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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a newly tenured professor at a good college, and the average length of service for my colleagues is 30 years. I feel pretty safe, though I will never get rich. Summers off rocks. [/quote]

Well, they may not lay you off, but there's nothing stopping them from cutting your salary, reducing your pay, or doing away with some benefits (including cutting retirement).

I spoke with a former professor of mine (tenured, good standing in the field) who as dealing with just that.

The reason the average length of service for your colleagues is so long is because there is little job mobility in that field.  It's so hard to find a non-adjunct position at a college and, despite the ph.d., difficult to transfer to other professions, that once someone finds a position that offers an actually salary, health benefits, and stability, they say.

But that in no way makes the job "safe" in any kind of sense.  The pay can stagnate, and as more colleges find it's cheaper and easier to employ adjuncts, they are more than willing to cut the pay or benefits of tenured staff b/c they know the tenured profs have nowhere to go.

The only college professors who truly have leverage are the ones who are well published (and by "published" I mean published in a way that has a popular audience) and/or have some sort of specialized research that brings the college/university money.

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