October 18, 2011. “Eliminating tenure will make Florida universities less competitive.”
By Stanley D. Smith
Link to original article at Orlando Sentinel
Many people misunderstand tenure and how faculty members are evaluated. I recently met with a prominent state legislator as a representative of the United Faculty of Florida, the state bargaining agent for professors at Florida’s public universities. The first thing the legislator said was, “You are against merit pay.”
My colleague and I explained that our union has pushed for merit pay for years. At UCF, for example, merit-pay standards are jointly developed by faculty and administrators. If a faculty member’s performance is below standard, then her assignment will be changed to make her more productive. For example, highly productive faculty in research may have a lower teaching assignment. If that research productivity declines, then she may be assigned a higher teaching load. All faculty are expected to be good teachers.
Most American universities offer tenure to eligible professors. Tenure is only awarded after a five- to six-year probationary period, during which the employee’s teaching productivity and research productivity are evaluated by her department, college, university and other national experts in the discipline.
Tenure is difficult to earn, and when earned, is considered a legal property right, which suggests that it has value, particularly during periods of economic stress. If tenure is eliminated in Florida, then our universities would have to pay higher salaries to offset that loss, because we compete for good faculty in a national market. Florida already pays its professors less than the national average and provides fewer faculty members to teach students than any other state. Eliminating tenure will make Florida universities less competitive.
Besides keeping Florida’s faculty on par with other states, tenure allows professors to research and teach in controversial areas related to their disciplines. This freedom from business and political interests helps all of us.
Tenure also gives that person limited job security: If there are layoffs in his department, he has a higher priority than a nontenured faculty member who has not met the rigorous standards for tenure. Does it protect him from being fired for laziness or incompetence? No. Tenured and nontenured faculty are evaluated every year. Those not performing at a satisfactory level can be terminated.
Eliminating tenure would harm higher education right when we need to strengthen it.
Stanley D. Smith, a University of Central Florida professor of finance, is a representative of the United Faculty of Florida UCF Chapter Council.