College Tenure: Alabama Prof's Shooting Spree Underscores the Problems with College Hiring

The arrest this week of Professor Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist and assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama for killing three fellow teachers and wounding three others, underscores the problems inherent in the long established tenure process within the world of academia. Few realize the pressure teachers are under in the system and the narrow window to attain the coveted tenure status which gives job security and the cover needed to research and write. Without tenure, a Ph.D. is doomed to spend time teaching in junior colleges and technical schools and being looked down on in the highly structured and very snobbish world of the academy.

Once a graduate struggles through to the PhD level he/she has technically seven years in which to gain tenure at a college or university. Teaching is secondary in most schools, with the important aspect being that to obtain the acceptance of one's peers you are expected to do research and publish. Without it, tenure is an allusive pursuit. The fly in the ointment is that new professors are usually assigned to large survey classes, and while they might only teach 2-3 of these, the student load is well over 200. Add to that the fact that you are expected to do student advising, serve on committees, and many other extracurricular activities, the immediate question is---who has time to research and write?

The untenured are the work horses of most schools because they work for lower pay, without much in the way of benefits, and serve at the whims of an entrenched administration who realize that for everyone they lose, five more await in the wings for these jobs. Some levels, such as lecturers serve year to year and their job security is a constant worry.

The writing pressure is huge. While seven years seems like a long time, the reality is that unless the professor is writing immediately out of the gate, the likelihood that he/she will produce enough to establish tenure is unrealistic. In fact, the real window is about 4.5 years, and then the realization sets in that you are somehow tainted goods, and they have moved on to someone younger. If you have not arrived by 40 you are probably too old. Nowhere is return on investment more considered than in the average college administration meeting to hire new faculty.

Political realities also play a major role. The need to diversify from a white, male teaching staff many times will drive a committee to feel a needed quota rather than hire the most qualified. While these may be unspoken criteria, they are criteria non-the-less. The need to have representative faculty which reflects the wider population is necessary. The need to have faculty with divergent views is also necessary, but those making the decisions are usually much older, entrenched in the academia ideas of the past, trying to hold on, many times, to their old ideas in a changing world. Interviewing perspective faculty reminds one of the shark filled waters of trying to find a new Supreme Court nominee.

Recent budget woes have most colleges working on a shoe string. Many positions have simply disappeared in order to fulfill key directives, and a shift towards other forms of instruction which are more profitable means less human beings standing in front of a classroom. Add to the fact that the entrenched facility usually have their own agendas which involves territorial views, old out dated ideas, etc. and you will get some idea of the mountains over which new academics are required to climb. Most have also gone to phone interviews as a first step to determine who gets a campus interview, so new candidates do not even get a one-on-one chance to make a good first impression.

The debate among many today is whether this system of hiring has out lived its effectiveness, and while shooting your colleagues is never an appropriate response it does raise a momentary awareness of the problems inherent in an archaic system which is close to being a monopoly and which allows those who have tenure to exert tremendous pressure and sometimes abuse over those who do not have or who are seeking tenure. Colleges and universities have become big business, and increasingly, it is difficult to operate as a business when a large segment of your personnel operate much like an oligarch with many private kingdoms within the larger domain.