Last month I wrote about some airline seatmates on a recent trip.  In addition to their complaints about publication, they held forth also on the subject of tenure.  It was the usual notion that tenure conveys little more than a license to do nothing, with little benefit accruing to the greater society.  I don't wish to argue this point so much; whatever its faults, the system has worked well in American Higher Education.  The output of well educated students and the concurrent advancement of knowledge in all fields and professional practice would argue that there is something right and worth preserving about the system. 

My concern is that increasing numbers of full-time faculty are not on the tenure track.  The Chronicle of Higher Education documents this change in a recent issue (12-15-06).  According to data gleaned from AAUP data, the numbers of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty have decreased from 56.8% of the faculty in 1975, to 35.1% presently.  The full-time non-tenure-track percentage has increased from 13.0 to 18.7% during this same period, and part-timers among us has increased to a whopping 46.3%.  Ball State's percentage of fulltime contract faculty is in line with the national data, though lower than many at 26.3% of full-time faculty members. 

The trend is significant, even among the elite research universities; however, it is occurring among institutions of every kind. One argument in favor of a dilution of tenure may be that it reflects the very larger number of faculty now in higher education. The protection of tenure is supposed to enable teachers and scholars to direct their expertise in an unfettered way toward questions of their time irrespective of how conventional opinion might respond.  That protection may seem more needed for a relative few of the intellectual leaders. 

I don't hold to this point of view, but I would present for your thinking an aspect of the argument that I haven't heard in the debate; namely, the advantages that the award of tenure brings to the institution.  A university moves forward through the collective work of the faculty—as teachers, scholars and in their role in governance.  The tradition of administrators emerging from faculty roles and bringing faculty insights to these roles is time-honored.  (Yours truly may be a case in point.)  Faculty presence in the classroom, laboratory, committee room or in a public arena serves to advance the university mission.  The award of tenure carries with it a level of commitment from the individual to the institution, whose value is immense.  In my experience many tenured faculty at Ball State and elsewhere demonstrate this as they work in large and small ways to serve students, their disciplines and the public. 

Of course, there are many contract faculty at Ball State in whom the same loyalty and commitment is found.  Yet there is a line of demarcation which divides and separates. 

Moreover it is tough, given heavier teaching assignments, to maintain scholarship to enable one to advance.  Interestingly, we seem to have invented yet another type of faculty—the research assistant professor who is not involved in teaching at all, but performs research on a contract status slightly advanced from the postdoctoral fellow.  These folks have a bit of advantage in that they are able to garner a publications record.

The situation is likely to be even more entangled in the near future, as countervailing pressures come upon higher education.  On the one hand, Governor Daniels's proposal to support higher education through a redirection of lottery revenues is said to be an effort to retain faculty in the state, noting the value that many faculty bring to the state.  On the other hand, great public concern is evinced about the fact that tuition costs continue to outpace inflation.  Whether either or both of these trends will affect the status of faculty remains to be seen.