Would You Sell Your Tenure?

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Clarissa

September 16, 2015

Would you sell your tenure? And if the answer is yes, how much would you sell it for?

I’m a great supporter of the institution of tenure because it guarantees that we don’t become a backwards country that trails the serious players intellectually and technologically.

However, I wouldn’t have a problem selling my tenure because it is nothing but a meaningless word in my case. If our deranged Republican governor dedecides to fire everybody in my department, he will simply declare that the program is being closed because of (entirely fictitious) budget difficulties. This happened in a variety of other universities, and nobody’s tenure protected them.

So I would sell my own (not anybody else’s, just my own) tenure for 300% of my salary in perpetuity. (That is, until the crazed governor decides to get rid of all of us.) I wouldn’t do it for less because I’m not that motivated by money.

What about you? Would you consider it?

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3 responses to “Would You Sell Your Tenure?”

Evelina Anville

September 16, 2015

I work at a private school but there is still the threat that departments can be dissolved in cases of “financial crisis.” And as you comment, these financial crises seem to be fictitious. Still, I would say tenure means something at my institution– especially with an administration that’s not well-disposed towards faculty.

I might my tenure for 300- 400% raise. Actually even as I write that, I am not sure. Maybe 400-500% raise. And even then, it would still be a bit iffy.

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Fie Upon This Quiet Life

September 16, 2015

Tenure means nothing at my school. The university has eliminated several majors, firing the tenured faculty for those majors, without any substantive financial reason. I’m not tenured yet, but I’d sell the chance to be tenured if I made $250K a year, with guaranteed annual raises. (I currently make 53K, and raises are pitiful.)

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1. Clarissa
  
  September 16, 2015
  
  Hear, hear. I always laugh when idiots cone to my blog to tell me that tenured professors can’t be fired. As if the tenured people who were fired and whom I met in person were figments of my imagination.
  
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