college people come on - explain this to me

[racronus]

someone explain tenure to me. How do professors get it and why does the school give them tenure? Is tenure forever or for a certain number of years? I heard so many stories of crazy professors who don't do stuff because they have tenure, lol.

[NJEnviroguy]

And I think there are a million different explanations and criteria for it. My understanding, from my college, is that tenure is granted to a professor who has a) been at the college for x years (I think it was 3 or 5 at my school), b) is find accepted by a panel of other professors, c) agrees to in some form give x amount of research/publications in x time.

From what I understand, tenured professors are there for good unless they resign or some extreme measure of committee judgement. For instance, my sophmore year, a tenured professor had charges of sexual harrassment against him by a student. The inhouse committee found him guilty and ripped him of his tenured position. Although rare, its always possible, espcially for buzzwords like "sexual harrassment," "prejudice," etc.

I had my fair share of dispicable tenured professors. One in particular my senior year for my English degree. He was also a Jesuit (went to a Jesuit college). I hated every moment for the first 3 weeks. So, what did I do. Draft a letter to the chairperson, who I had for several classes, detailing my issues with the professor. He calls me into his office, sits me down, opens a draw full of papers and said this is "the file of complaints on this guy."

Long story short, I never went to one of the guy's classes after that, he gave me an "F" and it was subsequently changed to an "A" b/c I was taking a 1 on 1 "reader" with the chairperson. Hehe.

[FrnchDp]

Tenured positions are double-edge swords.. For some teachers, it affords them stability and job safety as well as a nice pay and is considered as some sort of reward for time and quailty of teaching.

On the other hand, some teachers feel that once they have achieved tenure, they can pretty much do whatever they want (short of the sexual harassement thingy). They get this feeling of "I can't be touched" and act accordingly to that state of mind. Also, some professors tend to look away from their actual teachings and classes once they get tenure, turning their attention to their private research and publications.

I had a teacher in my high school in France (actually, it was an international school near Switzerland and the UN there) who had tenure, and she took full advantage. She would walk into the building 14 minutes late everyday (15 minutes being the assigned time when students may leave). And if she ever walked in after we had left, she would send the school RA's to come track us down to return us to class for the remainder of the 1 hour class.


Good in some ways, bad in others.. hard to say how to fix this problem.. Maybe drop tenureship and do it the sports way of signing teachers to lengthy contracts but with the option of trade if performance isn't up to par....



:t

[Tony2005]

a tenure is £10 :D

[racronus]

this tenure stuff is pretty tight, haha.... oh man, my Econ teacher is crazy, xmarine/ bank of america finance manager and he has tenure at our school. He hates so many of teachers and he just talks trash about them all the time, its like talking to a friend about a crappy teacher, lol. Hey anyways thanks for the info guys :r

[sm8000]

I'm still a student, but I've gone beyond the four-year plan and I'm so old I may apply for tenure :D

[ScaryBinary]

I've got my tenure reunion next week. Can you believe I graduated way back in '93?
:x

[mireland]

Originally posted by ScaryBinary
I've got my tenure reunion next week. Can you believe I graduated way back in '93?
:x


:rolleyes: