Yeah, tenure definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being able to voice potentially unpopular opinions is important. On the other, having dead weight occupying faculty positions which brilliant younger folk would kill for — folks who would be more productive, more engaged, and contribute more to the world — is…well, maybe not great.
Feels like we could have both by ditching tenure and allowing professors to express their opinions (so long as it doesn’t interfere with teaching, of course).
Anecdotally, my business ethics professor in college was a very open libertarian. I’ll never agree with his politics, but despite that, he was an excellent teacher, and one of the better ones I had at the school overall. On the other hand, none of the classes I had that were run by tenured professors were any good, with one professor even giving us the wrong exam once and having us complete it anyway, even though it had material we weren’t even expected to know.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !news@beehaw.org
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
Where possible, post the original source of information.
If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
And why so many want to get rid of it :(
Yeah, tenure definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand, being able to voice potentially unpopular opinions is important. On the other, having dead weight occupying faculty positions which brilliant younger folk would kill for — folks who would be more productive, more engaged, and contribute more to the world — is…well, maybe not great.
Feels like we could have both by ditching tenure and allowing professors to express their opinions (so long as it doesn’t interfere with teaching, of course).
Anecdotally, my business ethics professor in college was a very open libertarian. I’ll never agree with his politics, but despite that, he was an excellent teacher, and one of the better ones I had at the school overall. On the other hand, none of the classes I had that were run by tenured professors were any good, with one professor even giving us the wrong exam once and having us complete it anyway, even though it had material we weren’t even expected to know.