I am newly tenured and now engaged in the task of tenure review. It is more difficult than I expected for various reasons. Oh Sage Assholes of Philosophers Anonymous, what is it like to give a colleague the boot?Feels good. Real good.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
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11 comments:
It's a royal pain in the ass.
And then there's the lawsuit.
Although I'd love to respond in pure Sage Asshole mode, I need to step out of that for a moment, and note that personally speaking, I take the review thing dead serious procedurally and when I write this sort of paperwork up I spend exactly as much time and attention on it as I would want my own materials to receive. A lot is at stake. Douchbaggery is not an option in any way, as I see it.
Is it common for people to sue upon not being given tenure? I didn't know that...
My plan is to sue when I'm denied tenure. It sounds a lot easier than actually earning tenure.
@Anon 8:08
The frequency of wrongful termination lawsuits can depend on whether an institution is unionized and/or public. I have seen ex-fauclty sue just for the sake of suing. Not everyone will take a dismissal of this order in stride.
In my committee work outside my department I tell department representatives that if a faculty member is having trouble in any of the categories of evaluation, this must be handled meticulously from the get-go; documented up the wazoo and addressed (help for improvement offered) over a long period of time.
My department just voted against a tenure application. Yes, it felt good. Damn good. However, given the eventual lawsuit - and the fact that this person has one more year on his contract - it will not feel good at all next year. I do not look forward to spending a year with a colleague who has essentially been told is no longer welcome. I really don't look forward to the situation should the person win his eventual lawsuit and earn tenure despite the vote.
Is there really any joy in it? I would imagine it's painful to see someone fail to perform up to initial expectations. Then of course you have to watch them uproot themselves, their family, and all the attendant misery. A much more senior friend of mine from an elite institution (not in philosophy) said he feels "sick" when he has to be involved in a tenure denial. I'm probably just missing the snarkery of the blog or something...
"Is there really any joy in it? I would imagine it's painful to see someone fail to perform up to initial expectations. Then of course you have to watch them uproot themselves, their family, and all the attendant misery."
I suspect you underestimate the level of the bitter, resentful, asshole quotient not just among this blog's regulars but the academic profession generally. Douchebaggery is, if not a job requirement, both a selected precondition and consequently enhanced trait.
"Is there really any joy in it? I would imagine it's painful to see someone fail to perform up to initial expectations.
No, there isn't any joy. And it is really painful to see someone fail to perform up to initial expectations.
The procedures of review prior to tenure should push faculty to make improvements and provide fair warning about tenure evaluation. Contract renewal, prior to tenure, should optimally catch a truly bad-off faculty member prior to going up for tenure. Institutions differ on this--whether there is one pre-tenure review/contract renewal or more (two prior to tenure)--and whether or not there are annual reviews in addition to contract renewals. The "least painful" cases are those in which very early on a faculty member is evaluated unsatisfactory in at least two categories of evaluation, usually both teaching and scholarship, and a renewal can be denied before tenure. Cases in which a faculty member fails to meet an absolute requirement--defending before the end of the first year (in the case of an ABD hire contingent on Ph.D. completion) can be "easy" but incredibly painful.
Pain also increases dramatically in cases where a faculty member is unsatisfactory in only one of the crucial areas of evaluation: An excellent teacher with unsatisfactory scholarship and professional activity, or an unsatisfactory teacher with excellent scholarship. There are different pains associated with both of these cases. At a research institution, the latter case might cause less pain and not be so worrisome, while the former case might be less worrisome at a teaching institution. Tenure standards, however, must be met, and a department is supposed to utilize pre-tenure review to get someone at an "unsatisfactory" up to a "good" standard.
I won't vouch for the veracity of this post in a Chronicle discussion forum -- I just can't believe it -- and it's so far beyond assholery, sage or otherwise, that I hardly know what to call it:
After nearly six years of working 70 hour weeks at a public R1 in the midwest it all came to personalities. My chair and vice-chair have never warmed to me, so I was not thrilled when I came back to my office and saw them in there smiling.
What follows was the most humiliating situation I can think.
The school I am at has a great basketball program and the chair and vice-chair are huge fans. When I entered my office I noticed they had placed a small basketball ring and backboard on the back of my door. They asked me to sit down as they wanted to "talk to me about my tenure case". I sat and then they gave me the ball that went with the basketball ring and suggested I take a shot. I figured after nearly six years of not being confrontational one more day was not going to kill me but what follows just floored me.
As I shot the ball towards the ring, the chair jumps up and swats the ball away while saying "REJECTED". The vice-chair then asks me to take another shot and then he proceeds to swat the ball away while saying "DENIED". At first I didn't make the connection between their words and my case, but when I asked if they were telling me my tenure case was denied they confirmed it had been.
And thats folks is how I learn the fate of my tenure case. I spent the afternoon in tears.
I can believe it, Glaucon.
Glaucon:
That utterly unprofessional and downright immoral conduct should be grieved. Most institutions have standards of conduct, though I doubt prohibiting "acting like model assholes" is on the books. But maybe it ought to be.
If this account is even nearly accurate, that institution should be outed and the perpetrators shamed.
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