Tenure

May 29th, 2008

Yesterday I was going through the mail I’d missed while I’ve been traveling, and came across the official letter finally that I am being promoted to Associate Professor with tenure on July 1, 2008, the start of our fiscal year.

Woo hoo!

So I knew this was happening.   My department and department chair all supported me, the Dean was very positive, the Tenure and Promotion Committee was unanimous, as were the overseeing administrators.   But still…it’s nice to have it official in black and white.

I covered some basics about tenure a couple of months ago when I wrote about “What Do Astronomy Professors Do.”   I’ll copy the parts regarding tenure below:

And let me explain a few things about tenure, what it means, and what it doesn’t.   Generally most new professors are technically “assistant professors,” who are regularly reviewed and can be dismissed easily if they’re not performing at expected levels.   Usually they’re given six years to meet that standard, and then they’re promoted to associate professor and given tenure, or fired (with a year to make a transition).   There’s a final level of full professor above associate that requires a tenured professor to continue to show high performance levels.

So about tenure…it is job security of a sort.   It makes firing a professor very difficult, and is meant to protect us and let us follow our research where ever it leads, even if it is offensive to some or just something that others think is a waste of time pursuing.   We can still be fired for the usual reasons someone would get fired (e.g., gross underperformance, etc.), but there’s a legal procedure that must be followed and a lot of corrective steps before those are reached.   I’m generally in favor of tenure (certainly for myself!), but it has pluses and minuses.   Some professors become what we call “dead wood” after getting tenure.   They teach their classes, putter about, but don’t continue doing significant new research or contribute to a department in serious ways.   Some do spend the last years of their careers pursuing bogus research that never pans out.   Sometimes though, it does let someone do something like a major long-term project that doesn’t bear fruit for many years, something that junior people trying to land jobs can’t afford to do.   That’s a good thing.

There.   A few minutes of happy glow have to be enough for today with so much to do.   Back to the salt mines now, as an old friend of mine used to say.

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