Not Making Tenure

[HigherEd7]

I know a few people who have not made tenure and they are devastated. If you do not make tenure is that end of your career in high education?

[ciao_yall]

I know a few people who have not made tenure and they are devastated. If you do not make tenure is that end of your career in high education?

Not necessarily.

Some people get other jobs in other colleges and do fine. Others change careers and also do just fine.

Depends on one's discipline and reasons for not getting tenure in the first place.

[clean]

Not getting tenure is not the end of a career. IF you are up for tenure, you should be on the job market.  You should be sure that the place that is going to make you an offer for a 'contract without renewal' (which is what tenure is), is the place you want to be for a while.  Is the grass greener somewhere else?

IF your current employer decides not to make you that offer, you should already be on the market and evaluating other offers. The worst thing for your career is that you are on the market after being denied tenure.  Some will view that as a big question mark.  You will be interviewing with "REJECT" stamped on your forehead. The interviewer will want to know "Is this person some kind of nut?  The current employer has had a lot more time to evaluate their performance, and they are not willing to keep them, Why should I take the chance?"

Also, you have a year on a terminal contract.  Not a good year for you! 

Anyway, I also have known people and places that have denied tenure.  In my observations, both sides have actually been better off.  The employers found better fits, and so did the employees. 

So the bottom line is that being denied tenure is not at all an end of an academic career.  It simply marks the end of a career with the current employer.

[secundem_artem]

We have at least 1 faculty member who did not get tenure at an R1 who has worked out very well for us (regional comprehensive).  It took them a while to adjust to a different school mission, but once they did, it's been smooth.

My own thoughts are that if you don't make it at an R1 or an Ivy, any number of more teaching oriented schools will likely be interested.  But if you don't get tenured at one of the teaching oriented/less research places, you're probably done. 

At Artem U, my dept heads have typically made it clear by the 3rd or 4th year that an assistant prof is unlikely to receive tenure.  It gives them a chance to get out before a search committee somewhere starts doing the math for their tenure clock and wondering what the problem is.

[tuxthepenguin]

I know a few people who have not made tenure and they are devastated. If you do not make tenure is that end of your career in high education?

No. I've been part of search committees that have hired people after a tenure denial. In some cases, our offers have been turned down because they had better offers. Everybody knows the BS involved in tenure decisions.

Some administrators will firmly refuse to hire someone after a tenure denial. In my experience, it's not a big deal because the person you're hiring is starting over, so you have the option to get rid of them if it's not working out. I do somewhat disagree with the advice that you need to move before you're denied tenure. In my limited experience, it's obvious why someone's on the market in year 4 or 5, so it doesn't really help.

[spork]

It's not, but in my case I was extremely lucky to land another tenure-track position on short notice. In some fields, after employment at a low-status institution, the likelihood of finding another tenure-track job is extremely low.

[Ruralguy]

I would agree that it's not necessarily a death sentence within academia, but it could be difficult for some of the reasons already mentioned or others.

[polly_mer]

I know a few people who have not made tenure and they are devastated. If you do not make tenure is that end of your career in high education?

Not necessarily.

Some people get other jobs in other colleges and do fine. Others change careers and also do just fine.

Depends on one's discipline and reasons for not getting tenure in the first place.

I agree with ciao_yall that the reasons matter a lot. 

Some elite institutions are known for denying tenure to nearly everyone who comes up and then those folks go on a short tenure clock at a comparable institution.

I've known some people who put a lot of energy into their research at a teaching institution or a lot of energy into their teaching at a research institution.  Having a bad current match for demonstrated interests, but a really good CV for some other type of academic job can work out.  The question then is whether the field is such that the hard part is sorting qualified people into the various types of jobs available or whether the qualified-people-to-any-job ratio means most qualified people aren't getting a job because the math simply doesn't work.

Likewise, I've known people whose lives just fell apart during a couple crucial years and no extension/pause was put on the tenure clock.  Having good letters of recommendation explaining that situation can work out for moving to a similar institution if, again, the field is such that the hard part is sorting, not a huge mismatch between number of jobs available and qualified people who want those jobs.

However, yes, I've seen people not get tenure for failing the service requirements at an undistinguished teaching-only college while not winning any teaching awards and having no research productivity be unable to get another academic job in the next several years because the field is so crowded with shiny new folks and very experienced folks who would like to move up a rung.  No one has to hire someone with yellow/red flags when so many other good candidates are in the pool.

[HigherEd7]

From what I have seen it seems to very political as well. I guess one of the best things to do is not to make anyone mad and stay to yourself until you make tenure and then become more vocal.

[Hibush]

I have had colleagues be denied tenure in an applied science area that interacts with industry. Several of those have gone on to work with the companies that there were engaged with. It has turned out better for everyone involved. They were all good researchers with lots of energy. But they were simply not successful at some of the multiple demands of academic life.

We replaced them with people who struggled less; they got to do the kind of research and development that got them excited and got more money and more weekends to live life.

A few others were just bad calls at hiring, but they knew early on that they were not hitting the milestones. It is hard to know where they went.