A tenured professor is a senior member of their academic department and helps to ensure their institution’s continuity through teaching, research, and scholarship. While not untouchable–particularly in instances of conduct violations or financial exigency–tenured faculty generally enjoy long and secure careers.
During this period, tenure track faculty are reviewed annually and evaluated on their teaching, research and scholarship, and their service to their department and university. At the end of this period, applicants are either granted tenure or they are dismissed from the institution.
The primary reason tenure exists is to protect academic freedom. If faculty can be fired for unpopular or controversial speech, research findings, or publications, then they cannot freely pursue and transmit knowledge.
Once a bedrock of faculty life, tenure now appears to be eroding on college campuses. Increasingly, faculty positions are held by part-time adjuncts and professors not on the tenure track. From 1975 to 2015, full-time tenured positions declined 26%, and tenure-track positions dropped 50%.
The professor's responsibilities include, but are not limited to, teaching a requisite number of graduate classes, assisting with the development of course material, supervising postgraduate students, regularly publishing journal articles, serving on committees, attending conferences, writing proposals for grants, ...
academic freedom, the freedom of teachers and students to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public pressure.
These Supreme Court cases involved the First Amendment right of academic freedom of individual professors to be free from state regulation: Sweezy involved a professor's speech and Keyishian involved professors' rights not to sign a loyalty oath.
No matter how egregious the reasons may be, a tenured faculty member has the right to a hearing before being fired. Tenure, by definition, is an indefinite academic appointment, and tenured faculty can only be dismissed under extraordinary circumstances like financial exigency or program discontinuation.
There are many, many reasons why colleges and universities do not simply allow their faculty to teach any random stuff they choose as part of a course. They have to do this for accreditation. They have to do this for their students who want to transfer coursework to other schools.
Teacher Academic Freedom. Teachers in public schools have limited freedoms in the classroom to teach without undue restrictions on the content or subjects for discussion. These freedoms are based on rights to freedom of expression under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
First Amendment freedoms apply to government actors, not private universities. The freedom of expression and speech guaranteed by the First Amendment does not fully protect academic freedom. Under the state action doctrine, the First Amendment applies only to government actors.
Abstract. The application of academic freedom may lead to a violation of individual rights, such as the right to respect private life or institutional rights such as university autonomy, or the right of the religious community to self-determination.
However, many courts that have considered claims of academic freedom – including the U.S. Supreme Court – have concluded that there is a “constitutional right” to academic freedom in at least some instances, arising from their interpretation of the First Amendment. 2.
A tenured professor is an employment status within higher institutions where the professor enjoys job security, which is rather called security of tenure. The institutions can only terminate such a person for justifiable cause.
A tenured professor is a senior member of their academic department and helps to ensure their institution's continuity through teaching, research, and scholarship. While not untouchable–particularly in instances of conduct violations or financial exigency–tenured faculty generally enjoy long and secure careers.
The principal purpose of tenure is to safeguard academic freedom, which is necessary for all who teach and conduct research in higher education.
Academic tenure protects faculty members from being dismissed for teaching, researching, or inquiring into areas that might be politically or commercially controversial. The process of exploring and expanding the frontiers of knowledge often challenges the established order. Tenure is valuable not merely as a protection for individual faculty members but also as an assurance to society that the pursuit of truth and knowledge commands the faculty's first priority. The privileges of tenure include: (a) continued employment as an associate professor or professor until voluntary retirement or resignation, with the possible exception of dismissal for cause or termination due to the discontinuation or reduction of a program, (b) equitable compensation and benefits, (c) continued institutional support for teaching and scholarship, and (d) continued involvement in the academic mission of the university.
Because tenure is a privilege with the purpose of protecting academic freedom, it is offered after extremely careful deliberation and only to those faculty members who have demonstrated an unusual capacity for a lifetime of scholarship, teaching, and service.
Faculty members are expected to advise Rice students. The faculty are organized within their departments to assist undergraduate majors and graduate students in planning their courses of study and their subsequent careers. Those faculty who also serve as divisional advisors, associates, and magisters in the residential colleges help freshmen and sophomores choose courses and adjust to college life.
Faculty grievance is a grievance against an action, judged by a faculty member to be unjust or unfair, that affects directly and adversely academic freedom, economic conditions, professional status , or some other circumstance of employment . Included among such grievances are disputes relating to the interpretation of an appointment letter, enforcement of university policies governing faculty conduct, and decisions such as assignment of academic duties. The most immediate appeal in case of a faculty grievance should be made to the appropriate university official. If this appeal fails to remedy the situation, then a further appeal should be directed to higher-level officials. Thus, if the department chair cannot resolve the dispute, the appeal should go to the appropriate dean, and, if that also fails, to the provost. If none of these appeals is successful, then a faculty member may file a grievance. Grievances are handled by the Appeals and Grievances Committee of the Faculty Senate, following the Faculty Senate Rules for Appeals and Grievances. This committee will hear two kinds of cases: appeals concerning whether proper university procedures have been followed (for example, in decisions on promotion and tenure) and grievances regarding any matter of concern (except decisions on promotion and tenure, which are subject only to procedural appeals). After hearing the case, the committee will submit a report with recommendations to the president with a copy to the speaker of the Faculty Senate and to the appellant or grievant. If the grievance is not resolved by this process, the faculty member may request a formal hearing as outlined in Procedure for Investigating Accusations.
That code provides a fair and university-sanctioned way to review claims of academic misconduct by students. If faculty members suspect a violation of the honor code, they should report the suspected violation to the Honor Council as described on its website ( http://honor.rice.edu/ ).The Honor Council's website provides a useful overview of the Honor Council's procedures, as well as faculty members' role in the process. According to the Honor System Constitution, all faculty are responsible for communicating to their class the specific Honor Code policy for each assignment through the syllabus or on the assignment itself.
Rice University's Office of Public Affairs provides comprehensive communications strategies and services across the university. The office is responsible for news and media relations, marketing, government relations, community relations and multicultural community outreach. Media relations professionals work with faculty members to publicize their work and help handle media inquiries. They are assigned to specific beats to develop relationships and disseminate information about teaching and research by individual faculty, research teams, departments, and institutes. The media relations team produces more than 400 news releases and media alerts a year. The marketing team provides strategic planning and execution for the university brand, including advertising, social media, and web services for rice.edu.
Research, teaching, and service are all essential obligations of Rice faculty members. Full time Rice University faculty members owe their primary professional allegiance to Rice University, and their primary commitment of time and energy to these goals. But because long-term success in teaching and continued effective service to Rice and other communities depend on intellectual vitality, scholarship is the foundation of academic life at Rice. Members of the Rice faculty are, therefore, expected to engage in research, reflection, and publication or in other creative efforts that expand knowledge or enrich cultural life. These demanding scholarly and creative undertakings are fundamental to the educational work of the university -- not just to graduate but also to undergraduate education.
Tenured and tenure-track faculty, the classification that is increasingly defined as those with unmodified professorial titles (i.e., Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor) are expected to uphold the standards of excellence in all three major faculty functions — teaching, research, and professional citizenship and service — that befit professorial appointment at a 3 world-class research university. Faculty who hold other teaching and research titles, such as Professors of the Practice, Research Professors, and Lecturers, are expected to uphold the standards of excellence that are appropriate to their particular professional domains, defined by their titles and contracts.
The governing documents defining faculty expectations and the processes related to supporting those expectations are the Boston University Faculty Handbook and the CAS Faculty and Staff Handbook. The former overrides the latter. This faculty expectations document should be regarded as an overview and summary. Faculty may seek further assistance in understanding faculty expectations from the Office of the Dean or Provost.
All faculty are expected to perform their professional duties according to appropriate ethical and professional standards and have the responsibility for being aware of the standards imposed upon them by federal and state laws and regulations, contracts to which they are a party, and the professional norms that apply in the academy and at Boston University.
Professorial faculty are expected to be fully research-active according to the highest standards of excellence in their disciplines. They should be engaging in original research and discovery and contributing significant new knowledge and expertise by communicating their scholarship through peer-reviewed publication in highly-respected journals and through the most distinguished scholarly presses. The point is not just to engage in scholarship or even just to publish it, but to have a demonstrable impact on other scholars’ research, on the knowledge base of society, and on scientific, cultural, or artistic lines of inquiry and innovation. A research university can have a distinguished national and international reputation only if its faculty have distinguished national and international reputations in their fields, thus assessment of faculty achievement in the processes of awarding merit, tenure, promotion, and awards will take account of national and international reputation and impact, as appropriate for the particular fields of study.
The College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (CAS) is the heart of Boston University, a world-class, globally engaged teaching and research university. The mission of the College and Graduate School is to nurture the discovery, creation, transmission and application of knowledge and understanding across the humanities and the social, natural, and computational sciences. This mission applies to all of the College’s members, from the most decorated senior scholars to our matriculating undergraduates, and unifies our three great core tasks of undergraduate education, graduate education, and pioneering research.
There can be no appropriate personnel review process without faculty participation in review ; there can be no curriculum development without faculty participation in curricular review.
University and academic life have increasingly become more interdisciplinary and less organized around faculty whose professional life is limited to one department or program. Indeed, Boston University and the College of Arts & Sciences depend on the ability and willingness of faculty to participate effectively in this new, more complex structure of higher education. Expectations about faculty professional activities and obligations and our approach to judging the quality of those activities and obligations must account for and reward faculty engagement in the interdisciplinary organization of academic life.
Tenured faculty should be placed in other positions at the College whenever possible, but failing that, should receive a minimum of two years notice prior to termination.
Tenured faculty means all members of the Regular Faculty who have been awarded Tenure and the rank of Associate Professor or Professor.
A tenure-track professor will have a probationary period, up to seven years, in which to earn tenure.
What Is Tenure? A Look at the Past, Present, and Future 1 The purpose of tenure is to protect a professor's academic freedom. 2 Tenured faculty have lifetime appointments but can be fired for financial and ethical reasons. 3 Some states have taken measures to weaken or eliminate tenure at public colleges. 4 Tenure's future is uncertain, but trends suggest it could eventually disappear.
In addition to protecting academic freedom, tenure provides mutual benefits to both the professor and the university. Tenure also provides mutual benefits to both the professor and the university.
The primary reason tenure exists is to protect academic freedom. If faculty can be fired for unpopular or controversial speech, research findings, or publications, then they cannot freely pursue and transmit knowledge.
From the administration's perspective, tenure is an expensive and unwieldy proposition. The decision to tenure a faculty member can cost a university hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions, over that person's career. Hiring part-time adjuncts to teach the same courses is far less expensive.
Legislators in Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Arkansas have made similar moves to weaken tenure, and officials in Iowa and Missouri have introduced measures to end it completely. At the institutional level, some colleges are forgoing tenure appointments in favor of long-term contracts.
Tenure's future is uncertain, but trends suggest it could eventually disappear. Tenure has been a fixture of American higher education for almost a century, yet the practice remains mired in controversy. To some, it's a necessary aspect of faculty life, a protector of academic freedom and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge.
All members of the faculty who have been on a continuous appointment pursuant to the Bylaws of the Board of Regents 4.4.3 for a period of three or more years may elect or be required to undergo post-tenure review. A faculty member shall not be subject to or eligible for review under this policy more frequently than once every four years. A faculty member shall undergo a post-tenure review in either of the following circumstances:#N#A faculty member receives (after the third year of a continuous appointment):#N#A written annual evaluation that identifies a substantial and continuing deficiency in the faculty member’s performance which clearly states that, if substantial and acceptable progress toward removing the deficiency by the time of the next annual evaluation has not occurred, a periodic review will be initiated; and#N#Notification after the next annual review that the substantial and continuing deficiency in the previous evaluation has not been remedied and that a post-tenure review is required.#N#A faculty member may request a review in accordance with the post-tenure peer review process. The purpose of such a review would be to provide helpful evaluation and assistance to the faculty member in planning a prospective program by which the faculty member can maximize his/her contributions to the University and more fully realize her/his professional goals.
1) Probationary Faculty. Probationary faculty are those who are on tenure track but not yet tenured. For these persons, the annual evaluation develops information concerning the faculty member's progress toward promotion and tenure.
Since a faculty member normally will be promoted from assistant to associate professor concurrent with or prior to an award of tenure, the annual evaluation of faculty who are tenured, but not fully promoted, will generally emphasize quantitative and qualitative progress toward the rank of professor. While not all faculty will attain the rank of professor, annual evaluations should aid faculty in achieving that distinction.
Because it is inherently judgmental, the evaluation of faculty must be constrained by principles and procedures designed to protect academic freedom and to ensure accuracy,fairness, and equity.
The faculty evaluation process at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is designed to assist the institution in attracting promising faculty members, helping them reach their potential, retaining only the outstanding, and rewarding their proficiency. The process has three distinct components:
This document, Guidelines for the Evaluation of Faculty: Annual Evaluations, Promotion, and Tenure became effective on December 5, 2001 when it was adopted and signed by the chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The faculty member also has the right, unless waived, to have a copy of any review received and to append a written response to each copy of the review that is to be used for evaluation purposes. A candidate may waive the right to access outside reviews and/or the right to know the identity of outside reviewers.
Teaching The amount of teaching done by tenure track faculty, who make up about a third of all faculty at American colleges and universities, varies by institution. A record of high-quality teaching grounded in strong pedagogy is a major part of a tenure track professor’s annual review and tenure and promotion dossier.
Usually combined with an assistant professorship, the tenure track is a probationary appointment that lasts six years at most institutions. During this period, tenure track faculty are reviewed annually and evaluated on their teaching, research and scholarship, and their service to their department and university.
There are three pillars of academia when it comes to life on the tenure track, and each one comes with a distinctive set of responsibilities. Every duty performed by a tenure track faculty member falls under one of these three categories: 1 Teaching The amount of teaching done by tenure track faculty, who make up about a third of all faculty at American colleges and universities, varies by institution. A record of high-quality teaching grounded in strong pedagogy is a major part of a tenure track professor’s annual review and tenure and promotion dossier. 2 Service Another expectation is service to the department, the university, and the faculty member’s academic discipline. Though it can take many forms, service can include work with student organizations, membership on department and university committees, serving as a peer reviewer, and more. In my experience, there is no shortage of service opportunities at any university. 3 Research & Scholarship A solid record of research and publication is a vital part of any tenure bid. While a book (or two) may be expected in highly competitive departments, consistent publication of academic articles and book chapters is a must. Tenure track faculty are also expected to regularly present their research at conferences and symposiums.
Simply put, tenure is a lifelong faculty appointment at a college or university. A tenured professor is a senior member of their academic department and helps to ensure their institution’s continuity through teaching, research, and scholarship.
While not untouchable–particularly in instances of conduct violations or financial exigency–tenured faculty generally enjoy long and secure careers. This security was born of the belief that faculty members should be protected from dismissal or reprisals for teaching and publishing controversial material.
Competition. The tenure track academic job market is tough, and it’s important to understand that going in. In many fields, there are fewer tenure track jobs than ever, and competition for each position is fierce. Even so, if a tenure track professorship is your dream, I recommend giving the academic job market a shot.