For faculty members with extreme philosophical or political values, there is even greater paranoia. Even though tenure protects nut cases, incompetent, and no longer productive faculty, which costs the universities hundreds of thousands of dollars to terminate, other faculty members are still not persuaded that tenure should be diminished. The universities never seem to prevail in litigation between the institution and faculty members who were terminated for cause that involved reasons that you and I would feel were obvious and legitimate to terminate that professor. The “pro professor bias” created by tenure is for the most part impregnable.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteWhat about incompetent administrators who are protected by the Good Old Boys network? How do we get rid of them?
That is a great question. Due to the Good Old Boys network, I do not feel protected by tenure at all. I worked incredibly hard to earn my tenure just to find out that I have to Obey every Dictate of my chair, dean, and VPAA or risk being labeled insubordinate and facing chapter 6 proceedings. Shari Lyman, CSN Professor
ReplyDeleteDear Shari,
ReplyDeleteTenure is not designed to give total and absolute protection to professors. Certainly it would not protect one from being terminated or other wised penalized if the professor committed a crime or other substantial wrongful act that injured the institution. When I was the chancellor I didn’t find any abuse of Chapter 6 proceedings. I’m sure the normal amount of politicking occurs in every department of the eight Higher Ed System institutions. But that is simply part of life. And that part of life all of us have to endure. I really believe that even with all the politicking and the backstabbing that goes on in academia your job was never seriously at risk.