and an M.Ed., and take teaching very seriously. My students' progress are the proof. Just because a grad student doesn't have teaching degrees or experiences, though, doesn't mean they're not skillful teachers.

As for tenured/tenure-track faculty - as a PP commented, it's entirely up to the individual. My diss committee are all award-winning researchers and teachers. Some other profs in my department are less dedicated when it comes to teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a grad student finishing up my diss. I have a B.S. in education and an M.Ed., and take teaching very seriously. My students' progress are the proof. Just because a grad student doesn't have teaching degrees or experiences, though, doesn't mean they're not skillful teachers.

As for tenured/tenure-track faculty - as a PP commented, it's entirely up to the individual. My diss committee are all award-winning researchers and teachers. Some other profs in my department are less dedicated when it comes to teaching.

"is": "is the proof."