|
« AAUP Homepage
|
Alternatives to Tenure
Jay L. Chronister
To The Editor:As I read Lawrence Poston’s review in the January–February issue of Teaching Without Tenure: Policies and Practices for a New Era, I wondered whether Poston had read the same book that Roger Baldwin and I authored. Eventually, I realized that he read the book through a different lens than Roger and I used when we wrote it. He seeks to preserve the traditional tenure-based faculty appointment system and viewed the book from that perspective. Baldwin and I also value the tenure system. We based our statements and conclusions on the findings of a two-year study in which we analyzed institutional policies and interviewed 385 administrators and tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenure-eligible faculty. The book was written because of our concern for the fact that for fall 1997, 52.7 percent of all full-time faculty hires were into non-tenure-track positions, and about 31 percent of all full-time faculty were in non-tenure-eligible positions.
Non-tenure-eligible appointments are not going to go away, and failing to acknowledge that they are a significant part of the faculty employment practices on our campuses will not enhance the security of the tenure system. Our book does not ignore the plight of the more than 180,000 full-time faculty in non-tenure-track positions. Many of our policy recommendations came from those academics. Other recommendations came from institutions that treat their non-tenure-track faculty with dignity and a concern for professional stature.
We hope that those who desire tenured positions (our "wannabes") are fortunate enough to acquire them. Many academics who will not acquire such positions (including those who do not aspire to tenure) deserve to be treated professionally as well. That is the message of our book. Our book is a look at the changing world of faculty careers through the lens of reality.
Jay L. Chronister
(Higher Education, emeritus)
University of Virginia
Poston Respond:Nothing in my review denies the fact that non-tenure-eligible appointments are here to stay, although, unlike the authors, I actively deplore it. What I object to is the failure of Chronister and Baldwin to distinguish between the protection of academic freedom under the tenure system and the contrasting status of that freedom under even the most humane and enlightened non-tenure-eligible system—a system that depends, finally, on the good will of the particular (and inevitably transitory) administration that oversees it. As for my response to the book’s tone and its treatment of the scholarly, nonstatistical evidence, curious readers may judge for themselves.
Lawrence Poston
(English)
University of Illinois at Chicago
|