Unofficially Moved discussion: Academic Libertarians

[mahagonny]

I was informed on another thread by a poster, Polly_Mer, who identifies as both  libertarian and pro-tenure that

What would be unlibertarian includes:

* mandating the types of faculty who must be employed at an institution including what types of contracts are allowed to be entered by competent adults
* mandating what classes must be offered and what the qualifications faculty must have to teach the classes
* mandating how an institution must structure itself in terms of how many employees of what type are allowed

However, (addressing the points in order)

1. tenure advocates and the tenured clearly see themselves fighting against the use of part time faculty contracts (although it may be arguable whether they actually are) so it would seem odd for a libertarian to align themselves with that type of domination from within and without;
2. If you've got a full tenured expert in the manufacture and use of widgets who was hired when 100,000 students wanted to study widget use and sales, and now, twenty years later, there are 5000 such prospective students, then you've still got to pay his his salary and use him whereas without tenure you let him go and save money;
3. The individual institution should then be able to decide that. One of the notable libertarians, William F. Buckley, had little use for academic freedom as it left the institution hamstrung in their ability to promote a moral message. This would include hiring professors whose views blend with that message.

The post also claimed that the general public doesn't care much one way or the other about academic tenure. That's not what I've been hearing from academics themselves.

Let's suppose the public is against tenure because it they think promotes labor injustice. Who would you vote for? Not the republicans, because they are against expansion of the collective bargaining rights of the worker, which is his best defense against labor injustice. Not the democrats, because academic tenure it the nerve center of their causes. So you are blocked any way you turn. Why even discuss?

[polly_mer]

First post for point-by-point response:

I was informed on another thread by a poster, Polly_Mer, who identifies as both  libertarian and pro-tenure

You've assigned me the label of pro-tenure.  I'm pro-having-institutions-be-efficient-and-effective-in-whatever-they-are-claiming-to-do.

2. If you've got a full tenured expert in the manufacture and use of widgets who was hired when 100,000 students wanted to study widget use and sales, and now, twenty years later, there are 5000 such prospective students, then you've still got to pay his his salary and use him whereas without tenure you let him go and save money;

Tenure alone does not preclude closing departments where no demand exists and no demand is on the horizon and then firing everyone in the department.  Tenure merely asserts that a process must exist and be followed so that individuals cannot be arbitrarily dismissed.

The post also claimed that the general public doesn't care much one way or the other about academic tenure. That's not what I've been hearing from academics themselves.

Academics are not the general public.  The recurring stories in some quarters are how few people think about tenure at all until they get smacked in the face with the reality that they will not be full-time employed in academia as their preferred career path. 

Let's suppose the public is against tenure because it they think promotes labor injustice.

The general public cares about labor injustice as it affects themselves, their kith and kin, and their communities.  I bet you folding money that people without a graduate degree who are working several jobs to make ends meet have minimal sympathy for people who have graduate degrees and choose to be working multiple academic jobs for peanuts instead of doing something else as one job with benefits.

I, personally, am at-will employee as are all of my colleagues with graduate degrees.  We can show up any day to discover our badges and electronic keys don't work and find out our day will be picking up a box with personal belongings at HR and ensuring our severance check goes to the correct address.

However, that tends to not happen because we're hard to replace due to our knowledge and skillset.  The union is for the manual labor folks who could be replaced, but banded together to negotiate for better terms.

[polly_mer]

Second post for big picture:

What's the goal here?  I'm still not seeing any evidence that propping up part-time teaching work in academia leads to addressing any of the big concerns in academia.  I'm not seeing any evidence that eliminating tenure in favor of some other employment system for primarily teaching faculty will result in substantial good results in terms of more students educated with better education and more faculty jobs doing the tasks that are unique in academia.


Big concerns:

* More people want full-time academic jobs than are needed in full-time jobs for certain specialties.  We have far more faculty than we've ever had before and yet we still don't have enough positions for all who desire them.

* Changing student demographics, changing student interests, and just plain lack of new high graduates or others desiring a lengthy college experience in certain geographic locations are significantly impacting viability of many institutions

* Mandatory K-12 education that results in only about half of HS graduates ready for college and traditional college students from poor families tend to be disproportionately at the least well resourced institutions, although many independent poor students were at more selective institutions.

* Even when students from poor families get to college and a pretty good college, those students often need additional help that isn't always being provided.  "Children from families earning more than $90,000 have a 1-in-2 chance of getting a bachelor's degree by 24. That falls to a 1 in 17 chance for families earning under $35,000."

A good first-person narrative is: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/10/magazine/college-inequality.html. 

* In certain fields where students want to study, finding faculty is difficult: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/09/no-clear-solution-nationwide-shortage-computer-science-professors

* Lack of research early career research faculty who will become program managers with a large research group in a vital area is unaddressed in any way by focusing on the teaching aspects at community colleges, which is where the majority of employed faculty are already part-time.

It's unclear how eliminating tenure or continuing to split classroom teaching from everything else that goes on in a true institute of higher education will do anything to address the big problems related to student education and increasing human knowledge.

[mahagonny]

First post for point-by-point response:

I was informed on another thread by a poster, Polly_Mer, who identifies as both  libertarian and pro-tenure

You've assigned me the label of pro-tenure. I'm pro-having-institutions-be-efficient-and-effective-in-whatever-they-are-claiming-to-do.

You sound that way, but maybe not so much. You certainly don't have to be pro-tenure. There's a dearth of discussion that includes all perspectives.

2. If you've got a full tenured expert in the manufacture and use of widgets who was hired when 100,000 students wanted to study widget use and sales, and now, twenty years later, there are 5000 such prospective students, then you've still got to pay his his salary and use him whereas without tenure you let him go and save money;

Tenure alone does not preclude closing departments where no demand exists and no demand is on the horizon and then firing everyone in the department.  Tenure merely asserts that a process must exist and be followed so that individuals cannot be arbitrarily dismissed.

Dismissing someone or converting him to part-time because the composition of the student body has changed and his expertise is now much less needed is not an arbitrary decision. It's a logical one. Tenure requires that unless there's malfeasance you can't change the professor's employment status or compensation unless the whole department goes under. Which it will, because you didn't have flexibility to adapt to changing conditions.

[polly_mer]

2. If you've got a full tenured expert in the manufacture and use of widgets who was hired when 100,000 students wanted to study widget use and sales, and now, twenty years later, there are 5000 such prospective students, then you've still got to pay his his salary and use him whereas without tenure you let him go and save money;

Tenure alone does not preclude closing departments where no demand exists and no demand is on the horizon and then firing everyone in the department.  Tenure merely asserts that a process must exist and be followed so that individuals cannot be arbitrarily dismissed.

Dismissing someone or converting him to part-time because the composition of the student body has changed and his expertise is now much less needed is not an arbitrary decision. It's a logical one. Tenure requires that unless there's malfeasance you can't change the professor's employment status or compensation unless the whole department goes under. Which it will, because you didn't have flexibility to adapt to changing conditions.

Technically, tenure just requires that the established local process be followed and that individuals not be treated arbitrarily.

An institution can indeed close an academic program without shutting down the entire department.  People can indeed have their employment status and compensation be changed as long as it's the whole group or a logical subset of the the whole group as a programmatic change, not just one person in an arbitrary manner.

Institutions do indeed have the flexibility and the obligation to adapt to changing conditions.  The problem I see is a combination of:

* lack of will to do the necessary tracking of the data so that a decision could be made before everything hits the fan

* lack of vision/ability/will to look at the data and come to conclusions related to the good of the institution instead of individual departments and jobs

* flat out refusal to believe that prospective students will vote with their feet to do something else that better meets their needs instead of continuing to believe that no other options exist than a 4-year, full-time college education that is 1/3 major, 1/3 breadth, and 1/3 electives.

The problem isn't tenure; it's a refusal by many who are tenured to believe that institutions can and do close by focusing on faculty teaching jobs instead of potential or already enrolled-somewhere student needs, desires, and interests. 

[mahagonny]

2. If you've got a full tenured expert in the manufacture and use of widgets who was hired when 100,000 students wanted to study widget use and sales, and now, twenty years later, there are 5000 such prospective students, then you've still got to pay his his salary and use him whereas without tenure you let him go and save money;

Tenure alone does not preclude closing departments where no demand exists and no demand is on the horizon and then firing everyone in the department.  Tenure merely asserts that a process must exist and be followed so that individuals cannot be arbitrarily dismissed.

Dismissing someone or converting him to part-time because the composition of the student body has changed and his expertise is now much less needed is not an arbitrary decision. It's a logical one. Tenure requires that unless there's malfeasance you can't change the professor's employment status or compensation unless the whole department goes under. Which it will, because you didn't have flexibility to adapt to changing conditions.

Technically, tenure just requires that the established local process be followed and that individuals not be treated arbitrarily.

An institution can indeed close an academic program without shutting down the entire department.  People can indeed have their employment status and compensation be changed as long as it's the whole group or a logical subset of the the whole group as a programmatic change, not just one person in an arbitrary manner.

Institutions do indeed have the flexibility and the obligation to adapt to changing conditions.  The problem I see is a combination of:

* lack of will to do the necessary tracking of the data so that a decision could be made before everything hits the fan

* lack of vision/ability/will to look at the data and come to conclusions related to the good of the institution instead of individual departments and jobs

* flat out refusal to believe that prospective students will vote with their feet to do something else that better meets their needs instead of continuing to believe that no other options exist than a 4-year, full-time college education that is 1/3 major, 1/3 breadth, and 1/3 electives.

The problem isn't tenure; it's a refusal by many who are tenured to believe that institutions can and do close by focusing on faculty teaching jobs instead of potential or already enrolled-somewhere student needs, desires, and interests.

The presence of good paying tenure track jobs with good lifelong benefits is considered as essential condition for a healthy department. Expecting a person to retire earlier with a smaller but still manageable pension because the department no longer has a highly productive path for using that professor is not realistic. Therefore, the maintaining of tenure has built-in pitfalls. The pitfall doesn't stop with the university itself either. Observe, the state pension systems are in trouble because of underfunding. Trouble that was mostly foreseeable.
http://thefora.org/index.php?topic=649.0

Even

[polly_mer]

The presence of good paying tenure track jobs with good lifelong benefits is considered as essential condition for a healthy department.

Citation?  The Higher Learning Commission only indicates

3.C. The institution has the faculty and staff needed for effective, high-quality programs and student services.


1. The institution has sufficient numbers and continuity of faculty members to carry out both the classroom and the non-classroom roles of faculty, including oversight of the curriculum and expectations for student performance; establishment of academic credentials for instructional staff; involvement in assessment of student learning.

2. All instructors are appropriately qualified, including those in dual credit, contractual, and consortial programs.

3. Instructors are evaluated regularly in accordance with established institutional policies and procedures.

4. The institution has processes and resources for assuring that instructors are current in their disciplines and adept in their teaching roles; it supports their professional development.

5. Instructors are accessible for student inquiry.

6.  Staff members providing student support services, such as tutoring, financial aid advising, academic advising, and co-curricular activities, are appropriately qualified, trained, and supported in their professional development.

reference: https://www.hlcommission.org/Policies/criteria-and-core-components.html

Tenure is not required; the requirement is having sufficient continuity of faculty who can act as faculty.  Super Dinky had few adjuncts, but was written up in more than one report for having such a large percentage of faculty having fewer than 5 years at the institution.  When we were having regular meetings with all the regulatory bodies, the lack of pension liabilities (403(b) only) was brought up as a positive in Super Dinky's financial favor.  In case you are unfamiliar, a 403(b) plan is portable and can be rolled over into other plans when one changes jobs.  I rolled my 403(b) from Super Dinky into a different account upon changing jobs last time.

I agree that the pension system problems were entirely foreseeable in many states.  That's not a tenure problem; that's a lack of meeting the current HLC Criterion 5 (or similar requirement for other regional accreditors).

Criterion 5. Resources, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness

The institution's resources, structures, and processes are sufficient to fulfill its mission, improve the quality of its educational offerings, and respond to future challenges and opportunities. The institution plans for the future.

reference: https://www.hlcommission.org/Policies/criteria-and-core-components.html

To repeat, there's no guarantee of a job for life when one has tenure at a specific institution since colleges do close and take their underfunded pension plans with them.  That's a cruel reality of life, even for those who think the rules shouldn't apply to them.

[mahagonny]

I agree that the pension system problems were entirely foreseeable in many states.  That's not a tenure problem; that's a lack of meeting the current HLC Criterion 5 (or similar requirement for other regional accreditors).

Regardless of who one thinks is complicit in the mess (and of course the people who are owed these pensions, being the seekers of truth that they are will say 'gee, we should have done something more reputable  than negotiating for money that wasn't there), it's a situation that makes the maintenance of tenure a problem from which people outside the state university will suffer. People who pay taxes to run the university and have had no say in the financial decisions, and were never shown any proof that the needed things couldn't have been done without a tenure system.

[polly_mer]

I'm curious: what's your goal here?

Suppose I give it all up and state that tenure is the problem.  What happens then? 

Do the institutions that are having significant financial difficulties due in large part to a bad combination of fewer students overall and fewer students willing to pay (or borrow) money for specific degrees magically get solved?

Suppose every single one of those institutions gives up on tenure and goes to only part-time faculty who are only tasked with teaching.  Is that really a win for the faculty in general?

So far as I can tell, what you want in terms of stable, part-time jobs for faculty members with a focus only on teaching is not in the top several priorities of other identifiable groups with a stake in higher education. 

People want better funding for the system as it exists to support a change in demographics who arrive at college unready for college.

People want a different system that spends money for different types of education to reach a wider audience.  This would include those advocating for better K-12 education instead of trying to remediate at the college level as well as having better career-focused certificates available to adults.

People want to consolidate armies of part-time faculty jobs currently at some large institutions into full-time jobs at those same institutions.

People want to split teaching and research, possibly into different institutions, but definitely into different job ladders with different expectations, but usually again focusing on consolidating part-time jobs into full-time faculty jobs except for a small cadre of professional fellows.

People want graduate enrollment limited to those who can be fully funded or closure on certain graduate programs that clearly aren't achieving their outcomes.

The call for an end to tenure as a way to make part-time jobs more equitable seems out of step when so many other pushes are to either keep the doors open or consolidate into something better.

[mahagonny]

I'm curious: what's your goal here?

The call for an end to tenure as a way to make part-time jobs more equitable seems out of step when so many other pushes are to either keep the doors open or consolidate into something better.

It's more than out-of-step. It's one of the most unpopular things that could be proposed on a forum that is dedicated to tenure track mystique and material interests. That's one of the things that makes it interesting. But I never said ending tenure would fix everything. It has the potential to fix problems that are caused or exacerbated by tenure. Whether it would depends on a few things.
If you are OK with raising taxes to fix the pension crisis of state budgets, you stand to lose fans down the road, on the outside of academia. And you don't have tons of them now. This includes, potentially, many thousands of part time college faculty, who are outsiders. That was your idea. No pension, no benefits, no job security, no real standing in the community. This is true even if no troll mentions it on your forum.

[polly_mer]

[If you are OK with raising taxes to fix the pension crisis of state budgets,

I am not and I left one state because that was going to kill the little guy in the state.

That was your idea. No pension, no benefits, no job security, no real standing in the community.

Do I have to mention again that I'm currently a staff scientist at a non-academic institution?  How much power do you think I have?

For the record, I'm in favor of shuttering many academic institutions and having full-time positions augmented with a handful of professional fellows or volunteers (i.e., people who choose to work for little pay).  I know it's hard for you to understand, but volunteers run a lot in the US, especially in smaller communities where people band together to get the job done.  I still remember how proud one VP was after returning from a local-enough event with a big list of names of alumni and friends who wanted to teach for us to give back.  Her face fell several notches when I pointed out we didn't need any of those courses taught by part-time people even for free; instead, we'd be better off with the $1800/head so we could raise salaries to hire full-time people or professional fellows in areas where we were short on faculty and those folks know what their time and energy is worth.

For places that can't afford full-time positions, I favor working with the local employers who can then have flexible enough hours for highly paid people to teach a class or two per term.  I currently work in such a place and many places I've interviewed over the years that want PhDs in my fields and related fields tend to have similar programs because people like to teach.

Why do people agree to work for low pay, no pensions, no benefits, and no standing in the community?  That seems like an easier problem to fix than insisting that currently filled part-time jobs should somehow be better part-time jobs.  After all, one of the arguments for tenure was that people could be paid less, but would accept the trade-off for a more permanent job.  What's the appeal of a poorly-paid, contingent job?

[mahagonny]

[If you are OK with raising taxes to fix the pension crisis of state budgets,

I am not and I left one state because that was going to kill the little guy in the state.

Hahahahahahaha! Priceless! Rearranging your whole life around a principle. I have found the libertarian.

[ciao_yall]

[If you are OK with raising taxes to fix the pension crisis of state budgets,

I am not and I left one state because that was going to kill the little guy in the state.

Wow. That's privilege.

"I had the resources to pick up my life and move a long distance because I didn't like the tax code."

[marshwiggle]

[If you are OK with raising taxes to fix the pension crisis of state budgets,

I am not and I left one state because that was going to kill the little guy in the state.

Wow. That's privilege.

"I had the resources to pick up my life and move a long distance because I didn't like the tax code."

If the choices you make give you better options in the future than someone else who didn't make those same choices, why would you call that "privilege"?

[ciao_yall]

[If you are OK with raising taxes to fix the pension crisis of state budgets,

I am not and I left one state because that was going to kill the little guy in the state.

Wow. That's privilege.

"I had the resources to pick up my life and move a long distance because I didn't like the tax code."

If the choices you make give you better options in the future than someone else who didn't make those same choices, why would you call that "privilege"?

If you believe it all comes down to choices, that's yet another privilege.