[Vision2020] UI to Furlough Employees

[Donovan Arnold]

I believe tenure was put into place to protect college professors from getting fired for political reasons. For this I agree that professors should not be fired because college is about exploring new, and often controversial topics and subjects, and many professors are controversial when they get passionate about their subjects.
 
However, I don't believe in tenure anymore because it is widely abused, unfortunately. A good teacher doesn't need tenure because they are good and there are enough good Universities out there wanting to keep and attract good teachers and students that want them as instructors. Bad teacheers drive away students and with it University funding. 
 
There may be policies in place to remove a tenured faculty member, however, they are more likely to be struck down by lightening on a clear blue sunny day than be removed from teaching by this process. 
 
Eliminating tenure would clear out bad instructors with high salaries so we could hire better instructors for the students. 
 
Your Friend,
 
Donovan Arnold

--- On Wed, 3/3/10, Garrett Clevenger <garrettmc at verizon.net> wrote:


From: Garrett Clevenger <garrettmc at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] UI to Furlough Employees
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 10:40 PM







"We've all had them:  professors/instructors whose teaching skills are horrible, who have retired on the job, and/or whose so-called research is at best cream puffery, and at worst nearly worthless garbage.  There needs to be a way of getting these ineffective performers off the payroll."




>From my experience being a student and working at wsu for 15 years, tenure seems to promote complacent faculty who don't do their job adequately.


No one wants to pay thousands of dollars per semester to be stuck with a crappy professor, but it happens all the time.


Despite receiving consistent negative feedback from student reviews, tenured faculty really are not accountable.


Once they have tenure, it's unlikely bad faculty would be terminated and replaced with someone more competent.


Tenure reform would be at the top of my list if I were looking at ways to make the educational experience more rewarding for students while insuring dead-weight faculty don't bring the institution down.


This would have to be across the board for public higher education to insure equal hiring incentives.


Why should some university employees receive elite treatment while most workers don't have such guarantees?  


Tenure may have had a good purpose, but the unintended consequences don't seems worth it.


Obviously those with tenure see this differently...




Garrett Clevenger
Garrett Clevenger
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