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The End of Tenure by James C. Wetherbe "I can resign tenure?" I asked with pleasant surprise. This was not the response my dean had expected when he explained that my current situation was untenable. He had expected me to return to the University of Minnesota full-time. Instead, he offered me an alternative I had not yet considered—and one I was happy to take. Previously, the dean and I had agreed that I could work part-time for three years as the FedEx Chaired Professor in Information Technology at the University of Memphis. While I helped found the FedEx Center for Cycle Time Research at Memphis, I would continue to direct the Management Information System Research Center at Minnesota. The dual responsibilities were demanding, but my work at Memphis was a boost to my teaching and research. After three years, the president of the University of Memphis wanted me to continue my work at the FedEx Center. I was game—I just needed to get the approval of my dean at Minnesota. That's when the dean made everything clear: "If you don't come back to Minnesota full-time next year," he said, "you will have to resign your tenure." By this point, I had come to disdain the way tenure protects the few faculty whose performance is complacent and subpar—who make the majority of faculty look bad. As a tenured professor, you have a guaranteed "job for life" 34 September/October 2013 BizEd unless you do something really heinous. During my 13 years of tenure, I grew weary of the sarcasm I heard from the businesspeople with whom I consulted. At times it felt as if tenure were an albatross around the neck of my credibility. "Easy for you to suggest changes needed in business," they'd wisecrack. "You've got tenure." So, 20 years ago, I resigned my tenure. Just two years later, after I gave a speech to executives in Boca Raton, a participant challenged me during the Q&A with that oftheard criticism: "You have tenure, so it's easy for you to say…." This time, I had a clear response: "You and I share the same point of view on tenure. That's why I resigned it." A loud round of unexpected applause followed. The albatross was gone. In Support of Academic Freedom Make no mistake—I am a strong advocate of academic freedom, just not lifetime tenure. And I am not alone. Mark Taylor, a religion professor at Columbia University and author of the 2010 book Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities, acknowledges that tenure has become less about academic freedom and more about job security. He discusses the history of tenure, which emerged at religious schools in the late 1800s to protect the jobs of professors, even if their doctrine offended donors. How- ever, he takes the still somewhat controversial position that tenure has outlived its usefulness. Taylor joins many business experts and academics who have called for the end of tenure. Before becoming the United States' 28th president, Woodrow Wilson served as president of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910. From that experience, he noted that "it is easier to change the location of a cemetery than to change the school curriculum." As Wilson found, tenure often serves as a barrier to innovation. With today's fleeting product cycles and agile business models, tenure remains the ultimate business school irony—and business leaders know it. In a 1989 lecture, professor and management guru Peter Drucker asked: "Can even tenure be morally justified? We do need a safeguard against political and administrative tyranny over faculties. … Could we not design a way to protect the individual against the pressures and yet protect the community, the school, the student against sloth and incompetence?" Another prominent critic is author Jim Collins, who wrote the 1994 bestseller Built to Last. In a June 2000 white paper called "Aligning Action and Values," Collins notes that freedom of inquiry is sacred, but tenure is not. My experience supports that point. When I received tenure, I didn't celebrate the fact that I could now speak the truth without fear. I already did that before I got iStockphoto/Th i n kstock Professors teaching in the U.S. in the 21st century should rely on the Constitution's First Amendment to protect their academic freedom—not lifetime tenure.