Scott Aaronson who has tenure in Texas describes the effect as this:
> […] it would be the end of UT Austin and Texas A&M as leading research universities. More precisely, it would be the immediate end of our ability to recruit competitively, and the slightly slower end of our competitiveness period, as faculty with options moved elsewhere. This is so because of the economics of faculty hiring. Particularly in STEM fields like computer science, those who become professors typically forgo vastly higher salaries in industry, not to mention equity in startup companies and so on.
I’m skeptical that tenure is good for students, I knew so many teachers that just didn’t much care for their work and probably would have been fired if not for tenure. I understand the arguments in favor of tenure, particularly when it comes to recruitment, but given the bloated pipeline into academia, I’m not sure they hold.
Not the law yet, but as Scott Aaronson (I'm positive along with others) has pointed out, this would make their universities vastly less attractive to various incoming faculty.
Whether that would be as impactful in STEM as in the humanities or human-interest areas like law remains to be seen.
And even tenured UT or A&M professors will seek to move out to tenured positions elsewhere because no one wants to go down with a sinking ship. This is a singularly bad idea as Texas had successfully transitioned from being a resource extraction economy to a technology and medical one.
I would think a top performer would like least the tenure system, as they're in demand but their job outlook stunted by (perhaps numerical minority) crusty elements that can't be supplanted.
Honestly, it may not be a bad thing. Tenure was meant to protect the academic freedom, and pursuit of the long-term scientific research. Today, most academics chase money, grants, trends, citations and status.
It’s a job like any other, and doesn’t need protection, at cost to those outside the ivory tower (unless perhaps for a very small subset).
The change in academia is largely correlated with the fall-off of tenured positions in favor of adjunct faculty and the explosion of administration. I don't think it indicates that there is no need for tenure, but rather that tenure provided a bulwark against the very outcomes we now are seeing.
Are you suggesting that making the job less secure will make academics less interested in money, grands, trends, citations, and status? They'll be more content to just focus on the science and ignore money and fame, knowing that they can't get tenure and can be fired at any time?
More generally we need better protections for faculty with controversial views who can still teach and research to not get “cancelled”; better labor protections and more jobs so that faculty can advocate for themselves and receive less work (vs. getting disciplined or fired) when they are too old to effectively teach and research; better grants and more jobs so that faculty have better pay; better grants and more jobs so that faculty can only research (these types of faculty suck at teaching), or only teach and not be considered “lesser”; etc. With all these tenure isn’t necessary.
But this is Texas, with US labor protection and a culture which openly hates education and dissent, so in this specific case it’s definitively bad.
Are you aware that most non tenured positions require you to reapply every year for your job? Every 3 years if you are lucky. This in not a simple annual review like a normal job, this is you are fired at the end of your 1 year contract and now let's talk about the possibility of a new one year contract.
This in my opinion is really what tenure is about, getting out of the yearly firing that adjuncts and lecturers face.
Even assuming you’re right, that’s only true until the next step the Texas legislature takes, because any benefit will be contrary to their goals, which is to hurt higher education.
> Today, most academics chase money, grants, trends, citations and status.
Grants, trends, citations, and status...but money really? I come from mathematics and the notion of getting rich in academia is laughable. Maybe that's why so many math and physics people go to finance.
What's somewhat interesting is that this is a move being made by people who simultaneously claim to want more freedom of expression in general.
It's obvious to see how there could be non-Republican-friendly results of faculty being easier to fire for, say, a controversial twitter post.
So what's the thinking here? Seems like it could be...
* pure political theater, without really focusing on long-term affects
* the result of deciding to not even fight a battle for control of administration for public universities in the state (except in that case... if you think the administrators won't share your views, making it easier for them to fire professors seems foolish)
* similar to the above, but maybe a more outright battle on public education in general; possibly the first of many moves in the hope that right-wing private universities will emerge as replacements?)
>Tenure was meant to protect the academic freedom, and pursuit of the long-term scientific research. Today, most academics chase money, grants, trends, citations and status.
These two statements are written as if there's an implication; there isn't one.
>It’s a job like any other, and doesn’t need protection, at cost to those outside the ivory tower (unless perhaps for a very small subset).
Bold claim! Let's see if it's more than just, like, your opinion.
But removing tenure will only increase the incentives of chasing those things.
And I don't understand how others in this thread are saying academic freedom isn't necessary anymore/doesn't matter. The entire purpose of the republican party attacking tenure is so they can explicitly attack academic freedom.
Doesn't matter really, what it does is make Texas public schools second rate. They will fail to attract top qualified candidates, and that's all there is to it. They are cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
On the other hand costs may rise because you may not be able to attract good professors if there isn't tenure to offset lower than industry wages. Or you may just get lots of turnover or low-quality professors.
So the Texas Senate just passed a bill that makes it more likely that Texas faculty hires will be from a smaller and no doubt lower quality pool of candidates?
Why take a job without the possibility of tenure vs anywhere else in the US that has the option available to you?
Getting rid of tenure is fine but they'll need to pay much more to stay competitive.
The calculous is fairly simple. Tenure track and then have an easy work life but less money, or go to industry and make lots of money but work more. Nothing wrong with either but if you get rid of the upsides to academia expect to replace them with something. That's just how market economies work.
The issue isn't stem so much as the stuff where there isn't a highly paying industry sector. Those PhDs will have to go out of state for the same QOL as there will be no other competition to increase pay.
Not college, but my wife is wrapping up her teaching certification soon. We have both considered moving to Florida (we both have family that live there), but there is no chance in hell that we are moving to Florida and teaching; the infamous "Don't Say Gay" bill is so broad and idiotic (and she would be teaching biology), that Florida is a complete non-starter for us since neither of us really have any desire to be sued because some parent feels she might be teaching some "woke" agenda. I have no idea if my wife would be a good teacher, but I do know that if I were a teacher and I had options to teach elsewhere, I would not teach in Florida.
Similarly, professors are kind of absurdly underpaid, at least in STEM. Generally if you're qualified to be a professor in STEM, you're qualified for a nice yuppie job paying twice as much; one of the very few appealing things that professorships have is tenure.
From what I understand the tenure system was already in decline and it was already understood that getting tenure was effectively out of reach for the younger generations of professors.
> Public-college boards would be able to create “an alternate system of tiered employment status for faculty members” that’s not tenure, the legislation states. But that system would require faculty members to go through an annual performance evaluation.
That sounds closer to how most jobs work.
Honestly, I've never understood the purpose of tenure; it seems like an archaic tradition. If it's to give professors freedom to do research without fear of reprisal, it's not working, at least not optimally: there are plenty of ways to punish tenured researchers.
The professors I know personally have no expectation of ever getting tenure. Imagine that: Ph.D. in your field, work 30 years, never even seriously entertain the possibility of getting the brass ring. Something's broken there.
The best professor I had at university was in his sixties when I took his courses, and he never got tenure despite being really good at his job. The people who get tenure seem to be people who bring a lot of attention or a lot of money to the university. Both of those are only a professor's "job" if you look at universities as cynical money-making machines (a disenchantment I have slowly come around to).
I guess what I'm saying is, I have no problems with Texas throwing a grenade into this situation. I am somewhat skeptical of the likelihood of them replacing it with a better system in practice, though.
Still, some better solution must be found if we expect higher education to continue as an institution into the future. If this bill passes, I wish them good luck, and will be looking at this as an interesting experiment.
The problem is, as others have said, this severely degrades Texas's desirability as a career destination for academics as long as only Texas is doing this and other states are not.
Put another way, these are the people Texas doesn't want in the state:
- LGBT+
- women
- academics
Are they trying to have a student population composed of just cis crypto bros and assorted incels? Because this is how you get there.
I wasn't directly involved (as a student and TA), but spent a fair while in academia, and was rather close personal friends with a number of adjunct professors, tenure-track profs, post-docs, and grad students. I was looking at staying in academics so I had many long discussions about the state of things (at least at the time, about a decade ago).
There was a lot of concern in the field about how tenure was an incentive and a solid goal to strive for, but it left much for the administration to abuse. Between the politics and bureaucracy and constant jockeying for tenure track, it made it hard to focus on the students. Since you had to "play the game" or get cut or tossed out, that forced non-tenure profs to spend time outside of teaching. Then you had the shitty profs that just wanted that tenure protection so they could avoid teaching and just do their own personal research. And since it was so easy to cut adjuncts, they had little to no bargaining position and were often given shitty pay. So I'm all for ditching Tenure or otherwise reworking that pile of garbage.
But on the other hand, I don't trust anything coming out of the TX lege right now. Especially if it's got Dan Patrick excited. They're trying their hardest to create an authoritarian theocracy using the same playbook as DeSantis, and this seems like another step in controlling education in Texas to paint the narrative they want.
Texas has been rapid firing bills and actions that destroy local communities ability to self-govern as well as actions like these to try and spite what they view as the opposition. It's not going to end well for Texas (and is the reason why I left the state in the first place), but none of the ghouls in charge care because they'll be dead and / or get their payday before the problems come to roost. Much like Ken Paxton being a criminal that hasn't been put behind bars yet.
Clarifying a bad headline: it's not that tenure can't be offered (only) to new faculty. It's that henceforth nobody would be given tenure, even if they were already employees. Existing employees who are already tenured would be grandfathered.
That's my understanding too. I was surprised to see the headline because we have a couple of assistant profs in my department going up for tenure next year and I was told that if this law passes they won't be able to do that anymore.
> It's that henceforth nobody would be given tenure, even if they were already employees.
If I’m understanding you correctly, I think this is not true? “The legislation would apply only to faculty members hired by Texas colleges after January 1, 2024. Professors who have tenure, have applied for tenure, or are on the tenure track would not be affected.”
Tenure is to Academia as Venture Capital is to Entreprenureship. You give resources (money, which buys time, office space, equipment, support staff...) to a bunch of promising individuals, hoping that some of them will do amazing things, but knowing most of them will not.
Going to be tough for UT, which regularly hires people who are among the best in the world, and was essentially at the Berkeley/UCLA/UMich level of public university. They will still be able to hire, of course, but they won't be able to get Nobel Prize-level people without offering tenure.
This might possibly provide some benefits for adjunct faculty (at the expense of tenure lottery winners):
Demolishing the tenure class system may reduce the social stigma of being an adjunct vs. tenured faculty member.
A noted elsewhere, a mythical possibility of future tenure may become slightly less usable for luring faculty into accepting lower pay.
And since everyone is now an adjunct, adjunct salaries (which are usually terrible) may have to rise overall. Although it will probably still be much lower than traditional faculty salaries, as UT may attract more adjunct applicants.
Adjunct hiring might change from a per-term model (which is terrible) to a yearly model or even longer.
The result could possibly (hopefully?) be higher social status, higher pay, and better job security - for the lucky few adjuncts who manage to get faculty jobs at UT.
As a TA at a certain public institution in Texas, the level of some students' incompetence by the time they reach their final year in undergraduate studies is shocking and saddening. And yet, almost no one fails, because there is pressure to pass everyone. One would literally have to do nothing in order to fail. Few professors have the time or energy to deal with these issues, so standards get lower and more students pass without knowing their subject. The only thing protecting professors from retaliation (not acquiescing to pressure from administrators / deans to pass students) is tenure. We can see clearly what will be the effect of this legislation.
This is a larger blow to smaller universities like UTSA and UTD that finally have budding research programs. I really wish the Texas government would stay out of people's lives. This is just another bill in the long line of bills this year intended to kill "wokeness". Our government doesn't give a single care about education. As long as they think they can get conforming, uninformed youth out of something, they'll do anything.
Some are arguing that the tenure system is broken. Maybe. If this change was done in good faith to make the system stronger, it is worth considering. But there is little evidence that that is what is going on. Conservatives have been beating the drum for decades that colleges brainwash their kids into being liberals, and so they want control to fire any academic that doesn't confirm to their views.
edit: I'm speaking as a 19 year resident of Austin, Texas who has watched countless other power grabs, including Governor Perry installing biblical literalists to oversee Texas school books that deny evolution and rewriting history -- too much Jefferson and not a mention of Phyllis Schlafley (not joking). The same legislature has pushed a law requiring every K-12 schoolroom to display the Ten Commandments.
[+] [-] ano-ther|2 years ago|reply
> […] it would be the end of UT Austin and Texas A&M as leading research universities. More precisely, it would be the immediate end of our ability to recruit competitively, and the slightly slower end of our competitiveness period, as faculty with options moved elsewhere. This is so because of the economics of faculty hiring. Particularly in STEM fields like computer science, those who become professors typically forgo vastly higher salaries in industry, not to mention equity in startup companies and so on.
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7243
[+] [-] orange_joe|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quantified|2 years ago|reply
Whether that would be as impactful in STEM as in the humanities or human-interest areas like law remains to be seen.
[+] [-] nextos|2 years ago|reply
Other countries have suppressed tenure in the past, Denmark comes to mind, and this scared tons of great faculty.
[+] [-] fmajid|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whitemary|2 years ago|reply
...but given the flood state of the academic labor market, still rather attractive.
[+] [-] notch898c|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aborsy|2 years ago|reply
It’s a job like any other, and doesn’t need protection, at cost to those outside the ivory tower (unless perhaps for a very small subset).
[+] [-] tristor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burkaman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] armchairhacker|2 years ago|reply
But this is Texas, with US labor protection and a culture which openly hates education and dissent, so in this specific case it’s definitively bad.
[+] [-] uberman|2 years ago|reply
This in my opinion is really what tenure is about, getting out of the yearly firing that adjuncts and lecturers face.
[+] [-] rhaway84773|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nequo|2 years ago|reply
Tenure is what affords academics the time to pursue research that pays off in 10 years instead of 2.
[+] [-] curt15|2 years ago|reply
Grants, trends, citations, and status...but money really? I come from mathematics and the notion of getting rich in academia is laughable. Maybe that's why so many math and physics people go to finance.
[+] [-] majormajor|2 years ago|reply
It's obvious to see how there could be non-Republican-friendly results of faculty being easier to fire for, say, a controversial twitter post.
So what's the thinking here? Seems like it could be...
* pure political theater, without really focusing on long-term affects
* the result of deciding to not even fight a battle for control of administration for public universities in the state (except in that case... if you think the administrators won't share your views, making it easier for them to fire professors seems foolish)
* similar to the above, but maybe a more outright battle on public education in general; possibly the first of many moves in the hope that right-wing private universities will emerge as replacements?)
[+] [-] romwell|2 years ago|reply
These two statements are written as if there's an implication; there isn't one.
>It’s a job like any other, and doesn’t need protection, at cost to those outside the ivory tower (unless perhaps for a very small subset).
Bold claim! Let's see if it's more than just, like, your opinion.
(Again, it isn't).
[+] [-] tejtm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kevin_S|2 years ago|reply
And I don't understand how others in this thread are saying academic freedom isn't necessary anymore/doesn't matter. The entire purpose of the republican party attacking tenure is so they can explicitly attack academic freedom.
[+] [-] ModernMech|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericmay|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cal5k|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] satysin|2 years ago|reply
Why take a job without the possibility of tenure vs anywhere else in the US that has the option available to you?
[+] [-] edrxty|2 years ago|reply
The calculous is fairly simple. Tenure track and then have an easy work life but less money, or go to industry and make lots of money but work more. Nothing wrong with either but if you get rid of the upsides to academia expect to replace them with something. That's just how market economies work.
The issue isn't stem so much as the stuff where there isn't a highly paying industry sector. Those PhDs will have to go out of state for the same QOL as there will be no other competition to increase pay.
[+] [-] tombert|2 years ago|reply
Similarly, professors are kind of absurdly underpaid, at least in STEM. Generally if you're qualified to be a professor in STEM, you're qualified for a nice yuppie job paying twice as much; one of the very few appealing things that professorships have is tenure.
[+] [-] mkl95|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BuyMyBitcoins|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RhodesianHunter|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fauntleroy|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] karaterobot|2 years ago|reply
That sounds closer to how most jobs work.
Honestly, I've never understood the purpose of tenure; it seems like an archaic tradition. If it's to give professors freedom to do research without fear of reprisal, it's not working, at least not optimally: there are plenty of ways to punish tenured researchers.
The professors I know personally have no expectation of ever getting tenure. Imagine that: Ph.D. in your field, work 30 years, never even seriously entertain the possibility of getting the brass ring. Something's broken there.
The best professor I had at university was in his sixties when I took his courses, and he never got tenure despite being really good at his job. The people who get tenure seem to be people who bring a lot of attention or a lot of money to the university. Both of those are only a professor's "job" if you look at universities as cynical money-making machines (a disenchantment I have slowly come around to).
I guess what I'm saying is, I have no problems with Texas throwing a grenade into this situation. I am somewhat skeptical of the likelihood of them replacing it with a better system in practice, though.
Still, some better solution must be found if we expect higher education to continue as an institution into the future. If this bill passes, I wish them good luck, and will be looking at this as an interesting experiment.
[+] [-] KerrAvon|2 years ago|reply
Put another way, these are the people Texas doesn't want in the state:
- LGBT+ - women - academics
Are they trying to have a student population composed of just cis crypto bros and assorted incels? Because this is how you get there.
[+] [-] ShadowBanThis01|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajford|2 years ago|reply
I wasn't directly involved (as a student and TA), but spent a fair while in academia, and was rather close personal friends with a number of adjunct professors, tenure-track profs, post-docs, and grad students. I was looking at staying in academics so I had many long discussions about the state of things (at least at the time, about a decade ago).
There was a lot of concern in the field about how tenure was an incentive and a solid goal to strive for, but it left much for the administration to abuse. Between the politics and bureaucracy and constant jockeying for tenure track, it made it hard to focus on the students. Since you had to "play the game" or get cut or tossed out, that forced non-tenure profs to spend time outside of teaching. Then you had the shitty profs that just wanted that tenure protection so they could avoid teaching and just do their own personal research. And since it was so easy to cut adjuncts, they had little to no bargaining position and were often given shitty pay. So I'm all for ditching Tenure or otherwise reworking that pile of garbage.
But on the other hand, I don't trust anything coming out of the TX lege right now. Especially if it's got Dan Patrick excited. They're trying their hardest to create an authoritarian theocracy using the same playbook as DeSantis, and this seems like another step in controlling education in Texas to paint the narrative they want.
[+] [-] fzeroracer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CWuestefeld|2 years ago|reply
And obviously only for public institutions.
[+] [-] malshe|2 years ago|reply
Edit: Looks like it applies only to new hires. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/04/20/texas-senate-tenure-...
[+] [-] medler|2 years ago|reply
If I’m understanding you correctly, I think this is not true? “The legislation would apply only to faculty members hired by Texas colleges after January 1, 2024. Professors who have tenure, have applied for tenure, or are on the tenure track would not be affected.”
[+] [-] xmddmx|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] squokko|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwighttk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] musicale|2 years ago|reply
Demolishing the tenure class system may reduce the social stigma of being an adjunct vs. tenured faculty member.
A noted elsewhere, a mythical possibility of future tenure may become slightly less usable for luring faculty into accepting lower pay.
And since everyone is now an adjunct, adjunct salaries (which are usually terrible) may have to rise overall. Although it will probably still be much lower than traditional faculty salaries, as UT may attract more adjunct applicants.
Adjunct hiring might change from a per-term model (which is terrible) to a yearly model or even longer.
The result could possibly (hopefully?) be higher social status, higher pay, and better job security - for the lucky few adjuncts who manage to get faculty jobs at UT.
[+] [-] bdcravens|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gabriel54|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themitigating|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] APhoenixRises|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tasty_freeze|2 years ago|reply
edit: I'm speaking as a 19 year resident of Austin, Texas who has watched countless other power grabs, including Governor Perry installing biblical literalists to oversee Texas school books that deny evolution and rewriting history -- too much Jefferson and not a mention of Phyllis Schlafley (not joking). The same legislature has pushed a law requiring every K-12 schoolroom to display the Ten Commandments.
[+] [-] telotortium|2 years ago|reply