Tenure

Because there is adequate protection for all faculty (academic freedom and the 1st amendment protections guaranteed for everyone) irrespective of faculty rank, tenure is an outdated and abused practice of academia. Tenure is an archaic description of rights granted for the protection of thought, philosophy and utterance when there were no laws to protect academic practices. That is no longer the case and the abuse of tenure has been detrimental to the needs of society.

Remember that tenure creates a lifetime employment contract between the university and the professor.

Good News About DRI

Here’s good news about the Desert Research Institute:

1.       Approximately 50 DRI faculty teaching and advising students on other NSHE campuses.

2.       DRI invests ~ $1.4 M/year (non-State funds) for support of grad students at UNLV and UNR.

3.       DRI’s total revenue about  $58 million, yet DRI accounts for only 1.05% of higher education’s budget.

4.       Since 2000, DRI has leveraged $98.6M (State operating budgets, includes State capital budgets) funding to attract $391M in external Sponsored Projects.

5.       DRI ranked 23^rd in R&D expenditures in the environmental sciences at universities and colleges by the National Science Foundation.

Good News About CSN

Here’s good news about the College of Southern Nevada:

1. CSN health sciences students contribute more than a million hours of uncompensated patient care each year to Southern Nevada.

 

2. All of CSN’s dental hygiene graduates passed their national boards and 98% passed their Nevada licensure examination on the 1^st attempt this past year. CSN dental hygiene graduates achieve employment within 1-6 months of graduation on average.  

3. CSN’s Entrepreneurship Incubator has successfully seeded and opened 15 local businesses over the last 2.5 years. 

Good News About UNR

Here’s good news about UNR:

1.       UNR’s part-time MBA now ranks #4 in the nation by BusinessWeek.

The College of Business is listed in the Princeton Review Best Business Schools guidebook and among the best undergraduate business programs by US News. The College of Engineering ranks among the best undergraduate engineering programs AND among the best graduate engineering schools.

2.       UNR’s Early Childhood Autism Program is an international model program.

This successful treatment program for autism is part of the psychology department’s highly regarded Behavior Analysis Program and is one of only a handful of such university-based programs in the country. 

Good News About UNLV

Here’s some good news about UNLV:

1. UNLV generates more than $1 billion in economic impact every year.

2. UNLV’s International Gaming Institute provides gaming and hospitality education and training to casino and gaming industry officials locally, nationally and internationally. UNLV and UNR announced a partnership to co-produce one of the world’s largest conferences on gambling in Las Vegas, a clear indication of the power of UNLV’s intellectual capital.

3. The Center for Academic Enrichment and outreach coordinates the largest suite of federally funded TRiO and GEAR UP programs in the nation, helping middle and high school students get ready for college.

Truckee Meadows Community College

Here’s some good news about Truckee Meadows Community College:

1.    Truckee Meadows Community College's Maxine S. Jacobs Nursing Program is the top program in Nevada providing qualified healthcare professionals to the region each year.

2.    Truckee Meadows Community College's dental hygiene and dental assisting programs continue to give back to their community each year through programs like their recent Dentistry from the Heart event, which provided $60,000 in dental care to more than 120 uninsured people.

3.    Truckee Meadows Community College is home to the nation's first geothermal plant operator program and is preparing students for a growing industry right here in Nevada.

Last year, NV Energy helped Truckee Meadows Community College to build an innovative renewable energy classroom and now offers a full renewable energy degree program.

Nevada State College

Here’s good news about Nevada State College:

1.       NSC’s education graduates work as K-12 teachers in over a third of Nevada’s school districts and in other professions such as counseling, advising, and human resources.

2.       NSC nursing graduates are employed by every major hospital in southern Nevada and in a variety of healthcare professions.

3.       The percentage of NSC students who belong to an ethnic or racial minority group is over 50% in 2012; this has grown every year since inception, from 26% in 2002.

4.       The NSC School of Education ranked first in “Quality of Instruction” and second in “Satisfaction with Faculty and Courses” and “Overall Program Effectiveness” in a recent nationwide survey of teacher preparation programs conducted by Educational Benchmarking Inc. (EBI).

Footnote:

Wouldn’t you like to have a job where no one had any substantive control of your activities?  Wouldn’t you like a job where even though it was eventually discovered  that you were incompetent, because you had been given a lifetime professional employment agreement, you could only be terminated for criminal acts?

I would like that for myself.  But then again, I’m not a college professor.  I don’t have tenure.  I’m obligated to perform my duties at the highest level every day in order to receive my bi-monthly paycheck.