2008 Woodie Awards
Tenure: Why do we have it?
Editoral
Issue date: 2/11/05 Section: Opinion
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According to the article in The Touchstone, since 1996 Texas A&M has not had an effective tenure program because faculty can be fired if their speech is thought to be disruptive.
We believe tenure is important but that students should play a larger part in faculty tenure decisions since we are the ones who have to deal with them and their teaching - whether in grades or in classes where we learned nothing and will struggle the farther along with our education we go.
The evaluations students fill out at the end of every semester are used to help the rank and tenure committee decide if someone should receive tenure, but maybe they should weigh more heavily and teachers would be a little more likely to explain the evaluations' importance to students.
Doing away with tenure is not the answer, but fine-tuning the process can be.
Students should have more say, since we are the ones who pay the tuition and some of the taxes, which in turn pay faculty salaries.
AC needs to think more about the needs of its students when passing out tenure.
We believe tenure is important but that students should play a larger part in faculty tenure decisions since we are the ones who have to deal with them and their teaching - whether in grades or in classes where we learned nothing and will struggle the farther along with our education we go.
The evaluations students fill out at the end of every semester are used to help the rank and tenure committee decide if someone should receive tenure, but maybe they should weigh more heavily and teachers would be a little more likely to explain the evaluations' importance to students.
Doing away with tenure is not the answer, but fine-tuning the process can be.
Students should have more say, since we are the ones who pay the tuition and some of the taxes, which in turn pay faculty salaries.
AC needs to think more about the needs of its students when passing out tenure.