EXAMINER ARTICLES
EDUCATION
The end of tenure? Scott Walker wins war against professors and why he is right
By Bonnie K. Goodman
Examiner.com, July 12, 2015, 9:20 PM MST
On the eve of declaring his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed the state’s $73 billion budget on Sunday, July 12, 2015, and won his fight against tenured professors at state and public universities. Walker’s budget cuts have weakened the protection of the tenure system at the state’s universities. Academics opposed Walker’s move because they fear how it will affect their lifetime job protection at universities and prestige. The larger question is whether in weakening tenure is Walker improving the university system? The answer is yes.
While signing the budget at a “valve manufacturing facility in Waukesha, Wisconsin,” Walker argued about the benefits of the changes to the state’s tenure laws, saying, “We made college more affordable for college students and working families all across the state.” The governor says the new laws “modernizes the concept of tenure by authorizing the Board of Regents to enact such policies.”
With the new law, tuition rates will be frozen for the next two years. Walker has made his name taking on unions and “scaling back collective-bargaining rights of public employee unions,” including K-12 teachers. Activists see this as Walker continuing the war on “unions and higher education groups,” by “unravel[ing] labor protections in higher education.”
The new rules change Wisconsin’s law, which is the only state in the country that protected academic tenure with a statute, and takes that the control over tenure and puts in the hand of the Wisconsin “university system’s Board of Regents.” The new law also affects “shared governance” taking control of the university, curriculum, instruction and other matters from the faculty and into the hands of the university’s administration.
Academics and education advocates believe that the new rules will lead to less academic freedom for professors, students and universities will suffer in the long run. University students struggling to pay tuition will benefit, as will Walker. Conservatives in his state and legislature supported the cuts and changes to the tenure system, the new law will help burnish his conservative credentials. Walker is right to give students the edge in acquiring an education, but the elitist arguments against him or less based on politics or what is best for the students being taught than the fact that Walker never completed his undergraduate degree.
The debate about the practice of tenure for professors has never been stronger or more relevant than now. Walker’s new law breeds life into a debate that has always been on the backburner, but it is more relevant in evolving university system, with more doctorates graduating than there are tenure-track positions. Professors with tenure have become overly complacent about the job security their position gives irrelevant of their performance in or out of the classroom. Complacency has not fostered academic freedom and enhanced education, but in fact stifled it; creating universities that continually raise their tuitions, but the quality of education for students have suffered and the quality of professors’ research contributions to their fields.
Tenure gives lifetime job protection; it is granted after a couple of trial years and emphasizes excellence in “teaching, writing, and research.” Prevalent in the American and Canadian university systems, it was created after World War II allowing universities to attract and secure the few doctorates in teaching positions. It has become less relevant as the number of Ph.D.’s granted increases in universities. Now only 30 percent of North American professors are tenured, with only one in four new graduates being hired in tenure track positions.
Proponents for both sides of the tenure debate have convincing arguments for their positions. Those for tenure claim that it guarantees intellectual freedom, allowing professors’ freedom in research and in the classrooms. They argue without tenure, university administrators can interfere in research and especially the classroom if it benefits the university’s donations or outside reputation. In general, they claim students gain from being taught by tenured professors, because of their knowledge and research expertise.
Then there are the arguments from those that oppose tenure claiming students, in fact, suffer because with tenure research is valued more than teaching. Professors spend more time on research and publications as a result, because they are more valued to a university’s prestige. Meanwhile, there is over reliance on teaching assistants, teaching is left to the adjunct instructors; the graduate students and newly graduated PhDs unable to obtain a tenure-track position. Students suffer from the overstretched and underpaid instructors, whose jobs are at peril with every action or possible misstep they take.
As for the academic freedom, tenure brings, those who oppose say that there is more uniformity in universities now than are risk takers because dissenters are frowned upon within the system. We live in a world were the first amendment is well protected, the internet and social media have broadened the dialogue of writers in all areas including academics, allowing them the freedom to reach wider audiences within and outside their field than ever before. Therefore intellectual freedom exists beyond the scope of tenure.
While there are tenured professors who are dedicated to both teaching and research, complacency is the major problem with any job that is permanent, and the employee cannot be fired regardless of their behavior. Yes, there are serious professors, but then there is a minority that takes advantage, run amok and see the job security as a way to do what they want, because there are no consequences. It easy to be overly conscientious during the trial period that lasts three to at most 10 years, depending on the institution.
These professors might play by the rules until they reach the rank they desire or the top they can obtain, but then some get lazy and arrogant. They misuse sabbaticals and academic leaves, giving the excuse of research and publications, only to mass produce and recycle their research, interested on quantity rather than the quality of their publications, and they can get away with it as long as it is their own writing they are coming from. The arrogant tenured professor ignores teaching and their students, cutting back on teaching time, office hours to the point where the students start giving bad reviews and evaluations, but job security protects them.
Some professors go completely out of control believing they are above the rules and they ignore them. This leads to the professors that argue with the administration, publicly insult or disagrees with the university and its decisions. Then there are the few professors that completely mistreat students, use personal bias when grading, steal their academic ideas and research, have affairs with students, harass them, even threaten them knowing the can doing almost anything because of the power of tenure and the lack of ramifications. These professors continue to teach when they should never be allowed near another classroom ever again.
Tenured professors have more power than the university administrators whose salaries usually dwarf those of the faculty, they last longer and because they do not have an answer to anyone essentially. This power needs to end, tenure needs to be abolished; professors have to be accountable for their teaching, research, publications and most of all their behavior and respect for the institution, the administration, and the students. Walker is right to give the power back to the university administrators, his move in changing the rules of tenure should not be criticized, but considered a step in a movement to create better universities and better professors to educate the next generation of scholars.
History Musings... Bonnie K. Goodman 
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