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St. Louis University Turns Into a Freak Show

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Clarissa

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St. Louis University is planning to turn into a total freak show:

A new faculty evaluation plan being considered by St. Louis University administrators is causing grumblings on campus along with claims that it would essentially abolish the school’s tenure system.

The proposal would add a new “post-tenure review” process in which tenured faculty would essentially reapply for tenure every six years. It’s something that critics say defeats the purpose of awarding tenure in the first place.

And here is the most offensive part of the story:

It’s unclear exactly what response the school is getting from faculty, though several professors have quietly spoken against the proposal, which would take effect in January.

Got it? Some members of this bunch of stupid losers have spoken out quietly. They are being robbed of tenure and they are still quivering there like terrified little mice. I wonder what the administrators need to do to these sorry creatures to get them to raise their voices in protest. Would shitting on their heads actually work? I have neither patience nor compassion for people who are so pathetic that they can’t even start organizing and protesting in such an egregious situation as this one.

Faculty members at St. Louis University: stop grumbling and mumbling already. Fight for your rights. You are betraying everybody in academia with your meek and disgusting silence.

Gosh, is there not a single person at St. Louis University with an ounce of self-respect?

63 responses to “St. Louis University Turns Into a Freak Show”

  1. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    This would help young academics and recent Ph. D. graduates, though.

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      “It’s something that critics say defeats the purpose of awarding tenure in the first place.”

      No, tenure would have a different purpose: with tenure, you could teach for 6 more years.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “No, tenure would have a different purpose: with tenure, you could teach for 6 more years.”

        – This is SO not what tenure is supposed to be about. The tenure is supposed to be about me having the right to denounce abusive administrators under my own name without any fear of reprisals, for example. This measure will rob academics of ANY capacity to say anything even mildly controversial. Imagine how much research will go down the drain. It will all be about confirming the “party line” of the religious freakazoids who run this shitty university and nothing even remotely challenging to their religious propaganda.

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    2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Yes, we will get exploited for 6 years with no hope of getting tenure as a result. Totally helpful! Of course, knowing that you will never be able to voice your opinion, no matter how hard you work and how much you publish will be hugely helpful, too.

      Jeez.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        I you’re a good researcher, your carreer would not be endangered by this measure. This meeasure is to fight against professors who stop their research after tenure.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “I you’re a good researcher, your carreer would not be endangered by this measure. ”

          – You are completely mistaken. They are aiming to kick out anybody who is even marginally progressive. The only reason behind tenure is to protect academic freedom and free speech!

          “This meeasure is to fight against professors who stop their research after tenure.”

          – I cannot believe that you, of all people, have interiorized this LIE spread by the conservatives!!! Whether anybody does research or not, every educator still needs to be able to come into the classroom and say things out brain-washed students are not prepared to hear. Imagine historians who have to teach about the history of the US, for example. Or political scientists. Or anybody who needs to teach anything even remotely connected to controversial issues.

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    3. zinemin Avatar
      zinemin

      I don’t think young scientists would profit from abolishing tenure at all. Instead, it would make the career choice of being in academia totally unattractive. If I look around at my own institute, the people who are on the tenure-track look stressed and unhappy, even scared. I wish it for nobody to spend their lives stuck in this state, and I much prefer having some profs around who do not much interesting work anymore. I don’t have a permanent position, but I would not want to kick out a 50-year old underachieving professor to get one. I can still find another job while he probably can’t.

      There has to be some rewards to being good enough to getting tenure in the first place, given the job insecurity, low pay, having to move around and extreme competition and work load in the first 10 years of the career. I think tenure can be seen as a kind of ‘compensation’, which is not monetary. Money is usually far less important for academics than freedom, so that makes a lot of sense.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        “I think tenure can be seen as a kind of ‘compensation’, which is not monetary. Money is usually far less important for academics than freedom, so that makes a lot of sense.”

        Tenure is for permanency purpose at the first place. This is a form of financial compensation.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          We are going in circles. Once again, the point of tenure, the point that cannot be achieved by any other means, is protection of the freedom of thought.

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      2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        I agree completely with zinemin. After I get tenure, I will finally be able to show the movies I want and say everything I want in class without fear of reprisals. I care about that a lot lot lot more than policing some older academic who might publish less than somebody else.

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  2. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    So true, Clarissa! Tenure should protect professors who take unpopular stands, or who discover during the course of their research that conventional wisdom is wrong. It has not always worked, but it is often helpful. (It did not protect professors who were accused, 60 years or so ago, of being Communists by Congressional committees, although it most certainly should have.)

    We pay for it, financially, of course; in the long run, universities without tenure will be seen as much less desirable places to work, and so will have to pay higher salaries to attract faculty. But it would be better to have the lower salaries and retain more academic freedom.

    Sometimes the results are amusing. I know a literature professor who was hired for his expertise in Victorian literature. He has, however, done research and published only on the sport of baseball since getting tenure.

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  3. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “The only reason behind tenure is to protect academic freedom and free speech!”

    This is ONE reason, not THE reason. The main reason is permanency, like many other professions.

    “This measure will rob academics of ANY capacity to say anything even mildly controversial. ”

    Like almost all the other professions. Welcome to the capitalist “working market”!

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Which other professions exactly have as their primary goal the production of new ideas and dissemination of knowledge? Maybe journalism but hardly any other professions. And journalists are shielded by the constitution.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        Maybe all workers should be shielded by the constitution. But otherwise, welcome to the capitalist “working market”!

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “But otherwise, welcome to the capitalist “working market”!”

          – This will not happen if we fight against it.

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    2. Z Avatar
      Z

      “This is ONE reason, not THE reason. The main reason is permanency, like many other professions.”

      –That isn’t true, and who are you to say? If you are an academic and you feel this way, I hope you retire soon.

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  4. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “It’s unclear exactly what response the school is getting from faculty, though several professors have quietly spoken against the proposal, which would take effect in January.”

    I’m suprised by this. In Québec, it would never happen.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      In Quebec, my own department at my alma mater was destroyed completely and nobody made a squeak.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        McGill is not really in Québec.

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  5. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    In Québec, we have two post-tenure statuses that are not linked to permanency.

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  6. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “They are aiming to kick out anybody who is even marginally progressive.” At St-Louis, I agree. But not everywhere. What about climatosceptics in biology departements?

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      What about climatoskeptics in biology departements?

      “Kreiser said the AAUP isn’t opposed to tenure review, as long as the burden of removing tenure remains with administrators. But according to his reading of SLU’s proposal, the burden is shifted to the employee to demonstrate they are worthy of continued tenure.”

      I agree with him. The burden of the proof should be reversed for this review.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        When there is no tenure, the employees have no motivation and no reason to inflict the wrath of administrators. These faculty members only dare to mumble quietly when they still have tenure. Without it, they will strive to do only what their corporate masters tell them to do.

        Have you wondered why the destruction of tenure is the favorite goal of every ultra-conservative? It’s because once tenure is gone, the university will be destroyed and people will have no option than to be brainwashed and stupidified by corporate interests. “Death to the intelligence!” is the favorite rallying cry of all fascists. Why burn books when you can simply prevent them from being published?

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    2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      With tenure, sceptics and their opponents exist side by side and can hash out their differences at scholarly conferences. Without tenure, administrators – who all vote conservative for obvious reasons – will kick out everybody who dares to breathe the words “climate change.”

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        Conventional wisdom is anthropegenic climate change at biology departments. So not all department administrators are con-serv-haters.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          ‘So not all department administrators are con-serv-haters”

          – Department administrators do not exist. Administrators are hugely overpaid corporate rats who failed at both business and academia and come to universities to suck us all dry.

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  7. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “When there is no tenure, the employees have no motivation and no reason to inflict the wrath of administrators. These faculty members only dare to mumble quietly when they still have tenure. Without it, they will strive to do only what their corporate masters tell them to do. ”

    Welcome to the capitalist “working market”! It’s like this everywhere else!

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Welcome to the capitalist “working market”! It’s like this everywhere else!”

      – I don;t care about “everywhere else.” In the majority of other industries people who are unhappy with the corporate practices in their field can start their own business. I, however, cannot start my own university because I;m not an administrator.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        “In the majority of other industries people who are unhappy with the corporate practices in their field can start their own business.” What????????

        The vast majority of other workers aren’t administrators themselves.

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  8. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Here’s my position: I’m in favor of this post-tenure status, but they should reverse the burden of the proof to administrators, contrary to TT.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Don’t you see that this will be an excuse to hire huge crowds of useless paper-pushers and immediately raise tuitions and cut salaries to pay them? Why do we need this at all? So that the administrators can police us even more?

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        And what about the cost of permanent bad professors? Or maybe the problem is tenure in itself, an incentive to hire only good researchers who can be very bad teachers.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “And what about the cost of permanent bad professors?”

          – And how exactly did they get tenure?

          “Or maybe the problem is tenure in itself, an incentive to hire only good researchers who can be very bad teachers.”

          – Another conservative myth. Have you been reading The Washington Post lately? 🙂

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      2. Luna Avatar
        Luna

        Actually, the fact that most professors turn non-productive after tenure is largely a myth. In my department for example, most tenured faculty publish just as much as non-tenured faculty, if not even more, in terms of number of papers per year.

        Those that seem less productive because they publish less on a year-to-year basis, do so because they have been engaged in more long-term projects, or truly interdisciplinary projects, which untenured faculty do not have the freedom to pursue. But if you look at their productivity averaged over many years, they come off as just as productive.

        In the sciences and engineering, the opportunity to pursue long-term projects or interdisciplinary projects is a luxury that only tenured faculty have. Without such projects, scientific research would become very short-term in outlook, which I can assure you is terrible for the progress of science in general.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “Actually, the fact that most professors turn non-productive after tenure is largely a myth. In my department for example, most tenured faculty publish just as much as non-tenured faculty, if not even more, in terms of number of papers per year.”

          – Exactly!!

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  9. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “Department administrators do not exist.” Okay, so I talked about those professors who decide if you obtain your tenure or not.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      They are prevented by the departmental operational papers from discussing or in any way considering the contents of the articles submitted as part of the tenure dossier. The professors are NOT the enemy here.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        So the tenure procedure is very different in Québec. Maybe the problem is the tenure procedure in itself.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          At McGill it was exactly as everywhere else. Other universities, I don’t know.

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    2. Z Avatar
      Z

      David, you don’t sound as though you have the faintest idea of how the tenure process works. If you are on the tenure track you *must* get hold of your university’s tenure guidelines *now* and read them, because if you do not get things perfectly clear then you will not have the tools you need to build an effective case for yourself.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        Everybody needs to read the operational papers of their department the second they get hired. Read them, memorize them and take notes. I promise that your perspective will change profoundly the moment you see them. People make a huge mistake when they only open the papers the year before coming up for tenure.

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      2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        What bothers me the most is this conservative obsession that somebody somewhere might get something they supposedly did not deserve and a complete lack of interest in broad structural issues that are the real problem.

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        1. Z Avatar
          Z

          Yep.

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      3. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        I’m not on a tenure track, and the more I read and learn about, the more I don’t want to even try it.

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  10. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    So, seniority for public sector bad workers should be considered as a tool to protect bad workers’ freedom of speech?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      What speech? Which professions specifically have creating new ideas as their primary goal?

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        A great load of workers couldn’t criticize their adminstration because they don’t have their permanency. And again, after tenure, this primary goal is not there anymore. It seems that you had too much success in your academic life to see the forest over the tree…

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          I don’t understand what the forest here is supposed to be. Sacrificing everybody’s academic freedom to punish one or two underperformers? Handing over our rights to the administrators to spite a couple of our colleagues? Yes, these are very noble goals.

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  11. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    The process of hiring new professors have almost nothing to do with the qaulity of his teaching, it’s all about research.

    “- And how exactly did they get tenure?” They get tenure because they were good researchers before their tenure. But if they stop after that, you can do nothing.

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    1. Z Avatar
      Z

      People who were that before tenure, continue. And there are already all sorts of ways to get at people who do stop publishing: don’t promote to Full, eject from graduate faculty, revise teaching assignment, etc. Having to go through a full tenure process every 6 years is not necessary (remember, first they got a PhD, then they got through the job market, then they got tenure, how much more proof of competence and commitment do you need?) … and also, who will run this? An administration not in field and also interested in cutting units.

      Also please note, everyone, and this is important: for tenure you go to outside review. It is already hard enough to get 5-6 senior scholars to review someone, since it is a lot of work. Imagine, now, if *everyone* had to do it for *everyone else* every 6 years … it is a huge waste of time and will not be done, which again puts everything in an out of field administrator’s hands. Incredibly destructive.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “Having to go through a full tenure process every 6 years is not necessary (remember, first they got a PhD, then they got through the job market, then they got tenure, how much more proof of competence and commitment do you need?) …”

        – Post-tenure we have merit review every single year and the criteria are very strict. I honestly don’t see where this preoccupation about “lazy” tenured professors comes from. All tenured profs at my department work like dogs. They are all very active in university politics, running the self-governance, all have very active research agendas. After tenure, most people want to come up for Full Professor which is even more grueling than tenure. Seriously, nobody just sits there snoozing through post-tenure years.

        THIS IS A DANGEROUS MYTH.

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      2. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        “Post-tenure we have merit review every single year and the criteria are very strict.”

        OKAY, now I see. This is much different than here in Québec, so I change my mind and I think that this 6-year review is not necessary.

        But in Québec, there is no such post-tenure merit review. Here in Québec, tenure=permanency, this is not really the case in USA. You can obtain the Full status after the tenure permanency and the honorifical status of “Emeritus”, that’s all!

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  12. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    In my university, only some departemental professors can decide if someone have succeed in their tenure or not.

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    1. Z Avatar
      Z

      In every university, you mean. It’s tenured faculty in a department that votes, and then there are votes at higher levels.

      Very important: a professor is not an employee of a corporation and the administrators are not CEOs. The faculty and the library ARE the university. Tenure means you have been invited to join it permanently. So post tenure review is antithetical to the whole concept of the university … although it is a fact that people are working to make universities more and more like corporations as we speak.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        That’s what I thought at the first place.

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  13. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “I don’t understand what the forest here is supposed to be. ” This time, I talked about other jobs of professions.

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  14. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “Another conservative myth. ” So, you say that best reseachers make automatically best teachers?

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    1. Z Avatar
      Z

      Generally speaking, yes. Because they are current, for one thing, and engaged, for another. That doesn’t obviate the validity of having non research faculty teaching some skills based and other basic courses. It also doesn’t mean that a slow publisher like me is automatically a poor teacher. But still. Pretend, for a moment, that you are taking an art class. Do you want your teacher to be someone who has some technical skills but does not currently produce their own art, or would you rather have someone who is themself also engaged in the process of artistic production?

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        “Pretend, for a moment, that you are taking an art class. Do you want your teacher to be someone who has some technical skills but does not currently produce their own art, or would you rather have someone who is themself also engaged in the process of artistic production?”

        I prefer the good teacher. If the best researcher is a bad teacher, I prefer the other.

        But in arts, I think it’s different, and you can make the case for someone who is engaged in the process of artistic production.

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    2. luna Avatar
      luna

      Absolutely! I went to an undergrad university where the teaching was excellent but the faculty didn’t do much research. There’s a _huge_ difference between the quality of the undergraduate education at this institution and where I teach or where I went to grad school, both of which are primarily research-based schools.

      In my undergrad school, the courses were extremely well-taught, but the class materials were often old and out-dated and boring. OTOH right now I am designing an undergrad course on a topic which is heavily in-demand in the industry, but about two universities in the US offer an undergrad course on. There are of course a number of graduate courses on it, but these courses often require a much higher level of preparation than many undergrads have. I predict that it will take another 10 years before such a course is taught at a teaching-only university.

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  15. charlesrowley Avatar
    charlesrowley

    Tenure was abolished in England and Wales twenty years ago. Publication rates have increased significantly over that time-period. I have heard of few situations in which academics claim to have been removed for political reasons.

    Of course, England and Wales most likely are more civilized that some of the United States. But this example runs counter to some of your worst fears.

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    1. Z Avatar
      Z

      Here, the whole abolition of tenure thing is really to get rid of research faculty except for a few stars in a few fields. They want a research park with designated research hitters in technical fields, and then a community college-type university attached to it, with a “flexible” workforce that has no power.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “Here, the whole abolition of tenure thing is really to get rid of research faculty except for a few stars in a few fields. They want a research park with designated research hitters in technical fields, and then a community college-type university attached to it, with a “flexible” workforce that has no power.”

        – You are absolutely right. This is why it is so crucial that we resist this.

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