[208] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Northeastern to review tenure?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sourav K. Mandal)
Thu Apr 26 22:21:42 2001
Message-Id: <200104270220.WAA02149@dichotomy.dyn.dhs.org>
From: "Sourav K. Mandal" <Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com>
Reply-To: "Sourav K. Mandal" <Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com>
To: mit-talk@mit.edu
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Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 22:20:03 -0400
""Richard J. Barbalace" <rjbarbal@MIT.EDU>" wrote:
> A lot of what mit-talk focusses on is what to do or not do to
> students; sometimes I think it's also good to consider what to do
> or not do to faculty.
Here are what I perceive to be the major objections to the current,
widely used tenure system:
1. Quality of teaching suffers.
2. Difficulty for younger prospects to obtain tenure, given the limited
number of professorships available.
3. Research drops off in intensity or creativity.
Possible solutions:
1. Make quality of instruction a factor in retaining tenure. A
reduction in teaching excellenge from non-tenured to tenure is
obviously the result of laziness or de-prioritization.
2. Make a tenure term-limited, for say 15 years (each department can
set its rules). After that, professors may resign, retire, move to
professor emeritus, or reapply for tenure and compete with a new class
of candidates.
3. Term limits would help here as well. However, given that professors
must be given the freedom to explore bold ideas, more emphasis must be
put on selecting persons for tenure who've demonstrated a sincere
passion for their work.
Thoughts?
Sourav
------------------------------------------------------------
Sourav K. Mandal
Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com
http://www.ikaran.com/Sourav.Mandal/
