Crisis on Campus_ A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities - Mark C. Taylor [77]
In spite of the magnitude of the crisis higher education is facing and the urgent need for change, I do not think tenure should be revoked for those to whom it has already been granted; I don’t believe it is fair to change the rules in the middle of the game. Rather, colleges and universities need to find ways to encourage faculty members who are no longer productive to retire. Unfortunately, financial constraints make it impossible to use the preferred method in the business world; most schools simply cannot afford to offer faculty members attractive buyout options.
An alternative strategy would be a variation on the merit pay system that most colleges and universities claim to follow. In its current form, merit pay represents increased compensation for above-average performance, but the pay differential usually is so small that it makes little difference. There is no reason this system cannot be made a two-way street by creating disincentives for unproductive faculty members to continue teaching. If faculty members can be rewarded for outstanding performance with increasing salaries, people who are not performing well can be penalized by decreasing their salaries. During the transitional period while tenure is being phased out, it would be possible to begin by reducing a faculty member’s salary by 15 percent and imposing an additional 10 percent reduction every year he or she refuses to retire. Since retirement income is often calculated on the basis of a person’s average salary for the past five years he or she has worked, it wouldn’t take long for this policy to have an impact. The money saved could be used to reward people who are productive and to hire new faculty capable of doing innovative work.
Needless to say, these measures will be vehemently opposed by tenured faculty members and most likely could not be implemented by any college or university acting alone. While some informed administrators and trustees privately acknowledge that the tenure system is undesirable and unsustainable, they will not admit so publicly to avoid confrontation. The only way tenure will be abolished is if a group of leading public and private colleges and universities act together to change the system. The reality is that faculty members are in no better position to resist such an initiative than the autoworkers’ union is to oppose changes in Detroit.
From a broader perspective, the alternative plan I am proposing has multiple advantages. By holding all faculty members to the same high standard, regular performance reviews would actually be fairer and would introduce more accountability, which would result in greater creativity and productivity. This system would also open the faculty ranks to young people and other groups who have been excluded for more than three decades by entrenched tenured faculty members. Greater financial and curricular flexibility would enable colleges and universities to maintain rich and diverse programs that could effectively adapt to changing circumstances and prepare students for a broad range of careers.
9
Class of 2020
To repeat what I said earlier, American higher education is at a tipping point. Events across the globe are conspiring to create instabilities that call into question centuries-old traditions and threaten the very survival of some of our most venerable educational institutions. Until very recently a world without newspapers in which well-established