Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/161013
iStockphoto/Th i n kstock provide very limited academic freedom because nonpermanent professors are subject to termination or nonrenewal without due process. Non-tenure-track professors often serve as academia's equivalent of professional baseball's "utility players"—they are hired to teach a miscellany of courses and provide costefficient emergency service. But they often lack the expertise in theory, pedagogy, and practice needed to deliver quality educational experiences. Certainly, adjuncts can offer rich experiences in practice-oriented, standalone courses. But overall, students are less likely to receive a high-quality education from one-off courses than from an integrated, theory-based, and pedagogically coherent package of courses provided by a committed tenured faculty. Tenured faculty are instrumental in maintaining mission over time. The scholarly contributions of a school's faculty are important to its reputation and ability to deliver quality education. But no less important is the value a school derives from its faculty's myriad other contributions. These include textbooks and other pedagogical materials, books and articles targeted to practitioners, blogs, consulting, and interviews. Through such work, tenured faculty contribute instrumentally to the stability, predictability, and continuity of a university's mission. A school is much more likely to achieve longterm consensus among its faculty and administration—contributing to continuity in its programs, pedagogical integration, and student performance expectations—with a stable faculty roster. Such consensus affects crucial areas such as curriculum design, graduation requirements, and faculty tenure standards. Tenure protects faculty's academic freedom. In his 1998 article "Is tenure necessary to protect academic freedom?" law professor Erwin Chemerinsky writes: "The reality is that a university that seeks to abolish tenure and replace it with an alternative is doing so precisely to provide less job security for faculty members. Inevitably, this will have a detrimental effect on academic freedom." Although some might think this aspect of tenure is obsolete, Chemerinsky's statement highlights tenure's original purpose—to promote academic freedom. Tenure preserves academic freedom by protecting professors against capricious and unwarranted dismissal. Although the risk is small, some administrators might wish to remove high-paid faculty members to reduce salary budgets or substitute new hires to support changed university priorities. For these reasons alone, tenure deserves widespread support. its commitment to educational excellence. It also emboldens faculty members to accept positions of leadership and administration within the university. It reinforces the institution's culture and strengthens the bond between administration and faculty. It encourages faculty to extend their work for the university community beyond contractual requirements. The one thing tenure does not do is to encourage faculty inactivity. As much as professors pursue and appreciate tenure, their tenure does not guarantee merit raises, promotions, graduate assistants, summer employment, or access to funds for travel or research. It does not guarantee that they'll receive their preferred teaching schedules, office spaces, course assignments, or other institutional resources, perks, and opportunities. The notion that intelligent, career-minded, ambitious, well-educated professors will lapse into decades of dramatic underperformance just because they have tenure is not credible. Some critics of tenure believe that the future is too uncertain to offer faculty such a valuable and enduring benefit as tenure. After all, an institution's priorities can change; a professor's productivity can decline over time. Such concerns have merit, but uncertainty characterizes all future-oriented decisions. When university administrators grant a professor tenure, they undeniably make a large investment in the future. The value of tenure is well worth its price. Tenure emboldens a school's faculty to excel. Tenure doesn't just strengthen a university's ability to recruit and retain faculty or communicate John A. Pearce II is the VSB Endowed Chair in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship and professor of management at the Villanova School of Business in Pennsylvania. Tenured faculty members also can link generations of stakeholders to the institution and inspire their trust and support. For many students, graduates, parents, community leaders, and employers, long-term faculty personify the university, implying an assurance of continuity. When a university offers tenure to carefully vetted professors who share its values, it strengthens its culture and enhances its reputation. That makes a university's investment in promising faculty worth it, even if only a few produce great scholarship. BizEd September/October 2013 33