tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/tenure-17692/articlesTenure – The Conversation2024-01-05T13:46:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2205322024-01-05T13:46:53Z2024-01-05T13:46:53ZWhy does Claudine Gay still work at Harvard after being forced to resign as its president? She’s got tenure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567952/original/file-20240104-19-mhl9wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=195%2C0%2C5465%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Harvard President Claudine Gay, left, speaks as former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill listens during a House hearing in December 2023 − before they both resigned.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressEducationCollegesAntisemitism/fbb72e215baa4326943637b44c623e52/photo?boardId=37be9465fcce45d283d5431cccb20a6a&st=boards&mediaType=audio,photo,video,graphic&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=495&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/1/3/claudine-gay-resign-harvard/">Harvard University President Claudine Gay</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/03/opinion/claudine-gay-harvard-president.html">resigned on Jan. 2, 2024</a>, less than one month after University of Pennsylvania President <a href="https://www.thedp.com/article/2023/12/penn-president-liz-magill-resigns">Liz Magill stepped down</a>. They called it quits amid uproar among conservative lawmakers and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-universities-owe-their-big-donors-less-than-you-might-think-explain-2-nonprofit-law-experts-219902">several major donors</a> regarding what they saw as Gay’s and Magill’s underwhelming responses to antisemitism on their campuses. In Gay’s case, there were also <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/harvard-presidents-resignation-highlights-new-conservative-weapon-against-colleges-plagiarism/3234455/">accusation of plagiarism</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Some members of the public have been surprised to see that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/harvard-president-claudine-gay-resigns-841575b89bcdc062cdf979e647a2539e">both Gay</a> and <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/university-of-pennsylvania-president-liz-magill-resigns-amid-firestorm-over-house-testimony/">Magill remain employed</a> by their universities as professors and researchers. Ray Gibney, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EQEoODAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">a management scholar</a> who studies labor relations, explains why university presidents with tenure can remain on faculty and resume their teaching jobs after they leave or lose their administrative positions.</em></p>
<h2>What does having tenure mean?</h2>
<p>Tenure, as the American Association of University Professors defines it, is “<a href="https://www.aaup.org/issues/tenure">an indefinite appointment</a>” that protects academic jobs. Obtaining it is hard and takes years. Universities can fire a tenured professors only <a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/what-is-tenure/">for cause</a> or under what the association calls “extraordinary circumstances” – such as if their school experiences a financial crisis or their department gets eliminated.</p>
<p>Tenure is <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-tenure-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters-162325">university specific</a>. If a tenured professor gets hired by another school, they lose those protections unless their new academic institution grants them again.</p>
<p>Scholars who serve as the president, provost or deans have different responsibilities than regular faculty. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether an administrator comes from a traditional academic background or a nontraditional background such as business or politics, the <a href="https://gbirnlaw.com/blog/no-tenure-no-contract-the-importance-of-tenure-and-retreat-rights-for-college-and-university-presidents-part-1/#:%7E:text=A%20prime%20example%20of%20the,a%20grant%20of%20academic%20tenure.">employment offer usually includes</a> a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/09/should-nonacademics-who-become-college-presidents-also-get-tenured-faculty-positions">tenured faculty position</a>.</p>
<p>University presidents serve at the pleasure of their institution’s board of trustees. The board can revoke their administrative role. But revoking a scholar’s tenure and the job security that goes with it requires a formal process and investigation.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol91/iss1/4/">universities rarely end tenure</a>, even when they find evidence that a tenured professor is incompetent. </p>
<h2>Does it matter that Gay and Magill stepped down instead of being fired?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.harvard.edu/blog/2024/01/02/statement-from-the-harvard-corporation-president-gay/">Gay</a> and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/liz-magill/index.html">Magill</a> both resigned as president of their universities. Because neither quit their faculty jobs, they remain employed by Harvard and Penn, respectively.</p>
<p>Whether administrators quit or are fired has little bearing on whether they can hang on to their tenured faculty position. When administrators are fired it can justify an investigation of whether there’s cause for their dismissal as tenured faculty too. But it’s not a guarantee.</p>
<p>To remove either from the faculty roles, the university-specific process of revocation of tenure would need to be initiated. Every college and university defines its own reasons for tenure revocation, with moral turpitude and excessive absenteeism common <a href="https://www.independent.org/store/book.asp?id=14">grounds for dismissal</a>.</p>
<h2>What might happen to their salaries and other compensation?</h2>
<p>University administrators generally do not teach classes. The culture of the academy is to provide administrators who are returning to faculty ranks with a short period – typically one semester – to review and update course teaching materials to get ready to teach again.</p>
<p>During this time period, they are often paid their administrator salaries. However, compensation is usually adjusted back to comparable faculty salaries upon their <a href="https://dc.swosu.edu/aij/vol3/iss2/8">return to faculty ranks</a>. </p>
<p>Neither former president’s salary has been made public, since they were both recent hires and those details are typically released with a significant delay. Gay, according to media reports, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-money-college-university-presidents-214953719.html">earns at least US$880,000 a year</a>. <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/education/liz-magill-university-pennsylvania-contract-severance-20231214.html">Magill’s predecessor made $1.56 million</a>, plus millions more in deferred compensation.</p>
<h2>What’s the purpose of tenure?</h2>
<p>It’s primarily supposed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X06009125">foster academic research</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/707211">academic freedom</a>. Once granted tenure, professors and other faculty members may feel more free to research topics that might not be politically popular or that their superior might not approve.</p>
<p>Having tenure also makes it easier for professors to discuss sensitive but appropriate topics with their students without fear of reprisal. </p>
<h2>What would it take for them to be fired?</h2>
<p>Firing any tenured faculty member is a lengthy process.</p>
<p>Even if it doesn’t involve a professor who got caught up in a contentious news cycle, the school would <a href="https://catalog.upenn.edu/faculty-handbook/ii/ii-e/">form a committee</a> to evaluate any possible charges. The process can take <a href="https://www.psucollegian.com/news/campus/penn-state-aaup-chapter-releases-statement-regarding-firing-process-against-penn-state-professor/article_a15eeaba-74c5-11ec-b265-ff940de6a9a3.html">months</a> or <a href="https://www.westword.com/news/ward-churchills-return-to-cu-boulder-9008153">years</a>.</p>
<p>Given the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/20/business/harvard-president-claudine-gay-plagiarism/index.html">allegations of plagarism</a> in Gay’s case, she would appear to be in a more precarious situation, but by no means would her dismissal be guaranteed.</p>
<h2>What’s changing with tenure?</h2>
<p>The share of <a href="https://www.insightintodiversity.com/aaup-releases-first-study-on-tenure-since-2004-revealing-major-changes-in-faculty-career-tracks/">nontenured faculty is growing quickly</a>. Those professors and lecturers, who outnumber professors with tenure on U.S. campuses, generally teach more courses and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0160449X221142618">earn less money</a>.</p>
<p>This creates a double incentive for universities, which essentially get more labor at a cheaper price. This arrangement can leave academics scrambling with little notice due to a <a href="https://www.aaup.org/article/end-faculty-tenure-and-transformation-higher-education">lack of job security</a>.</p>
<p>Tenure, for now, is keeping Gay and Magill on the payrolls of Harvard and Penn. It is possible, but highly unlikely, that proceedings will be initiated to dismiss either for cause.</p>
<p>I’m anticipating <a href="https://www.aaup.org/article/erosion-support-education-and-tenure-iowa">a resurgence</a> in the calls to do away with tenure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ray Gibney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Barring evidence of moral turpitude or excessive absenteeism, former administrators are very hard to force out.Ray Gibney, Associate Professor of Management, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1890352022-09-01T20:22:37Z2022-09-01T20:22:37ZCriticisms of academic freedom miss the mark and risk the integrity of scholarship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481144/original/file-20220825-22-3zaja5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=106%2C98%2C5095%2C3538&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While academic freedom itself might sound like a unique notion, granting special tools or rights to specific professions is rather commonplace.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the era of today’s heated culture wars, the concepts of academic freedom and freedom of expression have become increasingly conflated. Divisive political debates around <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-shouldnt-be-afraid-of-critical-race-theory-podcast-183973">critical race theory</a>, <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-passes-controversial-bill-to-protect-academic-freedom-1.5932032">Québec’s Bill 32</a> and talk of establishing “<a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/poilievre-promises-to-protect-freedom-of-speech-on-campus-appoint-a-free-speech-guardian">free speech guardians</a>” are just some recent examples. Academic freedom is being subsumed into the oftentimes polarizing rhetoric concerning what is commonly referred to as free speech. </p>
<p>But the two are different. Free speech is about the right to express one’s opinion, however accurate, false, good or bad it might be.</p>
<p>Academic freedom requires professional competency as determined by disciplinary communities. It is most succinctly defined by the <a href="https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/A6520A9D-0A9A-47B3-B550-C006B5B224E7/0/1915Declaration.pdf">American Association of University Professors’ 1915 statement</a> as, “freedom of inquiry and research; freedom of teaching within the university or college; and freedom of extramural utterance and action.” </p>
<p>This is what makes laws like Québec’s Bill 32 problematic. It further <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-quebecs-bill-32-on-academic-freedom-and-why-does-it-matter-183122">confuses the distinction</a> between freedom of speech and academic freedom. Bill 32 is troubling because it grants the government special powers to dictate what happens in university classrooms. That <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-bill-on-academic-freedom-says-no-words-are-off-limits-in/">risks undermining</a> the very principles of academic freedom its proponents are purportedly trying to protect.</p>
<p>Academic freedom — and the corresponding protections of tenure — are often portrayed by conservative politicians and spokespersons as a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/03/14/overlooked-administrative-and-financial-benefits-tenure-opinion">luxury perk</a> demanded by professors looking for a cushy frill few others enjoy. That kind of narrative might be convenient fodder for populists trying to gain support for their own agendas, but is the need for academic freedom really all that unusual?</p>
<p>The truth is that, while academic freedom itself might sound like a unique notion, granting special tools or rights to specific professions is rather commonplace. </p>
<h2>Work-specific considerations are common</h2>
<p>In order to effectively carry out the duties, tasks and responsibilities of one’s employment, workers in many fields are granted special access or consideration to otherwise publicly restricted tools, working conditions or rights.</p>
<p>Take occupations like sport, law enforcement, farming, journalism and more. In sport, hockey players are permitted to hit each other, and even fight within the game without fear of being arrested. Similarly, boxers may punch each other. Police and other agents of the state are permitted to carry and, under certain conditions, discharge a variety of weapons which would otherwise be restricted or banned.
At the extreme end of this spectrum are of course soldiers who are not only permitted, but expected to shoot, kill or bomb so deemed enemies. </p>
<p>Farmers may access large quantities of fertilizer and other restricted materials that are <a href="https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/explosives/restricted-components/9981#B1">otherwise regulated</a>. Medical personnel administer a variety of drugs that are tightly controlled. Elected federal and provincial members of Parliament and legislative assemblies may speak freely in their respective chambers <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/procedure/procedure-and-practice-3/ch_03_6-e.html">without fear of prosecution or civil liability</a> for any comments they make. Journalists <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/annualstatutes/2017_22/FullText.html">cannot be forced to reveal their sources</a>.</p>
<p>It doesn’t require much imagination to see how the jobs above, without special considerations, would quickly become absurd, inefficient and even dangerous. Consider how boxing without hitting becomes dancing. Farming would be much less productive absent often necessary herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers. Medicine far less effective and more deadly without access to lifesaving drugs and procedures. Journalists would be incapable of investigating the happenings of the day if their sources were not guaranteed protections.</p>
<p>In each case above, considerations are earned and granted in recognition that these working conditions are needed to carry out work effectively and efficiently. When placed in this context, academic freedom is neither unique nor unreasonable. </p>
<h2>Dangerous precedents</h2>
<p>Unless we want academic scholarship to suffer, academics must be free to research and speak without fearing they will upset powerful interests. If academics become unable to practise their scholarship because they might upset wealthy private donors, corporations, a populist mob or even the government of the day, it would signal a dangerous shift. </p>
<p>We need only look at <a href="https://www.caut.ca/issues-and-campaigns/academic-freedom/academic-freedom-cases/dr-nancy-olivieri">Nancy Olivieri’s case</a> to see what can go wrong when powerful interests violate a researcher’s academic freedom.</p>
<p>Dr. Olivieri raised concerns about an experimental drug she was researching to treat <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/thalassemia/facts.html">thalassemia</a>. She found that the drug, deferiprone, could potentially cause serious complications. The pharmaceutical company warned her not to publish her results and tried to silence her while the university and hospital failed to protect her. Despite the <a href="https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/on-academic-freedom-ft-drs-nancy-olivieri-and-marc-spooner/">lack of support and legal threats, Dr. Olivieri published her findings</a>. </p>
<p>If it were not for <a href="https://www.uwinnipeg.ca/awards-distinctions/honorary-doctorate/olivieri.html">her exemplary integrity and bravery</a>, patients involved in her trials, and countless others, may have been placed in harm’s way. </p>
<p>That is why academics and researchers require academic freedom. The need for academic freedom is not about elitist professors frivolously seeking privileges while breathing rarefied air in their ivory towers. It is simply the commonplace and understandable request of workers asking for the conditions they need to competently and effectively carry out their duties as expected, required and urgently needed by society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Spooner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Academic freedom is increasingly caught up in partisan debates around freedom of speech. But the idea behind it is not only vital but shared across many other professions.Marc Spooner, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1754172022-02-08T14:57:51Z2022-02-08T14:57:51ZUniversities: The often overlooked player in determining healthy democracies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442035/original/file-20220121-25-1m1zg5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C231%2C1418%2C965&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Georgia, the Board of Regents has given its universities the power to fire tenured professors without faculty input. Now some fear that academic freedom is threatened.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Zach J. Beavers)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/universities--the-often-overlooked-player-in-determining-healthy-democracies" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>We’ve been hearing recently about the possibility that the United States — assumed to be a prime example of democracy — is <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-polarization-is-bad-but-the-us-could-be-in-trouble-173833">in real peril of collapse</a>. Coming into 2022, we find ourselves in the midst of a worldwide <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/facing-up-to-the-democratic-recession/">democratic recession</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/21/democracy-is-more-fragile-than-many-of-us-realised-but-do-not-believe-that-it-is-doomed">Democracy is vulnerable and fragile</a>. It requires maintenance, participation, vigilance and constant re-assertion. If left unattended, it can drift, or be pushed, towards illiberalism and ultimately authoritarianism.</p>
<p>When discussions turn <a href="https://www.advocateshah.com/blog/what-is-freedom-of-press-the-fourth-pillar-of-democracy/">to the pillars of democracy</a>, folks will often name the free press, the legislature and the judiciary as the institutions that serve as a vital check and balance on power. Named with much less frequency is the academy.</p>
<p>A country’s institutional commitment to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2017.1325169">academic freedom is a key indicator of whether its democracy</a> is in good health.</p>
<h2>Democracy in danger</h2>
<p>If we look at the United States as an example, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/09/opinions/canadians-fear-us-democracy-collapse-obeidallah/index.html">the warning signs are clearly present</a> and add to a growing body of evidence that the country’s democracy is in danger. </p>
<p>In a new twist on the <a href="https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/loyaltyoath/schrecker.html">McCarthyist Cold War era</a> — when there was little tolerance for dissent, suspected communist ties and many academics were forced to sign loyalty oaths, interrogated and even terminated — the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/">Brookings Institute reports</a> that at least 29 states have or plan on passing legislation banning entire areas of study, like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">critical race theory</a>. </p>
<p>Some legislatures, like Oklahoma are <a href="https://www.acluok.org/en/press-releases/aclu-aclu-oklahoma-lawyers-committee-file-lawsuit-challenging-oklahoma-classroom">pushing even further to eliminate discussions of gender, implicit bias and intersectionality</a>. </p>
<p>To add to that, Georgia has recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/us/georgia-university-system-tenure.html">eliminated tenure</a>, none of which bodes well for the once shining example of democracy. </p>
<p>You may be wondering how eliminating tenure relates to democracy. It’s an earned permanent appointment and is required to help ensure that the principles and protections that fall under academic freedom are not an empty promise. Without tenure an academic could be silenced by threat of termination. But yes, academics can still be fired for just cause.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An older white man sits in a suit while raising his hand up into the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442037/original/file-20220121-25-fsya3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442037/original/file-20220121-25-fsya3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442037/original/file-20220121-25-fsya3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442037/original/file-20220121-25-fsya3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442037/original/file-20220121-25-fsya3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442037/original/file-20220121-25-fsya3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442037/original/file-20220121-25-fsya3h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sen. Michael McLendon was the chief lawmaker who sponsored a bill that would ban schools from teaching critical race theory, which led to a walkout of the Black senators in protest and the withholding of their votes on Jan. 21, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is academic freedom?</h2>
<p>The definition of academic freedom remains largely unchanged since the American Association of University Professors <a href="https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/A6520A9D-0A9A-47B3-B550-C006B5B224E7/0/1915Declaration.pdf">first issued their 1915 declaration</a> defining it as comprising three elements “freedom of inquiry and research; freedom of teaching within the university or college; and freedom of extramural utterance and action.”</p>
<p>Within healthy democracies, academic freedom, if not always respected, is at the very least, tolerated and protected. There’s an understanding that it may be invoked to <a href="https://www.caut.ca/bulletin/2021/12/interview-melanie-newton-and-deborah-cowen">inform public policy, disrupt inequitable power structures or act as an unpopular corrective</a> on the very governments, structures, institutions and cultures that are asked to defend and support it.</p>
<p>In return for defending a robust academic freedom, a country’s university faculty are enabled to speak truth, act as a check on government and help <a href="https://uofrpress.ca/Books/D/Dissident-Knowledge-in-Higher-Education">foster critical and creative, participatory citizens whose formation prepares them for a lifetime of democratic engagement</a>. But of course institutions of higher learning are one, not the only, site for teaching and learning and practising these critical skills and habits of mind.</p>
<h2>A potential whistleblower</h2>
<p>The academic freedom entrusted to faculty is usually described in one of two ways. The first manner aligns academic freedom with <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/dispatches-academic-freedom/the-price-of-academic-freedom/">rights, privileges and freedoms</a>. The second, brings in concepts such as responsibility, duty and whistleblower protection. </p>
<p>The first description is often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087412000118">used by critics who inevitably trot out the “ivory tower”</a> metaphor to describe the academy. The second is found in the language used by its defenders, whose own metaphor for the university’s role in society might be “lighthouse.”</p>
<p>In the second concept every tenured professor is a potential whistleblower, or societal lighthouse keeper and can work in tandem with a free press for reporting on elected governments and their policies, providing transparency and accountability.</p>
<p>It is a delicate balance where the scales can easily be tipped in the opposite direction. It is not difficult to imagine the potential for wealthy private donors, multinational corporations, a populist mob or even the government itself, to bring it all down.</p>
<p>As more countries flirt with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108957809">democratic backsliding</a>, we should all be concerned. A country’s tolerance and respect for academic freedom serves as a key indicator of the health of its democracy; let’s not ignore this important warning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175417/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Spooner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As more countries flirt with democratic backsliding, we should all be concerned. We can look to academic freedom as a gauge.Marc Spooner, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1733212021-12-16T13:28:19Z2021-12-16T13:28:19ZSurveys of scientists show women and young academics suffered most during pandemic and may face long-term career consequences<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437659/original/file-20211214-27402-1j8amls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C201%2C6448%2C4245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Working from home comes with many distractions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mother-working-from-home-with-children-in-royalty-free-image/1273890998?adppopup=true">MoMoProductions/Digital Vision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On March 6, 2020, universities across the U.S. announced systematic <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/us/coronavirus-college-campus-closings.html">laboratory closures, social distancing policies and travel bans</a> to cope with the growing coronavirus epidemic. These actions, while prudent and necessary, had immediate negative impacts on the academic enterprise of science in the U.S. and around the world.</p>
<p>We are a team of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DGHsTEgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">researchers</a> who <a href="https://spa.asu.edu/content/lesley-michalegko">study</a> the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CG9lGUgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">role of science</a> and technology <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AXfiRyYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">in society</a>. We are also part of a collaborative, multi-university project, called SciOPS, that seeks to improve <a href="https://news.asu.edu/20210128-global-engagement-sciops-gives-us-look-scientists-minds">how scientists communicate with the public</a>. As the pandemic wore on, researchers began telling us about the work stoppages, data losses and other hardships they were experiencing. We felt this was important information, so we conducted two surveys to understand how the pandemic was affecting researchers.</p>
<p>The pandemic’s hardships in academia have been widespread and lasting, but our analyses revealed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00823-9">female and early career scientists faced more negative impacts</a> than other groups. These differences are likely aggravating already existing disparities and potentially altering career trajectories. The negative outcomes may last well beyond the end of the pandemic. </p>
<h2>A survey of researchers</h2>
<p>The SciOPS team conducted its first COVID-19 survey in May 2020, with a follow-up exactly a year later in May 2021. For each, we invited faculty from a random sample of 21 U.S. research universities who work in biology, engineering and biochemistry to participate in the study, and about 300 scientists responded each time. Through a series of multiple choice and open-ended questions, the surveys asked how researchers had been affected both professionally and personally by the pandemic. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sign in a door saying that a university building is closed indefinitely." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437661/original/file-20211214-17-1mdremf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Closures of schools and labs forced many scientists to work from home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakColorado/a2a120dd5a6d45048f24e863314e6e33/photo?Query=university%20closed%20virus%20sign&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/David Zalubowski</a></span>
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<h2>How the coronavirus disrupted science</h2>
<p>Our first survey found that disruptions at work and home negatively affected research activities for a vast majority of the scientists who responded. </p>
<p>On the <a href="https://www.sci-ops.org/surveys/covid-19-survey-ii-2021-impacts-on-scientific-research">research side</a>, 93% of respondents experienced university shutdowns and 88% faced lab work disruptions. Over 80% dealt with conference cancellations and travel restrictions. Some researchers also had to quickly adapt to financial issues, and this, along with other hurdles, saw many scientists delaying data collection, applying for timeline extensions or ending data collection early.</p>
<p>Challenges at <a href="https://www.sci-ops.org/surveys/covid-19-personal-impacts">home also affected scientists’ work</a>. Roughly 80% of respondents said they were unable to concentrate on research activities, 72% had anxiety about contracting COVID-19 and 36% had to manage unexpected child care responsibilities. </p>
<p>The May 2021 survey showed that a year later, not much had changed. Responses were nearly identical: 92% of scientists reported difficulties from university closures, 89% experienced lab work disruptions and 84% had collaboration disruptions that had interrupted their research over the past year.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sci-ops.org/surveys/covid-19-survey-ii-2021-personal-impacts">Issues at home were nearly the same</a> as the year prior, too. The only major difference was that 11% percent of respondents reported coping with a family member’s illness, compared to only 3% in 2020.</p>
<p>Inevitably, these stressors all took a toll on researchers’ well-being. Nearly 60% indicated that their overall mental health and happiness had decreased because of the pandemic. This is higher than a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that found <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6932a1">40% of the U.S. general public were facing mental health issues</a> in June 2021. As one researcher stated, reiterating the sentiments of many others in our study: “The mental impact of lockdown affected every researcher in my lab, including me. It was far more damaging than anything else we experienced and caused huge drop-offs in productivity.” </p>
<h2>Younger researchers and female researchers faced more difficulties</h2>
<p>Some scientists felt the added stress from a lack of boundaries between home and work much more acutely than others. The unexpected rises in parental child care and virtual schooling fell most heavily on female and early career faculty. </p>
<p>In our 2020 survey, 34% percent of female scientists reported disruptions due to unexpected child care responsibilities, compared to 21% of males. Early career faculty struggled more too. Roughly 43% of assistant professors indicated unexpected child care duties caused major disruptions to their research, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00823-9">30% more than their most senior colleagues</a>. In total, nearly 50% of both female respondents and assistant professors reported an inability to concentrate on research activities, while only 29% of male colleagues and 36% of senior colleagues reported the same.</p>
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<p>These unequal burdens barely changed between 2020 and 2021. If anything, issues got worse for female scientists. Many reported other unanticipated complications such as management of other family members’ mental health, divorce and limited space at home. </p>
<p>Given the extra burdens young researchers and female researchers are facing, it’s no surprise their work suffered. Other research has shown that during the pandemic, female scientists had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0921-y">significantly less time to work on research</a>. Many were not able to meet deadlines, and so they <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.663252">submitted fewer manuscripts</a> compared to pre-pandemic levels. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, these impacts on productivity were <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.663252">even worse for women with children</a>. Research has shown that home disruptions can cascade over time and result in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0921-y">delayed promotions and tenure</a>. Even pre-COVID-19, working mothers in academia left their respective fields at much higher rates than their male colleagues, and this trend was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1513/AnnalsATS.202006-589IP">further amplified by the pandemic</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screen with many faces on it participating in a video conference." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437662/original/file-20211214-27-11jx78v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers figured out ways to work around challenges posed by the pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/social-teleconference-during-covid-19-royalty-free-image/1217489268?adppopup=true">GabrielPevide/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Adapting to the new world</h2>
<p>Undoubtedly, the pandemic has had devastating effects on academic research and those who do it. But hidden among the gloom of our surveys were a few bright spots that highlight the resilience of the scientific community.</p>
<p>In our 2020 survey, 37% of scientists said that they developed new research topics to pursue, and 22% developed new collaborations. Virtual meetings proved to be a valuable transition for some. As one researcher noted, “Through regular videoconference discussions, new and long-distance collaborations have been initiated and maintained between four labs in the U.S. This would have been never envisaged prior to the Zoom era.”</p>
<p>The pandemic highlighted existing problems within science but also offered lessons to be learned. Many in academia want to avoid <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2021/02/10/without-intentional-interventions-pandemic-will-make-higher-education-less-diverse">deepening existing inequities in the scientific workforce</a>, and studies have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001100">outlined ways to do this</a>. By implementing programs such as tenure clock extensions, advocating for affordable child care and allocating funds to support early career women researchers, the scientific community could enable broader participation, capacity and production for all scientists. </p>
<p>Looking forward, we believe it is critically important for universities and research funders to proactively address the continuing challenges posed by the pandemic, particularly for female and early career faculty. With so much in flux, there is an opportunity to change and improve a system that wasn’t working for a lot of people prior to the pandemic.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=weekly&source=inline-weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many scientists stuck at home during university closures dealt with increased domestic responsibilities. But some groups had it worse than others.Lesley Michalegko, Research Project Manager of Public Policy, Arizona State UniversityEric Welch, Professor & Director, Center for Science, Technology & Environmental Policy Studies, Arizona State UniversityMary K. Feeney, Professor and Lincoln Professor of Ethics in Public Affairs, Arizona State UniversityTimothy P. Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Public Administration, University of Illinois ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1709862021-11-02T12:25:31Z2021-11-02T12:25:31ZUniversity of Florida bans professors from giving expert testimony against state – a scholar explains the academic freedom issues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429642/original/file-20211101-15-1rvqgj6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3788%2C2531&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three professors from the University of Florida have been barred from participating as expert witnesses in a voting rights case.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/gainesville-university-of-florida-campus-entrance-with-news-photo/1084719122?adppopup=true">Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The University of Florida <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/us/florida-professors-voting-rights-lawsuit.html">barred three of its professors</a> from serving as paid experts in a Florida voting rights case - <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2021/11/01/ufs-big-mistake-on-academic-freedom-editorial/">sparking outrage</a> within academia and in the news media. The university said allowing its professors to testify against the state was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/us/floridaa-professors-voting-rights-lawsuit.html">at odds with its interests</a>. Critics say the move <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/totalitarianism-takes-aim-at-higher-education">puts politics ahead of academic freedom</a>. Here, <a href="https://isearch.asu.edu/profile/2154366">George Justice</a>, an English professor and former college dean, offers insight into the dynamics at play in the controversy.</em></p>
<h2>Why do professors need permission to be paid experts?</h2>
<p>Many universities, <a href="https://policy.ufl.edu/policy/conflicts-of-commitment-and-conflicts-of-interest/">including the University of Florida</a>, have policies that ask faculty to seek approval for “outside activities.” This is true for both paid and unpaid activities.</p>
<p>Those who work at research universities like the University of Florida have <a href="https://community.acue.org/blog/teaching-and-research-excellence-complimentary-sides-of-the-same-coin/">job responsibilities</a> outside of teaching. Tenured and tenure-track faculty spend less than half their time on direct instruction; they often teach two courses per semester. More than half their time, therefore, is allocated to research and service to the profession.</p>
<p>Since professors have a lot of discretion in when they work, they have a lot of opportunities to moonlight – whether in jobs related to their expertise or not. In doing so, in theory they might neglect their official duties. Unapproved activities would be considered a conflict of their commitment to the job. </p>
<p>Universities therefore develop policies for faculty to avoid both conflicts of commitment and conflicts of interest. At the University of Florida, <a href="https://policy.ufl.edu/policy/conflicts-of-commitment-and-conflicts-of-interest/">a conflict of interest takes place</a> “when a University Employee’s financial, professional, commercial or personal interests or activities outside of the University affects, or appears to affect, their professional judgment or obligations to the University.” </p>
<h2>Can a public university order faculty not to speak out publicly or in court?</h2>
<p>Academic freedom provides college and university faculty members the right to conduct research and teach students in a manner consistent with their professional knowledge. But the principles of academic freedom do not protect everything a tenured faculty member might say. This is true whether inside or outside of the university. </p>
<p>The landmark 1940 <a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure">Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure</a> – made by the American Association of University Professors and still in use today – states that: “Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties.” However, the statement says research done for “pecuniary return” – that is, in exchange for money – “should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.” In other words, universities can’t tell professors how to do their research as long as they fulfill their other duties, such as teaching. But when it comes to getting paid for their research, they need to get permission from the university where they work. </p>
<p>The University of Florida <a href="https://www.ocala.com/story/news/education/campus/2021/10/31/university-of-florida-spokeswoman-three-professors-could-testify-if-unpaid/6223947001/">now claims</a> that this is an issue of “pecuniary return” for faculty research. University spokesperson Hessy Fernandez stated that the university is merely <a href="https://www.ocala.com/story/news/education/campus/2021/10/31/university-of-florida-spokeswoman-three-professors-could-testify-if-unpaid/6223947001/">restraining these three experts</a> from taking paid work outside their university duties.</p>
<p>“If the professors wish to do so pro bono on their own time, without using university resources, they would be free to do so,” Fernandez has said.</p>
<p>Fernandez’s statement contradicts the university’s previous justifications for preventing the faculty to testify as experts. The university initially <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/30/florida-voting-rights-desantis-lawsuit/">asserted</a> that there was a conflict of interest rather than commitment: “As UF is a state actor, litigation against the state is adverse to UF’s interests.” </p>
<p>Now, they seem to be claiming a conflict of commitment, defined in their <a href="https://policy.ufl.edu/policy/conflicts-of-commitment-and-conflicts-of-interest/">standard policies</a> as “when a University Employee engages in an Outside Activity, either paid or unpaid, that could interfere with their professional obligations to the University.” The university has not explained in what way testifying as expert witnesses would violate the professors’ professional obligations.</p>
<h2>Have other scholars faced this kind of university restraint on their speech before?</h2>
<p>Not that I am aware of. Experts quoted in news reports call Florida’s denial of the faculty members’ request to testify on the basis of their scholarly expertise “<a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/florida-is-a-five-alarm-fire-for-academic-freedom">unprecedented</a>.” They say this is especially so since it’s a “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/us/florida-professors-voting-rights-lawsuit.html">prior restraint on a professor’s ability to speak</a>.”</p>
<p>“<a href="https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1606">Prior restraint</a>” refers to censorship even before someone has spoken or published their words. It implies the requirement of a formal license in order to speak. By focusing its latest comments on the prospect of the faculty members being paid for their work as expert witnesses, I believe the university is trying to avoid accusations of exercising prior restraint.</p>
<h2>Does tenure protect professors who defy their university?</h2>
<p>Tenure does not protect faculty members who defy basic rules of employment that require them to fulfill their specified job duties. </p>
<p>Tenure does protect faculty members’ right to speak up on matters of their expertise. This includes speaking as expert witnesses. Many universities have specific language for this. For instance, <a href="https://facultyaffairs.oregonstate.edu/faculty-handbook/expert-witness-policy-and-procedure">Oregon State University has a policy that states</a> faculty can serve as expert witnesses in administrative or judicial proceedings in which the Oregon State Board of Higher Education and Oregon State University are not parties, as long as they do so “in a manner consistent with the OSU Policy on Outside Professional Activities, and consistent with any college, unit, or department restrictions on outside consulting or conflict of interest policies.” </p>
<p>It would be a high bar for the University of Florida to jump over to claim that these faculty members would be violating their commitment to their research and their students by offering their expert testimony for this particular case, which challenges a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/florida-voting-law.html">recent law on voting rights in Florida</a>, a subject for which all three are experts. </p>
<p>Identifying the university’s interest with the interests of the current governor - referred to as “the executive branch” in the university’s communications with the scholars – runs counter to the history and practice of public higher education. It also contradicts the more specific protections of academic freedom.</p>
<h2>Is this action a threat to academic freedom?</h2>
<p>It is a big threat. This is one of two recent challenges to tenure and academic freedom in Southern states. The other is a change to tenure rules in state universities in Georgia. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/us/georgia-university-system-tenure.html">changes</a> there allow administrators to fire tenured faculty – who have a university guarantee of a job for life – without a <a href="https://www.aaup.org/file/1940%20Statement.pdf">hearing before a faculty committee</a>. Some ask: If administrators by themselves can decide to revoke tenure, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/10/04/tenure-under-threat-georgia">does tenure really exist?</a>. In the cases of both Florida and Georgia, university administrations are taking on responsibility for managing what faculty do and say outside of established principles of faculty self-governance.</p>
<p><em>The University of Florida financially supports The Conversation.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Justice is affiliated with Dever Justice, LLC, a higher education consulting partnership. </span></em></p>The University of Florida is barring three scholars from testifying as expert witnesses in a highly political lawsuit. A veteran college administrator looks at what’s at stake.George Justice, Professor of English, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1616222021-06-30T22:57:19Z2021-06-30T22:57:19ZTrustees’ handling of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure application shows how university boards often fail the accountability test<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408968/original/file-20210629-23-1v6tsx9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C24%2C4019%2C2993&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators gather June 25, 2021, on University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, N.C., to demand that the university offer tenure to award-winning investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/US-TenureDispute-SlaveryProject/523cf67e674d4844a780d52ebfd5e29b/photo?Query=Nikole%20Hannah%20Jones&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Jonathan Drew</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>University boards of trustees hold considerable power over the institutions they govern, but get attention only when they’re <a href="http://shura.shu.ac.uk/23673/1/JHEM_2018_33-2.pdf#page=19">hiring a new president</a> or <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2017.1396949">if there is a crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, increasingly boards aren’t navigating or mediating crises – they are creating them. On June 30, after deliberating in a closed session, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted 9-4 to grant journalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient and Pulitzer Prize winner <a href="https://twitter.com/KateMurphyNews/status/1410359511387459584?s=20">Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure</a>. But that decision came only after a firestorm of public criticism after <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/business/media/nikole-hannah-jones-unc.html">Hannah-Jones was initially not granted tenure</a> during earlier deliberations by the board.</p>
<p>Hannah-Jones’ case had been <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/05/unc-faculty-slam-decision-not-grant-tenure-nikole-hannah-jones/7560654002/">supported at every level of the tenure process at UNC-Chapel Hill</a> – including the provost, who serves as the chief academic officer, and the president – except for the Board of Trustees. That was an oddity. While the <a href="https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/policy/doc.php?type=pdf&id=763">system’s statutes</a> delegate personnel decisions about faculty to the board, it is common for the board to support faculty and administration’s tenure recommendations at the institution level. </p>
<p>In this case, the board initially avoided a final vote on Hannah-Jones’ case and <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/unc-board-of-trustees-denies-tenure-to-1619-project-author-nikole-hannah-jones/">questioned the validity of her work and ability</a>. Similar concerns <a href="http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2021/05/19/pw-special-report-after-conservative-criticism-unc-backs-down-from-offering-acclaimed-journalist-a-tenured-position/">were not brought up in previous evaluations of candidates for the same position</a>. Initial concerns of the board echoed talking points spread via conservative broadcast media. </p>
<p>In emails obtained by North Carolina journalism outlet, The Assembly, it also appears board members were <a href="https://www.theassemblync.com/long-form/nikole-hannah-jones-a-mega-donor-and-the-future-of-journalism/">in communication with a major donor who disagreed with Hannah-Jones’ approach</a> to journalism. If true, that would undermine principles of <a href="https://www.aaup.org/our-programs/shared-governance">academic freedom and shared governance among faculty, administration and the board</a> – central aspects of tenure evaluation. If donors can influence personnel decisions, this undermining is exacerbated.</p>
<p><a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=shBbxjMAAAAJ&hl=en">We</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cW_NFmMAAAAJ&hl=en">are</a> higher education governance scholars who investigate issues of board composition, organizational culture and decision-making. </p>
<p>The Hannah-Jones case and <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2019/06/07/nonwhite-faculty-face-significant-disadvantages-tenure-track-opinion">other, similar episodes</a> demonstrate how board composition and board culture can affect how boards make decisions, inserting seemingly political interests and personal values into an arena that is supposed to be free of them. This ideal of objective, or at the very least democratically representative, decision-making is important to ensuring that the best interests of the institution remain the primary motivation for decisions made.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Many people meeting around a U-shaped black-skirted table, looking at a large screen" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408970/original/file-20210629-13-10yqza8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Nov. 20, 2020 meeting of the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unc.photoshelter.com/search/result/I000036aIS6spdvs?terms=board%20trustees&">Jon Gardiner/UNC-Chapel Hill</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Boards and equity</h2>
<p>Governing boards hold a <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED560916.pdf">fiduciary duty to the institution or system</a> they serve. Their role is to support and protect the institutional mission, make sure the institution is effectively executing the mission and ensure the institution can continue to execute its mission. Boards often focus on <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4122364.pdf?casa_token=6zfSF5HTLT4AAAAA:wMlEzgS57760XxzW6ZUmoA1-jTudgvToxxPgjlsKKovsB7CAqmFEFbBbiOrumL9AM91RqyWuE5brYqAFfHIe9XjnZFgCFoim6WZ_G0rFrlMZHA-ESuY">fundraising, external relations, accountability and oversight</a>. </p>
<p>When functioning well, boards make decisions driven by the institution’s best interests – not their own or those of their friends, allies or associates. </p>
<p>Although that is the expectation, it is not always the practice in decisions ranging from budget allocation to policy setting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2014.11777317">and presidential hires</a>. The controversial and highly politicized hiring of <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/22/many-point-highly-politicized-process-selecting-new-south-carolina-president">Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen as University of South Carolina president in 2019 highlighted these concerns</a> and how political connections and motivations can cause board practices to go off course. Caslen has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/12/us/usc-president-bob-caslen-resigns-trnd/index.html">since resigned, after admitting to plagiarism</a>.</p>
<p>There’s not much diversity on public universities’ boards. Currently, <a href="https://agb.org/reports-2/the-agb-2020-trustee-index/">according to an industry survey</a>, most of their members are older white men from the business sector. </p>
<p>Yet, as higher education becomes increasingly concerned with diversity, we have observed that the issue of board diversity <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/invisible-injustice/213431">seems to be left off the table</a>. </p>
<p>This lack of diversity matters, because even when aiming for objectivity, research has suggested that board members often find their personal or political values more than intertwined with the decision-making process. Their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2017.1396949">values are figuratively making the decisions</a>.</p>
<h2>State politics’ influence</h2>
<p>Public institution boards are mostly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904807310040">appointed by a governor or state legislators</a>.</p>
<p>This can mean that sometimes it is not simply personal or individual political values driving the decisions about everything from academic program approval to presidential hires. Researchers have found that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2019.1706016">state political climates and ideologies</a> can influence what decisions are made by boards. </p>
<p>One example of this problem is when a board selects a president with strong political alliances but with little or no higher education experience. These decisions can be more troubling if they are made without input from faculty and other institutional stakeholders, <a href="http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2021/02/24/pw-special-report-how-did-darrell-allison-cut-in-line-to-become-the-new-chancellor-at-fayetteville-state-its-a-secret/">who customarily weigh in on these important choices</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057%2Fs41307-020-00193-y">One study</a> noted that trustees sometimes go beyond their formal roles, getting involved in university operations through donations and support to specific areas. They build or broker connections, creating external partnerships that may or may not benefit the institution.</p>
<p>Governing boards led by partisan appointees can make higher education institutions arenas for political contests, such as the closing of research and academic centers that produce research or hold missions in <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/article12479219.html">opposition to a board’s dominant political ideology</a>. These contests in turn take the boards’ focus away from <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-new-order">serving students and other members of the university community</a>. </p>
<h2>Is there accountability?</h2>
<p>It is <a href="https://agb.org/principles-of-trusteeship/respect-difference-boards-administrations-role/">sometimes suggested by higher education experts</a> and commonly understood by the university community that boards should be independent and autonomous entities, unconcerned with the day-to-day and operational issues of diversity and equity. That allows them to provide institutional accountability and oversight. </p>
<p>As scholars who study higher education boards, we believe that politicized board composition can reinforce the vestiges of patriarchy and white supremacy, among other forms of hegemony, within today’s institutions. </p>
<p>Some scholars have also expressed alarm at the increasingly political nature of board decision-making, in the form of <a href="https://www.aaup.org/news/statement-unc-board-and-nikole-hannah-jones">denials of tenure</a> or <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00221546.2017.1390969">presidential turnover</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six people standing at a whiteboard, discussing what's on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408974/original/file-20210629-23-1whh7qa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Do university boards actually reflect the drive for diversity in their academic community?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/business-or-team-leader-holding-a-meeting-royalty-free-illustration/1267427530?adppopup=true">Rudzhan Nagiev/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill situation, <a href="https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-unc-trustees-alleged-nixing-1619-project-creator-tenured-position/">as noted by The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education</a>, a non-partisan group that defends free speech on campuses, removed the veil of autonomy and independence under which boards have traditionally operated. <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/05/20/unc-chapel-hill-board-doesnt-approve-tenure-noted-journalist">It has raised concern</a> that governing boards could be motivated by loyalty to political parties and ideologies. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/invisible-injustice/213431">Up until now, boards</a> have <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/invisible-injustice/213431">mostly been invisible players</a> in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katherine-Cho/publication/336591731_The_Perception_of_Progress_Conceptualizing_Institutional_Response_to_Student_Protests_and_Activism/links/5da771af299bf1c1e4c82d5d/The-Perception-of-Progress-Conceptualizing-Institutional-Response-to-Student-Protests-and-Activism.pdf">higher education’s conversation about diversity, equity and inclusion</a>. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-new-order">boards’ invisibility is eroding</a>. That exposure raises two issues: If board members are accountable to the political figures who appoint them, can they still be representative of the institution they govern? Can they contribute to the growing <a href="https://eab.com/research/strategy/resource-center/diversity-equity-inclusion-and-justice-initiatives-in-higher-education/">drive for greater diversity, equity and inclusion on campuses</a>?</p>
<h2>Navigating the challenges</h2>
<p>We believe boards can become more accountable and equity-focused by developing and implementing practices that allow them to navigate ever-changing social and political landscapes. </p>
<p>We recently developed a framework to guide boards in carrying out their duties called “<a href="https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/jehr.2019-0006">Culturally Sustaining Governance</a>.” We show how board decision-making can intentionally prioritize equity, as state political realities and cultural wars continue to exert pressure. </p>
<p>Frameworks like ours aid boards in being more accountable, while at the same time ensuring the protection of an institution’s viability and reputation. Our framework urges boards to consider the questions of equity as foundational to deliberation and decision-making as opposed to being an afterthought.</p>
<p>Board members operate at the highest levels of university administration. They can make decisions that truly center diversity and equity, while carrying out their responsibilities with excellence and diligence. That, in the end, leads to stronger, more equitable institutions that benefit everyone into the future.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>University trustees are among the least-studied groups in higher education. Increasingly, they’re making news – as the focus of a crisis. That raises the question: To whom are they accountable?Felecia Commodore, Assistant Professor, Educational Foundations & Leadership, Old Dominion UniversityDemetri L. Morgan, Assistant Professor of Higher Education, Loyola University ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1623252021-06-18T12:28:53Z2021-06-18T12:28:53ZAcademic tenure: What it is and why it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406811/original/file-20210616-3862-1rhxvt8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=131%2C0%2C5335%2C3655&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the 2018-2019 academic school year, 45.1% of professors at U.S. colleges and universities overall had tenure.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/university-lecturer-addressing-his-students-royalty-free-image/871711634?adppopup=true">Tom Werner/DigitalVision</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>How would you like a job that was guaranteed and allowed you to do your work as you see fit and speak your mind with no repercussions? Most people would, and that’s the idea behind academic tenure. In the following Q&A, George Justice, an English professor and author of “<a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/how-be-dean">How to Be a Dean</a>,” explains the origin of tenure and the waning protections that it affords professors who have it.</em></p>
<h2>What is academic tenure?</h2>
<p>Of all the things a university professor can achieve in their career, few are as desirable as academic tenure. Academic tenure is a system of strong job protections that virtually guarantees a university professor will never be fired or let go except in the most extreme of circumstances. A key idea is to allow faculty to speak freely – whether on campus or in public – without fear of reprisal.</p>
<p>Achieving tenure is not easy or quick. First, aspiring professors must secure a “tenure track” position after excelling in a Ph.D. program, followed in many cases by one or more postdoctoral fellowships. Then, in a probationary period that can last from 5 to 10 years, but which <a href="https://cen.acs.org/careers/employment/Tick-tock-Should-we-stop-the-tenure-clock/98/i21">typically takes 7 years</a>, faculty must demonstrate academic excellence in teaching, research and service to the community.</p>
<p>The probationary period is then followed by a year-long process during which a professor’s work is evaluated by peer faculty – both inside and outside of the university where they teach – as well as administrators at their institution. </p>
<p>If they succeed in getting tenure, they can be promoted to the rank of “associate professor with tenure.” But if they are denied tenure, usually it means they have one more year to build up their credentials and find employment at another college or university – or leave academia altogether to find work in a different industry.</p>
<p>A little less than half of all full-time faculty at colleges and universities in the U.S. – <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_316.81.asp">45.1%</a>, or <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_315.10.asp">375,286</a> according to 2019 data – have tenure. </p>
<p><iframe id="ifjna" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ifjna/8/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>When did tenure first appear?</h2>
<p>The tenure system was created in the early 20th century as a partnership between the faculty and the institutions that employ them. Faculty came to be represented nationally by the American Association of University Professors, which was founded in 1915 by two of the era’s most famous intellectuals: <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dewey/">John Dewey</a> and <a href="https://philosophy.jhu.edu/about/early-hopkins-philosophers/lovejoy/">Arthur O. Lovejoy</a>. The association wasn’t a union, although now it does help faculty unionize.</p>
<p>In 1940, the association teamed up with the Association of American Colleges – now the Association of American Colleges and Universities – to define tenure as a system providing “<a href="https://www.aaup.org/issues/tenure">an indefinite appointment</a> that can be terminated only for cause or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency and program discontinuation.” </p>
<p>The real origins of the concept, though, lie in the practice of 19th-century German universities. Faculty in these universities created wide autonomy for their work on the basis of their <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/178570">pursuit of knowledge for its own sake</a>. The greatest freedom and power went to those professors at the top of a rigid hierarchy. </p>
<p>In its 1915 “<a href="http://aaup-ui.org/Documents/Principles/Gen_Dec_Princ.pdf">Declaration of Principles</a>,” the association viewed faculty tenure as a property right and academic freedom as “essential to civilization.” “Academic freedom” includes rights both within and outside a professor’s daily work: “freedom of inquiry and research; freedom of teaching within the university or college; and freedom of extra-mural utterance and action.” The last of these means that faculty can speak up on matters of public concern outside of their specialized expertise without fear of losing their job. </p>
<h2>Whom does it benefit?</h2>
<p>As a job protection, tenure directly benefits college teachers. Indirectly, tenure benefits a society that thrives through the education and research that <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/economics-of-higher-education.aspx">colleges and universities create</a>.</p>
<p>The job protections are significant. Except in extreme circumstances, faculty who have achieved tenure can expect to be paid for teaching and research for as long as they hold their jobs. There is no retirement age. And colleges only very rarely go out of business. </p>
<p>Tenure’s benefits have weakened in recent years. Financially battered by the past year of COVID-19, institutions have let tenured faculty go merely with <a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/covid-19-and-academic-governance">general assertions of financial stress</a> rather than the deep crisis of “financial exigency.” </p>
<p>And termination “with cause” has evolved in recent years. For instance, federal law, including <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/sex-discrimination/title-ix-education-amendments/index.html">Title IX of the Federal Education Act</a>, has pushed institutions to fire or force the resignation of faculty members who violate core principles of equal treatment, especially through sexual harassment of students. </p>
<h2>Why is tenure controversial?</h2>
<p>There are economic, political, ideological and social reasons why tenure has come under fire <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/04/archives/education-tenure-under-attack-by-right-and-left.html">over the past 50 years</a>. </p>
<p>From an economic perspective, higher education is big business with a <a href="https://agb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/guardians_2018_talking_points_economy.pdf">big impact</a> on the U.S. economy. State universities are among the biggest businesses. And some legislators believe universities should be treated simply like businesses. Professors would have no more job security than any other employees and could be fired without a rigorous process led by their faculty peers.</p>
<p>“What happens in our private sector should be applied to our universities as well,” <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/02/11/iowa-legislator-wants-to-end-tenure-at-state-universities/">argued Iowa State Senator Bradley Zaun</a>, who introduced legislation that would eliminate tenure in his state’s public universities. The <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/01/iowa-legislature-bill-ban-tenure-public-universities-professors-fails-advance/4836676001/">measure failed</a>.</p>
<p>And in socially conservative parts of the country, legislators allege that professors have hypocritically violated students’ <a href="https://journalstar.com/news/local/education/free-speech-controversies-at-center-of-nu-debate/article_689ef989-9d33-5311-a728-d2b8c650cd5d.html">freedom of speech</a>, including by interfering with their participation in conservative student political groups. </p>
<p>It’s not just from social conservatives. Colleges have suspended faculty members for <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/01/professor-suspended-using-n-word-class-discussion-language-james-baldwin-essay">using racial slurs</a> that offend students. And faculty have sued the University of Arkansas over a revised tenure policy that would <a href="https://www.thefire.org/faculty-sue-university-of-arkansas-system-over-new-tenure-policy/">weaken protections</a> when faculty challenge social norms.</p>
<h2>What is its future?</h2>
<p>Tenure continues to exist in American higher education, and surveyed provosts – the chief academic officers on their campuses – maintain <a href="https://www.niso.org/niso-io/2021/04/inside-higher-ed-releases-new-survey-results">support for retaining the tenure system on their campuses</a>.</p>
<p>But those same academic leaders have hired <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_315.10.asp">increasing numbers</a> of less expensive faculty without tenure over the past few decades.</p>
<p>In recent years, the percentage of tenured college teachers has <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_278.asp">fallen to 45.1%</a> from <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d95/dtab232.asp">nearly 65% in 1980</a>. Recent analysis suggests that if part-time faculty are included, a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/10/12/about-three-quarters-all-faculty-positions-are-tenure-track-according-new-aaup">mere quarter</a> of college teachers have tenure.</p>
<p>While research shows diverse faculty and peer viewpoints lead to a <a href="https://wiseli.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/662/2018/11/Benefits_Challenges.pdf">richer education for students</a>, the tenured faculty are <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_315.20.asp">whiter and more male</a> than the whole body of college teachers, let alone the U.S. population. Indeed, the tenured faculty has become demographically inconsistent with <a href="https://www.aacu.org/aacu-news/newsletter/2019/march/facts-figures">the students in their classrooms</a>: 75% of college professors are white, whereas <a href="https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/tables/2010-2019/national/asrh/nc-est2019-asr6h.xlsx">51.1%</a> of the population under 24 years old was non-Hispanic white in 2019.</p>
<p>Is the practice of academic freedom “essential to civilization”? Does it require tenure for faculty? Or is tenure a destructive job perk that <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703618504575460252029820466">limits innovation</a> in an important service industry by entrenching faculty who may be mediocre and old-fashioned in their teaching and research? The one thing guaranteed in the future of tenure is that as long as it exists, it will continue to be controversial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George Justice is Principal of Dever Justice LLC, a higher education consulting firm. </span></em></p>Academic tenure – a system of job protections for university professors – came about in the early 20th century. Will it survive in the 21st century? A scholar weighs in.George Justice, Professor of English, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440562020-08-24T20:04:18Z2020-08-24T20:04:18Z‘Meanwhile’ building use: another way to manage properties left vacant by the COVID-19 crisis<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/354046/original/file-20200821-22-a58kkv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C39%2C3264%2C2198&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cathy Smith (2014)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has temporarily shut down cities across the globe, resulting in <a href="https://www.realestate.com.au/insights/property-market-update-how-cbds-will-survive-post-covid-19/">abandoned buildings</a> and deserted streets. How might we better use our own <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/office-vacancy-rates-on-the-rise-as-pandemic-takes-its-toll-20200812-p55kzr.html">vacant buildings</a> during the crisis and beyond? We can learn from the benefits and challenges of the UK’s “meanwhile” building use sector. </p>
<p>Sometimes referred to as <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/draft_london_plan_-_consolidated_changes_version_-_clean_july_2019.pdf">meanwhile housing</a> or <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/plpg.pdf">property guardianship</a> in its residential forms, it’s a recognised property tenure solution for vacant buildings in the UK and Europe. It enables properties that are lying dormant, or awaiting redevelopment, to be used temporarily as workspaces, shops or housing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/unused-buildings-will-make-good-housing-in-the-world-of-covid-19-142897">Unused buildings will make good housing in the world of COVID-19</a>
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<p>Meanwhile use serves a dual purpose by activating an otherwise unused property while providing the owner with building security for a set period. It involves relatively cheap licences or flexible leases managed by a third-party, and often for-profit, agent. </p>
<p>Creatives and business startups who cannot afford expensive city rents or commercial leases are attracted to the unusual and large industrial or institutional buildings often used for meanwhile schemes. London property guardianship featured in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s 2016 television comedy <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5295524/">Crashing</a>. The series chronicles the misadventures of a group of property guardians living in a former hospital.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Crashing is a comedy about a group of property guardians living in a disused London hospital.</span></figcaption>
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<p>It would be tempting to think of meanwhile use as a quick-fix for Australia’s own twin problems of temporarily vacant buildings and unaffordable rents in major cities. Yet, as I discovered when visiting London meanwhile schemes in 2018, their success relies upon careful management. </p>
<p>The intersecting legal, social and design issues can be complex. That’s particularly the case for property guardianship — perhaps <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/plpg.pdf">the most controversial form of meanwhile use</a>. </p>
<p>It is important to understand the different forms of meanwhile use that make it compelling and, in some cases, problematic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-demand-for-crisis-housing-soars-surely-we-can-tap-into-covid-19-vacancies-143815">As demand for crisis housing soars, surely we can tap into COVID-19 vacancies</a>
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<h2>Meanwhile use has limitations</h2>
<p>The biggest criticism of meanwhile use is that it’s an <a href="https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tran.12162">insecure or unreliable form of accommodation</a>. Schemes using short-term occupation licences rather than conventional tenancies may be ideal for occupants attracted by their relatively cheap costs and flexibility. However, occupants will not be legally protected to the same extent as they would be under tenancy law. </p>
<p>For example, UK property guardians may find themselves “homeless” 28 days after an eviction notice. Unlike rental tenants, they <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/publication-sian-berry-response-draft-london-plan/publication-sian-berry-protections-property-guardians-during-covid-19-crisis">might not be protected from eviction</a> during the COVID-19 crisis, even if they live in council-owned buildings. </p>
<p>If owned by local authorities, buildings used for property guardianships <a href="https://www.journalism.co.uk/press-releases/protection-for-property-guardians-during-the-covid-19-crisis/s66/a753585/">may also be requisitioned at short notice</a> to be used for pandemic-related emergency care.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/property-guardians-live-in-legal-limbo-despite-new-law-to-protect-tenants-from-exploitation-114943">Property guardians live in legal limbo – despite new law to protect tenants from exploitation</a>
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<h2>Tenure terms only suits some people</h2>
<p>Due to the uncertainty of its tenure, meanwhile use schemes target different participants to standard renters or commercial tenants. This makes them suitable for some people only. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351540/original/file-20200806-18-13dyr7v.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A former telephone exchange in Waltham Forest, London, is now Switchboard Studios, a ‘meanwhile’ workspace for local businesses, startups and creatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cathy Smith (2018)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/dr-cathy-smith">My research</a> suggests the low costs and flexible arrangements of meanwhile workspaces are attractive to return-to-work mothers or caregivers starting a business. They also appreciate the sense of camaraderie and community fostered by schemes such as the former non-profit <a href="https://renewnewcastle.org/about/">Renew Newcastle</a> and <a href="https://www.renewaustralia.org/">Renew Australia</a>. </p>
<p>A similar sentiment was expressed by the young occupants of a <a href="https://dotdotdotproperty.com/info-cosmopolitan-project/">women-only property guardianship I visited in inner London</a>. They included an artist and a health worker on relatively low incomes. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-placeholder-to-pathfinder-innovative-temporary-site-uses-help-us-reimagine-city-spaces-63926">From placeholder to pathfinder: innovative temporary site uses help us reimagine city spaces</a>
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<p>However, the uncertain duration of property guardianship typically <a href="http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/im-being-evicted-for-having-a-baby-claims-property-guardian-tenant">excludes people with children</a>. Some agencies stipulate that property guardians must be employed full-time, over 21 years of age and nominate an alternative housing address in case they need to relocate quickly. </p>
<p>Thus the short-term arrangements that make meanwhile workspaces good for working mothers also make it difficult for them to become property guardians.</p>
<h2>Building conditions and management vary</h2>
<p>Another important constraint on meanwhile use may be the condition of the property itself. Unused shopfronts and office buildings can be ideal for young creatives like <a href="https://www.anthrosite.com.au/Project%20-%20item/suite-76-office/">architects trialling design prototypes</a>. They have the knowledge and skill sets to temporarily transform a space. </p>
<p>Problems can arise when a property unfit for human habitation is used for meanwhile schemes without the owner or agent making the <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/plpg.pdf">necessary investment in building upgrades</a>.</p>
<p>Some mismanaged property guardianships have led to costly legal disputes. In <a href="https://nltimes.nl/2016/03/25/city-property-firm-negligent-shower-electrocution-janneke-van-gaal">one Dutch case</a>, the council building owner, a property guardianship agency and their maintenance worker were held to be negligent for the death by electrocution of a young property guardian. This worst-case example reminds us that, even though meanwhile use suits some people and professionally managed properties, it will not solve the root causes of our housing crises and vacant city streets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Cathy Smith's research on meanwhile use is funded by a Turnbull Foundation Women in Built Environment Scholarship (UNSW), a Richard Rogers Fellowship (Harvard GSD) and an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.</span></em></p>When thinking about better uses for temporarily vacant buildings caused by the pandemic, Australia can learn much from the UK.Cathy Smith, Senior Lecturer, Interior Architecture; Inaugural Women in Built Environment Turnbull Foundation Scholar, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1386252020-06-29T15:33:07Z2020-06-29T15:33:07ZCommunity forestry can work, but plans in the Democratic Republic of Congo show what’s missing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344054/original/file-20200625-33515-1h6ndc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Discussing and agreeing on the boundaries of the community concession is a key first step towards official status for these communities in Yanonge, DRC.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CIFOR/Axel Fassio</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Congo river basin spans six central African countries: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo. It is known as <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/january-2008/saving-africa%E2%80%99s-forests-%E2%80%98lungs-world%E2%80%99">“Africa’s lung”</a> because it hosts the world’s second largest tropical forest. It <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/deforestation-africa-palm-oil/">covers an area</a> of around 3 million square kilometres – almost the size of India.</p>
<p>This massive forest acts as a huge “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00423-8">carbon sink</a>”, trapping carbon dioxide and storing it as biomass. It’s home to <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/places/congo-basin">rich and unique</a> flora and fauna, and sustains and shelters millions of people, providing for their needs in food and energy.</p>
<p>Deforestation rates are still low compared to other tropical regions, but population growth, national industrial development plans, and smaller-scale <a href="https://rainforests.mongabay.com/congo/deforestation.html">production</a> of charcoal, crops, minerals, timber and wild meat are rapidly <a href="http://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-144.pdf">increasing the pressure</a> on the forest.</p>
<p>In particular, most communities clear forests for agriculture and related subsistence activities – such as charcoal making and artisanal logging – to make a living. These are today among the <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/11/eaat2993">top drivers</a> of forest disturbance.</p>
<p>The good news is that potential solutions to decrease such disturbances exist. Community forestry models included in the legal frameworks of most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and <a href="https://www.cifor.org/knowledge/publication/1285/">beyond</a> are among them. Models vary, but in general community forestry means the government grants communities rights over a given area which they must manage sustainably. </p>
<p><a href="https://rightsandresources.org/en/publication/globalcarbonbaseline2018/#.W5aLhZNKiRs">Formal rights</a> is the key here, as community forest titles do not always come with the full “<a href="https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/BLarson1201.pdf">bundle of rights</a>” such as access and use rights to management, exclusion and alienation. </p>
<p>In Cameroon, for example, communities are granted the right to establish and manage a community forest, but no tenure is given. In other words, the state can decide at any time to convert the granted area to non-forest uses.</p>
<p>In the Democractic Republic of the Congo (DRC) things are different. There, <a href="https://www.rainforestfoundationuk.org/communityforests">millions of hectares</a> of forests are potentially available for communities. They can ask the government to grant them - in perpetuity and with use and management rights - community concessions up up to 50,000 hectares, roughly the size of Kinshasa. </p>
<p>This means – for the first time – granting communities formal rights to the forests they have inhabited since time immemorial, including the very important right of recourse if unauthorised resource extraction occurs.</p>
<p>We conducted <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol24/iss1/art6/">research</a> on the DRC model, and we found a lot of potential but also some weaknesses which we believe need redressing. The most serious was that estimates on the financial returns of the business models that communities plan to adopt are rarely conducted. </p>
<p>It’s essential that this is done so that planners can balance local income and sustainable management. Communities <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/3090">will be</a> more likely to protect forest resources, and possibly even restore already degraded lands, if they perceive direct benefits to their livelihoods.</p>
<h2>What needs fixing</h2>
<p>Communities usually choose what activities they want to conduct and where, but they must respect a management plan which is established by a managing committee, elected by the community itself.</p>
<p>Success or failure depends on a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08941920500323260">multitude of locally determined variables</a>, for instance what resources exist or how well organised the community is. There’s no silver bullet solution and it is generally a long-term process.</p>
<p>Yet after tenure rights are secured, the next step is to select and maintain a sustainable business model and a solid governance structure. This is where most current models <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/art8/">need improving</a> to make a difference. </p>
<p>Two crucial fronts are worth mentioning.</p>
<p>Firstly, <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol24/iss1/art6/">the extravagant</a> costs of creating and managing a community concession must be vastly reduced. For instance, obtaining and using a legal title may cost up to US$150,000 on account of associated expenses, such as detailed mapping and inventory of the area. This is unthinkable for any community which struggles to get by daily. </p>
<p>Costs can be reduced by simplifying or delaying legal constraints. For example, communities could be authorised to start earning money under the community model, while preparing light inventories and simplified management plans of the area. More details will be added as time goes by.</p>
<p>Second, tenure rights are indeed a great first step, but communities need to see some economic benefit materialising in the short term. Why would they take the trouble to get a legal title if it did not bring them similar or more benefits than the activities they were already conducting in the forests? Among these activities are artisanal logging, charcoal-making, hunting and agriculture. </p>
<p>But who knows what benefits are there now and what there will be when the community concession is granted?</p>
<p>This is not a rhetorical question. We are currently working closely with one community, and it has already taken us about a year just to crunch numbers with them and see whether their community concession would make sense. It’s a tedious and long process, but one that must be done upfront and not kept as a second-order objective as is largely <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334729658_Cartographie_des_acteurs_de_la_Foresterie_Communautaire_en_RDC_-_un_apercu_des_intervenants_de_la_vision_et_les_defis_dans_sa_mise_en_oeuvre">the case</a>. </p>
<p>Sustainability and forest conservation are nice concepts, but they must be translated into the local livelihoods’ language to work in the long term.</p>
<p>Local engagement and understanding are key. Introducing a package of incentives and disincentives which make the model work at the community level is indeed a complex task, but one which will deliver a much sought after right to the land in the first place. And – if well conceived and followed through – it could improve local livelihoods and reduce deforestation and degradation in large swaths of the Congo Basin forest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/138625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research and development activities conducted on the topics discussed in this article are supported by the European Union and by the CGIAR Research Programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry through the FORETS project (Formation, Recherche et Environnement dans la Tshopo, DRC, <a href="http://www.cifor.org/forets">www.cifor.org/forets</a>).</span></em></p>Forests must improve communities’ livelihoods to rise as a sustainable management solutionPaolo Omar Cerutti, Senior Scientist, Centre for International Forestry ResearchLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1347762020-05-12T19:08:37Z2020-05-12T19:08:37ZSchool-community gardens plant the seeds of change to address global warming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334169/original/file-20200511-49579-1hu0aba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C520%2C5883%2C3044&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cedar Street Elementary School in Beloeil, Que, developed a butterfly and bird perennial garden. Here, a monarch butterfly.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Youth rallied around the world in 2019, making it <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty">the year of global climate strikes</a>. About <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/27/climate-crisis-6-million-people-join-latest-wave-of-worldwide-protests">six million protesters</a> <a href="https://fridaysforfuture.org/what-we-do/strike-statistics/">walked out of their classrooms</a> and workplaces in a week of organized strikes and demonstrations in late September, calling on governments to address the escalating ecological emergency. </p>
<p>People’s frustration at the inaction of political leaders and corporations on the climate crisis is clear. But what more is needed if we are serious about striking to “<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/9/11/greta_thunberg_swedish_activist_climate_crisis">disrupt the system</a>,” as climate activists like Greta Thunberg have called for? </p>
<p>This need to disrupt and re-imagine our society sits at the core of <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-preparing-our-students-for-the-climate-future/">our work</a> addressing climate change and education in the faculty of education at McGill University. One practical project to realize this aim is a community partnership approach to developing and supporting school-community gardens. Through this project and others, we hope to transform Québec’s education system to better prepare students (and ourselves) for a fast-changing and uncertain world.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333798/original/file-20200509-49573-xnamvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333798/original/file-20200509-49573-xnamvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333798/original/file-20200509-49573-xnamvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333798/original/file-20200509-49573-xnamvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333798/original/file-20200509-49573-xnamvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333798/original/file-20200509-49573-xnamvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333798/original/file-20200509-49573-xnamvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Beehives and garden at McGill University’s faculty of education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Blane Harvey)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Learning across settings</h2>
<p>Proponents of what’s called “systems leadership” argue that leaders must help people collaborate across different systems to tackle complex challenges like climate change. They stress the need for <a href="https://networkpeninsula.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/The_Dawn_of_System_Leadership-1.pdf">deep listening and efforts to see through others’ eyes that encourages the openness needed to allow new ways to emerge</a>.</p>
<p>Fundamental transformation is needed to address the looming impacts of climate change. This transformation needs more than education, <a href="http://www.economy4humanity.org/commons/library/s41893-018-0085-1.pdf">research</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-action-isnt-enough-for-climate-change-the-private-sector-can-cut-billions-of-tons-of-carbon-79728">government policies</a> alone. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-young-people-what-really-matters-for-the-sake-of-our-collective-life-on-earth-121549">Teaching young people what really matters for the sake of our collective life on Earth</a>
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<p>Rather, we need strategies for harnessing our collective wisdom and learning together across settings and disciplines. Collaboration between the private sector, members of the wider public and researchers is imperative.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many of our institutions remain siloed, hierarchical and therefore ill-equipped for the collaboration and flexibility needed to drive collective change. How then can we proceed? Based on recent research and experimentation, we see two closely related paths forward.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334171/original/file-20200511-49556-d7dftb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334171/original/file-20200511-49556-d7dftb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334171/original/file-20200511-49556-d7dftb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334171/original/file-20200511-49556-d7dftb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334171/original/file-20200511-49556-d7dftb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334171/original/file-20200511-49556-d7dftb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334171/original/file-20200511-49556-d7dftb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the Cedar Street Elementary School in Beloeil, a suburb of Montréal, Kindergarten and Grade 4 students worked together to plant seeds to grow food with the aim of sharing it with the community.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Focus on bright spots</h2>
<p>Large systems challenges like climate change are often likened to icebergs — daunting in their size and difficult to appraise. By shifting focus to smaller, more tangible challenges or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1309">bright spots</a>, we can cultivate the relationships, ways of working and insights that can help us tackle larger challenges.</p>
<p>School gardens are a way of engaging students in experiential learning about their environments, food production and global environmental change. Many teachers, like their students, are keen to bring climate change and sustainability tools and topics into their classrooms. But they’re limited by a lack of financial and administrative support, a lack of preparation for teaching these issues and a lack of clarity on how their efforts fit into highly standardized curricular requirements. </p>
<p>As a result, these efforts are often relegated to extracurricular or optional activities led by a small number of educators <a href="http://nationnews.ca/community/how-chisasibis-school-greenhouse-is-growing-a-healthier-future/">doing it out of their own conviction</a> (not to mention with their own time and money).</p>
<h2>School-Community Garden Institute</h2>
<p>Partnering <a href="https://www.learnquebec.ca/home">with LEARN</a> Québec, we co-host the School-Community Garden Institute. Gatherings bring together teachers, educational support workers, researchers, non-profits and businesses from around Montréal to share knowledge and resources on how to establish and sustain a garden. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334344/original/file-20200512-175235-1l5ly69.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Participants in the School-Community Garden Institute meet to share knowledge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Blane Harvey)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Participants who joined were interested in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SLIHS.IB/posts/our-sli-staff-hard-at-work-making-our-courtyard-and-outdoor-garden-even-more-spe/2314435441946015/">expanding and improving their gardens</a>, their partnerships and deepening knowledge of using gardens for learning and teaching. They wanted to connect with others with similar interests.</p>
<p>The meetings foster mutual learning and collaboration. Participants examine the many dimensions of school-community gardens that must fit together to ensure success: fundraising, community engagement, planting and tending to the garden, planning lessons, developing curriculum and more. </p>
<h2>Peer-to-peer problem solving</h2>
<p>We share <a href="https://www.learnquebec.ca/garden-project#content-367920">examples of what’s going well</a>. In facilitated peer-to-peer problem solving sessions, attendees from quite different contexts bring their collective knowledge to bear on real-world challenges. We host these events at McGill University using <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/garden/">the faculty’s community garden</a> as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1389224X.2014.991115">collective space for knowledge exchange and innovation</a>.</p>
<p>These collaborations have generated much richer understandings of the realities faced by those bringing gardens to life. They’ve also advanced a shared commitment to grow the conversation.</p>
<p>Together we’ve addressed strategic challenges like funding, engaging other teachers and community partners, as well as practical issues like building raised garden beds. Participants’ roles evolve from seasoned expert in one moment to curious learner in another.</p>
<h2>Universities as innovation brokers</h2>
<p>As the case of our garden institute illustrates, Canadian universities enjoy the networks, public trust, infrastructure and convening power needed to facilitate knowledge sharing and to scale up <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01123-z">collective action</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/333801/original/file-20200509-49569-1i4954p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mitchell McLarnon, PhD candidate and project lead of McGill’s community garden, guides participants in planting garlic cloves for the winter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Blane Harvey)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our work seeks to promote a model where universities serve as community meeting places that bring together diverse sources of knowledge and experience to catalyze collective action — as “<a href="https://cies2020.org/wp-content/uploads/Harvey-Chestnutt-Essa-_Transdisciplinary-collaboration-on-sustainability-challenges_.pdf">innovation brokers</a>.”</p>
<p>Innovation brokers create and influence contexts to facilitate mutual learning and innovation. They strive to connect like-minded partners, stimulate out-of-the-box thinking and encourage mutual learning and knowledge exchange among people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to work together.</p>
<h2>Re-thinking how universities work</h2>
<p>For universities to become innovation brokers in significant ways, however, we must rethink how universities work. Universities will need to move from being the main architects of innovation to being brokers of diverse knowledge. </p>
<p>Policy-makers, administrators and researchers will need to tackle what are now barriers and disincentives to more diverse, interdisciplinary and engaged forms of research. Such barriers are now embedded in how universities recruit, fund and promote people. For instance, many universities still tend to discount the value of contributing to projects led by community partners. And some fields assign higher status to sole-authored research than to collaboratively written publications.</p>
<p>These changes will also mean, crucially, educating future scholars in new <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2019.1624495">ways of thinking about the role of science and the university in society</a> .</p>
<p>The seeds of change found in small projects can show us the shape that future systems might take, but the task of transforming the relationships, values and incentives that define success in academia still remains. Much work is still needed for universities, schools and communities to work together to grow our sustainable futures.</p>
<p><em>The authors would like to acknowledge community partner Ben Loomer at LEARN for the important contributions he has made to the initiatives described above.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blane Harvey acknowledges the financial support of Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Diane Sprowls receives a doctoral fellowship from FRQSC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang previously hold a scholarship from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (FRQSC).</span></em></p>Picture this change: Through collaborative garden networks, teachers, schools, children, community partners and universities inspire real learning and transformation for a more sustainable world.Blane Harvey, Assistant professor, Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University, McGill UniversityEmily Diane Sprowls, PhD Student, Faculty of Education, McGill UniversityYing-Syuan (Elaine) Huang, Associate research scientist, Faculty of Education, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/973582019-08-27T21:22:57Z2019-08-27T21:22:57ZDiversity is indispensable to excellence: The Canada Research Chairs program<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289527/original/file-20190826-8856-162zvhb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The historic joint spacewalk of two female astronauts outside the International Space Station was thwarted because the station did not have space suits that fit both women.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this year, NASA’s plan to conduct a historic joint spacewalk of two female astronauts outside the International Space Station was thwarted because the station <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/science/female-spacewalk-canceled.html">did not have space suits that fit both women</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps this is not surprising given the story told in the <a href="https://oscar.go.com/news/oscar-history">Oscar-nominated film <em>Hidden Figures</em></a>. Three brilliant Black female mathematicians who had worked in racially segregated unit at NASA were the brains behind the computations that helped make <a href="https://www.biography.com/astronaut/john-glenn">John Glenn the first American to orbit the earth</a>. Yet, until recently, their contributions went unrecognized. The film was a reminder that renowned scientific organizations can display gender and race biases.</p>
<p>There have been other hard lessons about what happens when scholars ignore diversity in the composition of research teams and in their research approach. </p>
<p>When the Apple Health app was first released in 2014 <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/13/18079458/menstrual-tracking-surveillance-glow-clue-apple-health">it failed to include</a> a health metric that 50 per cent of the population monitors: menstruation. </p>
<p>Databases used to study the genetics of disease largely made up of samples of people with European ancestry <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/22/752890414/lack-of-diversity-in-genetic-databases-hampers-research">hamper the research and endanger</a> the health care of those outside the database.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/07/car-accident-injury-safety-women-dummy-seatbelt/594049/">Crash test dummies</a> geared to men’s bodies have meant that women and children involved in collisions are nearly 50 per cent more likely to be seriously hurt. </p>
<p>Speech recognition software, trained with a narrow range of American male voices, led to <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/05/voice-recognition-still-has-significant-race-and-gender-biases">products that struggle to recognize female voices and a diversity of accents</a>. </p>
<p>Products that use <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2019/04/08/523153.htm">facial recognition</a> software, such as online gaming consoles, web cam technology and even automatic <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4800234/Is-soap-dispenser-RACIST.html">soap dispensers</a>, have had difficulties recognizing <a href="http://news.mit.edu/2018/study-finds-gender-skin-type-bias-artificial-intelligence-systems-0212">dark skin tones</a>. </p>
<p>Besides the evidence of these errors, there is an ever-growing <a href="https://www.catalyst.org/research/why-diversity-and-inclusion-matter/">body of research</a> to show that diversity and inclusion amplifies excellence and, indeed, fuels creativity and innovation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289689/original/file-20190827-184248-llz9tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289689/original/file-20190827-184248-llz9tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289689/original/file-20190827-184248-llz9tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289689/original/file-20190827-184248-llz9tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289689/original/file-20190827-184248-llz9tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289689/original/file-20190827-184248-llz9tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289689/original/file-20190827-184248-llz9tz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Funds for the Canada Research Chair program help to train the next generation of researchers. Here David Barber, professor at University of Manitoba, Canada Research chair in Arctic System Science and chief scientist on board the Canada research vessel Amundsen interacts with students (from left) David Capelle, post-doctoral student at U of MB, Kate Yazhova, undergrad at the U of MB, and Mohamed Ahmed, PhD student from the University of Calgary as they dismantle a meteorological tower on board the Amundsen in Churchill, Manitoba, July 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite all this evidence, there are <a href="http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20190807.ellipsis_K335OYBATFAHLMCPI2LJLJPCSE/BNStory/Other/margaretWente">some who continue to assert</a> that diversity is in conflict with excellence. They insinuate that some individuals, by virtue of belonging to a particular social group, have less merit. </p>
<p>This attitude and opinion meet the standard definition of a negative stereotype. This stereotype generates and reinforces diversity-as-deficit thinking. </p>
<p>Far from promoting the <a href="https://steemit.com/education/@cupidzero/meritocracy-is-dead-diversity-and-privilege-in-higher-education">death of meritocracy</a> as some critics have suggested, the diversity-as-deficit stereotype promotes an exclusive <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/19/the-myth-of-meritocracy-who-really-gets-what-they-deserve">myth of meritocracy</a>. Diversity and inclusion practices ensure that systemic barriers, stereotypes and stigmas do not block the breadth of research talent contributing to the advancement of knowledge. </p>
<h2>Smarter, fewer biases and better decisions</h2>
<p>The diversity of a team can help drive and shape research questions, methods and perspectives. <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/09/diverse-teams-feel-less-comfortable-and-thats-why-they-perform-better">Diverse teams</a> tend to be smarter, demonstrate fewer biases and errors, make better decisions and generate research with greater impact. </p>
<p>For example, laboratory experiments have shown that compared to all-white juries, <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/news-blog/the-all-white-jury-v-the-diverse-ev/">diverse juries</a> take more time to process the evidence and facts and engage in better deliberations. </p>
<p>But unequal opportunity structures in Canada’s research ecosystem, and academia more broadly, can limit the diversity of talent cultivation, identification, nomination, selection and appointment to coveted positions. </p>
<p>Equity remains vital to ensuring recognition of the talents of women, Indigenous peoples, visible minorities, persons with disabilities and LGBTQ. As Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella made clear in her <a href="https://www.crrf-fcrr.ca/images/stories/Equality_in_Employment.pdf">1984 final report for the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The obstacles in their way are so formidable and self-perpetuating that they cannot be overcome without intervention. It is both intolerable and insensitive if we simply wait and hope that the barriers will disappear with time.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Research has demonstrated that systemic barriers and unconscious biases can prevent some scholars, with stellar curriculum vitae and demonstrated research excellence, from <a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/one-way-to-fight-for-equity-in-science-nominate-more-minorities-for-big-prizes">being nominated</a> for prestigious research prizes and awards. </p>
<p>It is within this unequal context that <a href="http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/home-accueil-eng.aspx">the Canada Research Chairs</a> were created in 2000 to attract and retain some of the world’s most accomplished and promising minds. The program invests $295 million dollars annually for up to 2,285 researcher chair awards across Canada. The fund supports national and international collaborations and undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral training — the next generation of researchers. </p>
<h2>Challenges to the Chair program</h2>
<p>Despite significant successes, the Canada Research Chairs program has faced longstanding challenges on how equitably the chair positions are filled. In 2003, <a href="https://www2.unb.ca/parl/CRC_index.htm">human rights complaints</a> were launched by eight academic women.</p>
<p>Those eight women identified inequities that resulted in a 2006 Canadian Human Rights Settlement. Due to a lack of progress in addressing inequities, the terms of the settlement were updated by a <a href="http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/program-programme/equity-equite/2019_addendum-eng.aspx">2019 Addendum</a>. </p>
<p>As the chart below demonstrates, representation started to improve in 2017, when participating institutions began implementing equity and diversity action plans. This sharp increase over a short period directly counters the “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2018/12/18/5-reasons-why-the-pipeline-problem-is-just-a-myth/#4cbbca227ac0">pipeline argument</a>” that there is a lack of qualified candidates. This is a standard argument sometimes used to justify a lack of diversity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289686/original/file-20190827-184207-tuokqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Representation in the Canada Research Chairs Program, 2009-2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Malinda Smith</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the next years, the <a href="http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/program-programme/equity-equite/best_practices-pratiques_examplaires-eng.aspx">best practice measures</a> reinforced by the 2019 Addendum will enable a proactive approach to increasing the representational targets by 2029 and addressing blocked opportunity structures that impede the equitable participation of researchers from diverse backgrounds. </p>
<p>The program will stress diversity in both the junior and senior Canada Research Chairs. It will reinforce the importance of collecting disaggregated demographic data, monitoring participation and increasing transparency and accountability. Most data is presented in an aggregated manner, for example, “women” does not help us understand the status of Indigenous or racialized or women who are LGBTQ. </p>
<p>Similarly, “visible minorities” aggregates data for 10 different demographic groups, for example, South Asian, Chinese, Black and Filipino. It is more useful to have disaggregated data to better enable addressing specific needs.</p>
<p>Therefore, using an <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-intersectionality-all-of-who-i-am-105639">intersectional lens</a>, it will tackle disadvantages faced by the most marginalized scholars who are, for example, racialized and Indigenous women, and those with visible and invisible disabilities. For the first time, the program will monitor the participation of researchers from the LGBTQ community. </p>
<p>We have learned that stereotypes and stigma make it difficult for persons with disabilities to self-identify within their institutions and the program. Consequently, the program will consult directly with scholars with disabilities to better address the obstacles they face. Given that the current allocation of chairs to institutions does not respond to the geographical distribution of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples, nor to their distinctive research needs, the program will address any gaps through direct engagement with Indigenous communities.</p>
<p>When proactive measures are taken to identify and remove systemic barriers and biases and to increase accountability, more diverse cohorts of excellent researchers are nominated to the program. The bottom line is there is no antagonism between diversity and excellence. To the contrary, diversity is indispensable to excellence in research and innovation. </p>
<p><em>Dominique Bérubé, Vice-President Research Programs at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Marie-Lynne Boudreau, Deputy Director, Policy, Performance, Equity and Diversity at the Tri-Agency Institutional Programs Secretariat co-authored this article.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Malinda S. Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite the hard evidence of the excellent benefits of gender, racial and other diversity on research teams, public criticism on the benefits of equity and diversity programs still exists.Malinda S. Smith, Professor of Political Science, University of AlbertaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1186082019-07-17T19:49:50Z2019-07-17T19:49:50ZDependent and vulnerable: the experiences of academics on casual and insecure contracts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284419/original/file-20190717-173325-5777x7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Academics in precarious employment struggle to feel a strong sense of self.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/ewGMqs2tmJI">Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/starvation-wages-majority-of-victorian-university-workers-in-casual-teaching-trap-20190501-p51j1y.html?_ga=2.212777556.1730763659.1563165940-1590352956.1491349426">majority</a> of academic staff at some of Australia’s top universities work in casual or fixed-term positions. This <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1017621.pdf">reflects a trend</a> towards casualisation in academia, and other industries, in <a href="https://theconversation.com/casual-academics-arent-going-anywhere-so-what-can-universities-do-to-ensure-learning-isnt-affected-113567">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.union.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NZCTU-Submission-on-New-Models-of-Tertiary-Education-2016-.pdf">New Zealand</a>. </p>
<p>Fixed-term employment is also a form of precarious employment. This is usually when the <a href="https://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/2564262/2016-contingent-academic-employment-in-australian-universities-updatedapr16.pdf">university employs</a> research staff working on externally funded projects only for the extent of the project. So, in effect, the research funds the academic’s employment (from a research grant) while enhancing the reputation of the university. </p>
<p>Precarious employment particularly affects young academics. In some Australian universities, more than <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/casualisation-of-university-workforce-is-a-national-disgrace-20180803-p4zvcm.html">80% of staff under the age of 30</a> are insecurely employed. This insecurity significantly restrains their <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/house-children-pets-on-hold-as-universities-exploit-staff-20190521-p51pk1.html">lifestyle options</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/casual-academics-arent-going-anywhere-so-what-can-universities-do-to-ensure-learning-isnt-affected-113567">Casual academics aren't going anywhere, so what can universities do to ensure learning isn't affected?</a>
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<p>For my PhD, submitted in 2017, <a href="https://monash.figshare.com/articles/Being_becoming_an_academic_Spatio-temporal_experiences_of_precarious_employment_and_wellbeing/4796608">I explored the experiences</a> and well-being of young academics in precarious work. I interviewed ten young academics employed at Monash University in Melbourne on three occasions over a year. </p>
<p>Participants had been employed by Monash for between five weeks and six years at the time of the first interview (the average was two years). The average age of participants was 27.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1025935132740308993"}"></div></p>
<p>My research found participants on casual contracts felt vulnerable and of lower status than “permanent” staff members. They sometimes minimised instances of exploitation as part of an authentic academic experience.</p>
<h2>You’re on your own</h2>
<p>Formal induction programs, professional mentoring or performance review processes were often reserved for “permanent” staff. Academics in precarious employment made sense of what it means to be an academic, as well as gained knowledge about workplace norms and expectations, informally.</p>
<p>Participants said they gleaned information from chats with colleagues and supervisors, listening to presentations, reading emails, seeing media coverage of academic employment issues, as well as observing normative social practices in the workplace. </p>
<p>Positioned as early career researchers (ECRs), participants often sought solace from others like them. One ECR told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] talking to my friends and people in the ECR group, it is that communal moaning kind of thing, which is cathartic and helpful in that respect. But it is not going anywhere, we are all complaining about the same things we face, we just complain about it because we have got to tell it to someone who can understand […]</p>
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<p>Tenured academics may be sympathetic to their precarious position but, according to the stories I heard, they weren’t necessarily helpful. </p>
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<p>Will* described when tenured staff members would compare their position to his in a way that highlighted his situation.</p>
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<p>Well <strong>my</strong> position’s secure and thank goodness <strong>I’m</strong> not on a fixed-term contract because that’d worry <strong>me</strong> […] <strong>you’re</strong> new so <strong>you</strong> have to get good evaluations because <strong>your</strong> probation is in a year and a half and <strong>you</strong> need to achieve that to be able to stay here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Will found this type of interaction distressing as the communication style distanced himself (an insecure worker) from others (tenured workers). </p>
<p>Research participants were constantly reminded they did not have the status or privileges of permanent employment.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/higher-education-cuts-will-be-felt-in-the-classroom-not-the-lab-86400">Higher education cuts will be felt in the classroom, not the lab</a>
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<p>For instance, Logan described how, despite having his PhD and being employed full-time by the university, he still spent most of his time “hanging out with the PhD students” because his desk was positioned in an open-plan space with them. </p>
<h2>Defending exploitation</h2>
<p>There was a sense among participants of constantly trying to impress their supervisors. This came from knowing their future employment depended on the approval of the university and people in it. </p>
<p>Participants had a somewhat defensive attitude towards their exploitation. For instance, Mike said he worked on average an extra one unpaid day per week, which caused him stress and pressure. But, straight after saying this, he added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t feel like the organisation is a demanding environment. Like I don’t know what would happen if I did start working less […] </p>
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<p>Mike also minimised the issues associated with feeling insecure and working unpaid hours by saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] there are a couple of funny things about how they (the university) handle contracts and staff and stuff. </p>
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<p>Mike’s comment painted questionable employment practices, and working without pay, as part of the authentic academic experience.</p>
<p>It was difficult for many of the participants to be critical of their working context and the people in it, even if they were working unpaid hours. This was because, as Jasmine said, “I can’t escape work because that is my entire world, basically.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1116708252853497856"}"></div></p>
<p>Although casual academics are on temporary contracts, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07294360.2018.1545749">some have been working for universities longer</a> than their colleagues on continuing contracts.</p>
<p>Max told me he felt emotionally attached to the university:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have just been here a long time. I studied here, I lived on campus here for two years, I was involved in a lot of student things when I was a student. I have seen the campus physically change a lot […] I can definitely see how much I have changed since I got to Monash. So it feels like I am a part of Monash or Monash is a part of me […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others felt more pragmatically tied to the institution, noting it was arduous changing employment. Ruby said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I went to another institution I have to learn it (the systems and policies) all over again.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Constantly anxious</h2>
<p>My research found the insecure nature of the participants’ work interfered with their sense of identity, personal security, feelings of trust and self-confidence. Such feelings, which come from a constant state of flux, are encompassed in a term coined by British sociologist Anthony Giddens in 1991: “ontological security”.</p>
<p>In his book exploring the effects of modernity on social psychology, he referred to <a href="http://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/The-Consequences-of-Modernity-by-Anthony-Giddens.pdf">ontological security as</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity and in the constancy of the surrounding social and material environments of action. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ontological security is linked to identity as it refers to feelings of security, trust, sense of familiarity, and the reliability of interactions across time and space.</p>
<p>The participants in my research had a threatened sense of well-being. As precarious workers, they felt vulnerable, dependent and of a lower status. Feeling continually at risk of being excluded from the university made them anxious and caused high levels of stress.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-three-things-universities-must-do-to-survive-disruption-117970">The three things universities must do to survive disruption</a>
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<p>Will mentioned the word “probation” 25 times during his first interview. And Mike said the university could “get rid of people” by simply not offering them another contract.</p>
<p>But the participants also felt their precarious employment could help increase their sense of identity because it could lead to more (possibly permanent) employment. </p>
<p>In many instances, participants wanted information on how to develop their careers, forge ongoing working relationships, contribute to the academic community and gain the respect of their colleagues and supervisors.</p>
<p>Universities must consider the well-being of their workers, particularly those on precarious contracts, as well as the influence of tenured staff on their experience.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Participant names are pseudonyms.</em></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Bone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Academics on casual contracts often feel vulnerable and of lower status than “permanent” staff members. They can minimise their exploitation as if it’s part of the authentic academic experience.Kate Bone, Lecturer, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1044772018-10-09T21:44:19Z2018-10-09T21:44:19ZHow we can turn the tide for women in science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239421/original/file-20181004-52678-bpkqoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women are still typically the minority on academic hiring committees in science, and “majority rules.”</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the first time in 55 years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-im-not-surprised-nobel-laureate-donna-strickland-isnt-a-full-professor-104459">a woman has won the Nobel Prize in physics</a> — Prof. Donna Strickland. This win has publicly highlighted that <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nobel-prize-physics-awarded-woman-first-time-55-years-180970451/">women are still under-represented in science, particularly in physics</a>. </p>
<p>As a woman in physics, this lack of diversity is something that I encounter almost daily, and also something that we can take action to change.</p>
<p>As an undergraduate science student, I was confronted with the lack of women in science at the <a href="https://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/">National Research Council (NRC) of Canada</a> in 2001. The first day of my summer job in NRC’s now-defunct “Women in Engineering and Science” program, I was shocked looking around the lunchroom. Where were the women? The vast majority of scientists were men! </p>
<p>The situation was similar in my university studies — I only ever had two female professors.</p>
<p>That lack of diversity was something I grew accustomed to. A resident at <a href="https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca">Perimeter Institute</a> for my PhD studies, I was often the only woman in the room at scientific meetings or seminars. My office was shared with four male students, and there were some jokes that I had been assigned “the secretary’s desk” and remarks about the colour of my T-shirt. </p>
<p>I was the only woman in the room for my PhD defence at the University of Waterloo in 2007.</p>
<h2>Lack of female keynote speakers</h2>
<p>When I became a faculty member in 2010, I was thrilled to be one of four women physics professors — more than 20 per cent of physics faculty at Carleton University. </p>
<p>This bucked the trend among physics faculty members at many universities (and this continues, as we now have five women physics professors at Carleton). But as I started teaching, the lack of gender diversity among undergraduate physics students was striking: a class of 50 students with only three women, another with no women, in my first year of teaching. </p>
<p>As a researcher, the lack of women as invited and keynote speakers at scientific conferences continues to be discouraging. </p>
<p>There are certainly women giving excellent conference presentations, but they are too often overlooked when it comes to invited and keynote speakers lists. An invited or keynote speaker entry on a CV indicates respect and recognition of excellence; omission of women hinders their careers.</p>
<p>As a member of hiring committees within my university, I’ve witnessed some colleagues’ lack of understanding of issues related to gender diversity in science. </p>
<p>The philosophy of “we’ll just hire the best candidate” ignores the fact that measures of the “best” candidate are highly subjective, and often plagued with personal (sometimes unconscious) biases. Fewer women in physics and science departments results in women as the minority on hiring committees.</p>
<h2>Juggling science and motherhood</h2>
<p>Not all women in physics are mothers, but motherhood opened my eyes to the many challenges at the heart of juggling family and physics. Sleep deprivation, family responsibilities and parenting are all in competition with travelling to international meetings, completing research papers and supervising students, plus preparing and delivering lectures. </p>
<p>Submitting research grant applications after my maternity leave, I wondered: Did the male-majority grant panels really comprehend the challenges in building my physics career while being a mother?</p>
<p>After Prof. Strickland’s Nobel Prize win announcement this week, a respected scientist remarked his surprise that another world-class, renowned male optics expert had been overlooked “maybe because he was not a woman.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239422/original/file-20181004-52684-gngpje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/239422/original/file-20181004-52684-gngpje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239422/original/file-20181004-52684-gngpje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239422/original/file-20181004-52684-gngpje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239422/original/file-20181004-52684-gngpje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239422/original/file-20181004-52684-gngpje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/239422/original/file-20181004-52684-gngpje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Donna Strickland is among three physicists who were awarded the Nobel Prize for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a physicist, I have had many opportunities, and have received much support from men and women scientists alike. I have a rewarding career. But my anecdotes illustrate that, despite efforts to increase involvement of women in physics, systematic issues remain.</p>
<p>With Prof. Strickland’s win, the issue of gender diversity in physics has been brought to the fore. There is an opportunity for action.</p>
<h2>We need outreach and policy</h2>
<p>We must work to raise awareness of unconscious biases and (sometimes hidden) barriers that hinder the careers of women scientists, <a href="http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/program-programme/equity-equite/bias/module-eng.aspx?pedisable=false">building on recent training modules by the Canada Research Chairs Secretariat and other organizations</a>. </p>
<p>Scientists should undergo training to increase their awareness of barriers facing different minorities, including women, towards developing more inclusive scientific endeavours.</p>
<p>Canada’s science policy leaders should develop best practices that are publicized, encouraged or even required by scientific institutions and universities. </p>
<p>As a start, we need clear guidelines towards achieving gender balance and diversity at scientific meetings. Some international conferences are now <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/editors-update/story/publishing-trends/why-gender-balance-at-conferences-should-become-the-new-normal">actively promoting diversity for their meetings, with success</a>. </p>
<p>Diversity at scientific meetings aids in mentoring and retention of young women scientists through networking and role models. It enhances researcher career progression and advances research through diverse collaborations.</p>
<p>We must support outreach efforts that show great possibilities for careers in science for women and other minorities. With time, this will change biases that may be developed at a young age. It will show girls and students that they can play important roles in non-traditional fields.</p>
<p>Strickland’s Nobel Prize win can serve as a celebration of her great contributions, and a celebration of women in physics and science. It is also a call to action, as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1700616114">gender diversity leads to better science.</a>”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104477/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rowan Thomson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The award of a Nobel Prize in physics to Donna Strickland is an opportunity to build support for women in science, says one female physics professor.Rowan Thomson, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor of Physics, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959842018-05-07T10:42:16Z2018-05-07T10:42:16ZDon’t expect professors to get fired when they say something you don’t like<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217571/original/file-20180503-153881-4d8zcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Public university professors enjoy great protections when it comes to free speech.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/communication-concept-person-open-mouth-voicing-374868469?src=8ylNhbr0qCrh4nAFSAtcgg-2-14">Lightspring/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A college professor lashes out on social media with a caustic political opinion. Online commentators explode with outrage and demand firings. </p>
<p>Does the university stand behind the instructor and accept a reputational beating? It depends both on the law and the fortitude of campus administrators. </p>
<p>Fresno State University’s Randa Jarrar is the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-fresno-professor-barbara-bush-20180424-story.html">latest</a> to incite condemnation with her stream of celebratory Twitter posts marking the April 17 passing of Barbara Bush. Jarrar denounced the former first lady as a “witch” and an “amazing racist.” For good measure, the English professor taunted her critics by boasting that tenure protected her from being fired.</p>
<p>Jarrar’s situation isn’t uncommon. Professors from <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/23/u-kansas-professor-suspended-after-anti-nra-tweet">Kansas</a> to <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/27/trinity-college-connecticut-puts-johnny-eric-williams-leave-over-controversial">Connecticut</a> have provoked online outcry with incendiary posts about touchy social or political topics. </p>
<p>What’s noteworthy is that Jarrar has toughed out the criticism and remained on the job. Social media firestorms often end professors’ careers.</p>
<p>Last year, a Drexel University political scientist <a href="http://www.phillyvoice.com/controversial-professor-resigns-drexel-university/">resigned</a> after a flippant tweet that stated all he wanted for Christmas was “white genocide.” The tweet followed other comments in which the professor expressed disgust with the military and called white people “inhuman” for mistreating minorities. </p>
<p>Around the same time, a visiting professor at the University of Tampa <a href="http://wlrn.org/post/university-tampa-professor-fired-over-hurricane-tweet">lost his job</a> after tweeting that Hurricane Harvey, which killed more than 100 people, was payback for Texas’ support of Republicans.</p>
<p>One difference is that, unlike Drexel or Tampa, Fresno State is a public university. And at public universities, the First Amendment limits the ability of supervisors to penalize distasteful speech.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gJRByGQAAAAJ&hl=en">researchers</a> with the University of Florida’s Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, we’ve spent months digging into the rights of public employees when they speak with the news media. While Jarrar was publishing directly and not through a journalistic intermediary, the same constitutional principles protect her speech and that of all state employees – within limits.</p>
<h2>The workplace and the First Amendment</h2>
<p>It’s well-established by decades of case law that the First Amendment prevents government agencies – including states that run many universities and community colleges – from restricting the content of citizens’ speech, or punishing them after the fact for what they say. When a private employer, including a private college, fires someone over a social media post, there’s no constitutional violation.</p>
<p>At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the government has valid interests in being able to provide services efficiently. As a result, employee speech that interferes with workplace harmony can be restricted or even penalized with a firing.</p>
<p>So is a professor at a state-run college more of a citizen – or more of an employee?</p>
<p>In a 2006 case, <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/547/410.html">the Supreme Court upheld disciplinary action</a> against a government employee who wrote a memo undermining his supervisor, a California prosecutor. The justices said employees give up their First Amendment protection when they speak “pursuant to official duties.”</p>
<p>But more recently, the Supreme Court backpedaled. In 2014, the justices unanimously <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/supreme-court-rules-public-employees-are-protected-from-retaliation-for-testimony/2014/06/19/cd9df368-f7bf-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html?utm_term=.075b5b512d1e">overturned</a> the firing of an Alabama community college employee who blew the whistle on misspending at his state agency. Speech doesn’t lose protection, the court ruled, just because it is about information learned on the job.</p>
<p>The First Amendment especially applies to comments about prominent political figures and political issues. To the relief of bloggers and talk show hosts everywhere, speech <a href="https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/06/mark">does not lose protection</a> merely because it is insulting or mean-spirited. So even uncivil name-calling about the Bush family is difficult for a state agency to restrict. </p>
<p>If Jarrar was tweeting as part of her job duties, she’d have no First Amendment protection; the speech would belong to her employer. But political commentary is probably beyond the job description for an English literature professor. So her tweets are entitled to at least some constitutional protection.</p>
<p>And the First Amendment may apply even more forcefully when the speaker is a college instructor.</p>
<h2>Do professors represent a ‘special’ class?</h2>
<p>Outside of higher education, it’s become <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/officers-fired-for-anti-black-lives-matter-social-media">common</a> to see public employees fired for caustic social media posts. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/12/07/143264921/friendly-advice-for-teachers-beware-of-facebook">Teachers</a>, <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article23616994.html">principals</a>, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/27/officer-racist-tweets-ape_n_7453458.html">police officers</a> and <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article89619567.html">firefighters</a> have all lost their jobs for thoughtless excesses – whether real or perceived – on Facebook or Twitter. </p>
<p>Even for employees of state or local government, legal challenges often fail. Employers can prevail by producing enough complaints to show that the speech upset workplace morale or undermined public trust. </p>
<p>But in higher education, academic freedom is a cherished value. The term refers to the latitude that college educators are given to explore provocative ideas in the classroom, even unorthodox ones.</p>
<p>In cases brought by professors in <a href="http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2011/04/appeals-court-delivers-favorable-affirmation-of-college-faculty-free-expression-rights">North Carolina</a> and <a href="http://www.splc.org/blog/splc/2013/09/ninth-circuit-latest-to-exempt-publicly-employed-teachers-from-garcetti-speech-restrictions">Washington</a>, federal courts have given greater free speech protection to college faculty than ordinary government employees would enjoy.</p>
<p>Stephen Salaita, a professor of American Indian studies, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/U-of-Illinois-Settles-the/234187">obtained an US$875,000 settlement</a> in a lawsuit against the University of Illinois, when his job offer was withdrawn following outrage over his Twitter posts criticizing Israel. Salaita’s case shows how limited a public university’s options are in responding to indecorous speech by faculty members, particularly posts made on personal time about political concerns. </p>
<h2>Tweet and counter-tweet</h2>
<p>Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis <a href="http://firstamendmentwatch.org/2018/01/27/history-speaks-brandeis-concurring-holmes-whitney-v-california-1927/">famously wrote</a> in 1927 that the proper response to “evil” speech is “more speech,” not suppression or punishment. Like all government executives, college presidents can freely voice disapproval of obnoxious speech to distance their institutions from it.</p>
<p>That’s just what Fresno State President Joseph I. Castro did. In informing the public that Jarrar wouldn’t be disciplined for her off-duty tweets, Castro <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/fresno-state-randa-jarrar-barbara-bush-twitter-amazing-racist-war-criminal-891194">disavowed</a> the speech as “contrary to the core values of our University.” Castro is also holding two <a href="http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/education/article210186154.html">forums</a> to air public sentiments about the Jarrar controversy. </p>
<p>The Supreme Court has <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15934266528750676067&q=keyishian&hl=en&as_sdt=40006">described</a> college campuses as a “marketplace for ideas,” and the marketplace has largely <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-calpoly-racism-20180501-story.html">disdained</a> Jarrar’s choice of words. </p>
<p>Social media speech is easily avoided, and remarks like Jarrar’s quickly dissipate if ignored. If the marketplace greets the next professorial online rant with a yawn and a click of the “unfollow” button, then the message will fail to find an audience – and the market will have spoken.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95984/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite calls for their ouster, public university professors who utter offensive things enjoy free speech protection. But a scholar argues for another way to respond to what those professors say.Frank LoMonte, Director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, University of FloridaDavid Jadon, Law ClerkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/872342017-11-12T23:05:35Z2017-11-12T23:05:35ZGender parity and queer awareness needed in mathematics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194046/original/file-20171109-13351-1xy0l29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hidden Figures, the movie, showcased the importance of Black women in mathematics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Twentieth Century Fox)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Equity, diversity and inclusion — EDI — is a trending concept these days. Many institutions now have policies, initiatives and even vice-presidents devoted to EDI — including my own institution, Ryerson University. There is much discussion about how EDI affects productivity and innovation. </p>
<p>Recently, EDI in mathematics was brought to the public discourse. Last month I sat on a panel for EDI in Mathematics at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. Also, Ryerson Science and the Canadian Science Policy Centre recently released the report: <em><a href="http://www.ryerson.ca/content/dam/edistem/resources/edi_report_ryersonFOS.pdf">Forging Paths to Enhanced Innovation</a></em> which I highly recommend you read. </p>
<p>We, unfortunately, have an EDI crisis within mathematics. For example, the average Canadian mathematics department has on average fewer than one-fifth female professors. There are only a handful of gay, bisexual or lesbian mathematics professors in Canada that I know. My own department has only three women faculty out of 21 tenured or tenure-track professors: Our percentage of women math faculty members is only 14 per cent.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194035/original/file-20171109-13292-1s3xtu9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194035/original/file-20171109-13292-1s3xtu9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194035/original/file-20171109-13292-1s3xtu9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194035/original/file-20171109-13292-1s3xtu9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=287&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194035/original/file-20171109-13292-1s3xtu9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194035/original/file-20171109-13292-1s3xtu9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194035/original/file-20171109-13292-1s3xtu9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A visualization created by the 10 and 3 on mathematics departments in Canada’s universities (2015).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">http://www.the10and3.com/where-are-the-women-professors-in-canadas-math-and-science-departments/</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’m a gay mathematician. I’ve faced challenges in my journey to full professor of mathematics and I talk about these challenges when I can. I am hoping to inspire others to do the same.</p>
<p>Up until now, I’ve found the silence on EDI in mathematics, especially on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans issues, deafening. I had no role models or advocates as I progressed in my academic career. No one talked about EDI in mathematics departments and few professors or students were public about their identities. There are, however, a few <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1072230979913">vocal advocates for EDI right now, like Dean Imogen Coe at Ryerson</a>. That makes me think we are on the right track.</p>
<h2>The landscape in context</h2>
<p>To better understand why there are so few LGBTQI2S voices in mathematics, I gathered together some statistics that might shed light. First, to make a broader point, I start with some shocking statistics related to gay youth.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://egale.ca/backgrounder-lgbtq-youth-suicide/">Egale, a LGBTQI2S advocacy non-profit</a>, about one-third of LGBTQI2S teens have attempted suicide, compared to seven per cent of youth in the general population. About half of LGBTQI2S teens have considered suicide, and 19 per cent of trans youth had attempted suicide in the previous year. Almost 70 per cent of trans youth reported verbal harassment over their gender identity, and about half of LGBTQI2S teens were harassed over their sexual orientation. One in five LGBTQI2S adolescents were physically assaulted.</p>
<p>Out of 195 countries in the world, homosexuality is criminalized in 72 of them. That’s 38 per cent. Same-sex marriage is a good indicator of a positive environment for LGBTQI2S folks, but only 23 countries (that’s seven per cent) have legalized same-sex marriage. We are all waiting to see the results of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-doesnt-need-a-plebiscite-on-same-sex-marriage-irelands-experience-shows-why-61499">Australian same-sex marriage referendum</a> this week.</p>
<p>One of my undergraduate professors said that mathematics is a byproduct of luxury in a society. People will not do mathematics if they are struggling with other more basic issues like personal safety or acceptance.</p>
<p>It’s tough to encourage youth to study calculus when they are getting beat up for being who they really are. When your government criminalizes your identity, it makes it that much harder to think about number theory.</p>
<p>There are no surveys that I am aware of specifically regarding LGBTQI2S folk in mathematics. None, and it’s 2017. There is only one relevant survey: <a href="http://www.queerstem.org/">Queer in STEM</a>, which was a U.S. national survey, published last year in the <em>Journal of Homosexuality</em> and written about last year in <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/07/queer-stem-anybody/">Wired magazine</a>. </p>
<p>The survey had 1,400 responses to a 58-page questionnaire and we may glean some interesting things from it. A majority of participants (57 per cent) were out to their colleagues, which is slightly higher than the U.S. workforce at 47 per cent. That’s positive news. </p>
<p>Also, when there was better gender parity in an academic department, participants reported a higher degree of openness. So better EDI in your STEM workplace makes LGBTQI2S folks more open. When there was a higher degree of openness, participants reported a safer and more welcoming environment.</p>
<h2>Changing the culture</h2>
<p>There are a number of measures we can take to support EDI. </p>
<p>We need an articulated strategy to achieve gender parity in mathematics departments in the not-so-distant future. To do this, we need to pay special attention to academic hiring, which has a lasting impact on departments owing to the long-term nature of tenure. The process — the way in which we do this outreach and hiring - is incredibly important, as are the outcomes for greater diversity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194047/original/file-20171109-13296-8m3ioi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194047/original/file-20171109-13296-8m3ioi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194047/original/file-20171109-13296-8m3ioi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194047/original/file-20171109-13296-8m3ioi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194047/original/file-20171109-13296-8m3ioi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194047/original/file-20171109-13296-8m3ioi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194047/original/file-20171109-13296-8m3ioi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>There must be greater attention to EDI in senior roles such as mathematics department chairs. I did a stint as department chair and encourage my colleagues, especially my women colleagues, to do the same. We also need to see greater diversity in all levels of university administration and in the leadership in professional societies.</p>
<p>There should greater emphasis on EDI in endowed research chairs. Given the poor track record of universities nominating women for Canada Research Chairs, <a href="http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/media-medias/releases-communiques/2017/equity-equite-eng.aspx">the Government of Canada introduced new measures for greater EDI in these positions</a>. I hope one day there will be endowed chairs in mathematics specifically aimed at LGBTQI2S people. An <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017">Alan Turing</a> Chair has a nice ring to it. The same holds for student scholarships both within and outside the university.</p>
<p>We need to work to make sure our LGBTQI2S know they are not alone. They need to know they are just as capable of progressing successfully in mathematics as their heterosexual or cisgendered counterparts.</p>
<p>Mathematics is a difficult subject regardless the context you are working in and we need as many minds as possible to advance the subject. A proof of the Riemann hypothesis is possibly sitting in some transgendered teens brain as I write this. What an incredible tragedy if that proof never comes to fruition.</p>
<p>There are a small set of groups devoted to queers in STEM. <a href="http://www.lgbtmath.org/">Spectra</a> is one group I know of supporting LGBTQI2S folk in mathematics. Other organizations focus more broadly in STEM, such as <a href="https://lgbtstem.wordpress.com/">LGBT STEM</a>, <a href="http://www.noglstp.org/">National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals</a> and <a href="https://www.ostem.org/">Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics</a>.</p>
<p>Implementing the ideas described in the recent <em>Forging Paths</em> report by Ryerson Science and the Canadian Science Policy Centre, such as changing perceptions and challenging stereotypes within STEM-based professions, would send us in a positive direction.</p>
<p>We have a long way to go, but I am convinced that with collective effort, EDI in mathematics is achievable. We can no longer hide behind claims that mathematics is genderless, racially neutral and independent of LGBTQI2S issues. Mathematics is studied by people, and its application affects people. </p>
<p>Mathematicians need to embrace our diversity as a strength, not as a burden or weakness.</p>
<p>Diversity gives new perspectives and challenges the status quo. Isn’t that what mathematicians actually do for a living? We can and we must do this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87234/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Bonato does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mathematics departments in Canada have a poor record on equity, diversity and inclusivity says a gay mathematics professor. Here he speaks about the hopeful changes he sees coming.Anthony Bonato, Professor of Mathematics, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/621562016-08-26T17:53:15Z2016-08-26T17:53:15ZHow men benefit from family-friendly tenure policies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135652/original/image-20160826-17859-11bqrr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why aren't there as many female tenured professors?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smcgee/523157391/in/photolist-Nejt2-axZjn6-4P1QBZ-6n2QgX-mseiq-esCrt-cP7yiC-6n2HAa-dP7hgm-axZjpD-4QEgRd-cP7wvb-6ntVGX-6nuknv-dmafDR-8xaYJe-8bLAbB-6n6Teo-ayV3Z1-ciiuNJ-eUi5ec-83qnSh-nZNhPS-K59s5-eLgSs-fbwv49-7GR112-eqVTd4-K5iwP-ayV4ib-a7b8p6-4MRJ2Q-8D8FFY-4bKspL-8bLyug-9zUJLj-qEqPQY-eUuo4U-7GUVy9-bU8EZ6-eiXUYS-nosFYK-a7b9Gz-9FFqC4-a7e2pm-nosH4j-8xaXQg-eiifB8-a7b9c6-5dLLkn">Sarah</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Friday, August 26, as we celebrate Women’s Equality Day – a day marking the 96th anniversary of the 19th Amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote – it is a time to reflect both on the progress that has been made on gender equality and on how much work still remains. </p>
<p>As academics, we are well aware that gender gaps continue to exist on American campuses. It is true that <a href="https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/08E023AB-E6D8-4DBD-99A0-24E5EB73A760/0/persistent_inequity.pdf">female students now outnumber</a> male students, and also that more women <a href="https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/08E023AB-E6D8-4DBD-99A0-24E5EB73A760/0/persistent_inequity.pdf">earn professional degrees</a> compared to men. But it is also true that <a href="https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/08E023AB-E6D8-4DBD-99A0-24E5EB73A760/0/persistent_inequity.pdf">only 28 percent of tenured faculty are women</a>. </p>
<p>Tenure represents a permanent job contract. It usually takes about six or seven years of being on tenure track – a probationary period during which a junior professor’s publication record, teaching ability and departmental service are monitored and assessed – to get <a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/recommended-institutional-regulations-academic-freedom-and-tenure">tenure</a>. </p>
<p>In recent years, many research universities have adopted more “family-friendly” tenure rules aimed at helping women balance family and career. Our research shows that despite such policies, gender equality remains elusive in academia when it comes to tenure consideration. Rather, some of these policies are helping men, not women.</p>
<h2>Gender-neutral tenure policies</h2>
<p>For most people, the tenure process occurs during their late 20’s and early 30’s. These years typically align with women’s prime child-bearing years. This can <a href="http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/ucfamilyedge.pdf">hinder</a> women’s research productivity and thus reduce their chances of earning tenure. </p>
<p><a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/goldin/publications/cost-workplace-flexibility-high-powered-professionals">More generally</a>, having children could reduce the probability of being promoted in a variety of professions. Women’s early career productivity could fall due to the time time spent in child bearing and child care. </p>
<p>However, the problem might be particularly acute at research universities where research productivity during the few years before the tenure decision is especially important.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135653/original/image-20160826-17862-1gao9db.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135653/original/image-20160826-17862-1gao9db.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135653/original/image-20160826-17862-1gao9db.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135653/original/image-20160826-17862-1gao9db.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135653/original/image-20160826-17862-1gao9db.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135653/original/image-20160826-17862-1gao9db.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135653/original/image-20160826-17862-1gao9db.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women’s productivity in early years of their careers could fall when they have children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/knightfoundation/6241499925/in/photolist-avxjtF-cABY5J-qruMtV-nMsoCh-nBLskv-HWjDm-cAzCKG-nA1EAw-nkFG8s-7jG1M7-bBuoLx-BtcWbK-cA32XW-oBWZUD-nPpfnp-99EA86-nKzhBS-nv8dyE-nv841T-nKzicu-fkD9vs-51YeRy-5DC5Pt-3ZBn7X-3fLcuZ-bdZ2Gp-8UNGnx-EdBVLh-cABXT3-eXLhdT-dkoCCh-cY4Aru-Fb3bBZ-9ogNcc-9kACiB-fV7DoF-eXLhat-cATuZY-4EKhRe-cWmST5-9wvBEi-gEVDf-aHnhzX-mShaQo-rbYLwF-oVN7Nk-nA1Gn7-nDQxfx-deqRyd-8RTgmx">John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Follow</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In response, during the 1990s and 2000s many research institutions adopted “gender-neutral tenure clock-stopping <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiEteCTqN3OAhUWS2MKHX-ND4sQFggmMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fftp.iza.org%2Fdp9904.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE9JoLz78IGge9gm_Db789HrYGwTg&cad=rja">policies</a>.” These policies were intended to make it easier for women who have children to earn tenure.</p>
<p>The policies are gender-neutral: That is, they allow parents of either gender to avail their benefits. They allow new parents to extend their terms as assistant professors. They stop the tenure clock for one year for each new child, up to a maximum of two. </p>
<p>In other words, new parents get more time before they have to go up for tenure. These policies are independent of leave-taking, meaning that assistant professors can continue to work while gaining the extra time on their tenure clocks. </p>
<p>The idea is to allow new parents to make up for lost research time. And also, so women and men should not need to sacrifice family for career, and vice versa.</p>
<h2>Are these policies equitable?</h2>
<p>We recently conducted a study, “<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiEteCTqN3OAhUWS2MKHX-ND4sQFggmMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fftp.iza.org%2Fdp9904.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE9JoLz78IGge9gm_Db789HrYGwTg&cad=rja">Equal but Inequitable: Who Benefits from Gender-Neutral Tenure Clock Stopping Policies</a>,” on these tenure clock-stopping policies.</p>
<p>Our study focuses on economics professors – a very male-dominated field. A <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=702">2014 survey</a> by the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) shows that in economics, women constitute 30 percent of assistant professors, 23 percent of tenured associate professors and only 12 percent of full professors. </p>
<p>Gender-neutral policies are believed to <a href="http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/ucfamilyedge.pdf">reduce stigma</a> about use by encouraging male participation, at least with regard to economics faculty. We believe one of the primary reasons universities have adopted gender-neutral policies is that there was low take-up under policies that only applied to women. </p>
<p>However, we found no evidence that they have helped women earn tenure.</p>
<p>In fact, we found the policy – designed to help women get tenure – instead raised male tenure rates, at least in top economics departments.</p>
<p>The probability of a man getting tenure in his first job increased by 19 percentage points after such a policy was adopted. By contrast, the probability of a female academic getting tenure fell by 22 percentage points. </p>
<p>We believe male publication rates rise with the extra time, but female publication rates do not.</p>
<p>So, these gender-neutral policies are equal in the sense that they give the same benefit to women and men who have children. But they are inequitable in that the time cost (or productivity loss) experienced by men and women is quite different. </p>
<p>For example, it is women who become pregnant, experience morning sickness, give birth and breastfeed. As such, we believe, giving an equal extension without an equal productivity loss might better be described as unequal. And it is certainly less than clear that it will level the playing field in terms of tenure rates.</p>
<h2>Why there is a need to rethink</h2>
<p>Although our results represent a single discipline, they certainly raise concerns that this could be a problem across a broad range of fields. Female tenure rates are lower across almost all academic <a href="https://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/63396944-44BE-4ABA-9815-5792D93856F1/0/AAUPGenderEquityIndicators2006.pdf">disciplines</a>. In science disciplines, men who have children before tenure are 24 percentage points more likely to earn tenure compared to women with children. And in the humanities and social sciences, men with children are 20 percentage points more likely to earn tenure. </p>
<p>Our results suggest we might want to rethink these policies. One of the arguments in favor of “gender-neutral clock-stopping” policies stems from women having been discouraged – by their male colleagues – from taking advantage of policies that apply to mothers only.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135655/original/image-20160826-17851-m7ghs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135655/original/image-20160826-17851-m7ghs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135655/original/image-20160826-17851-m7ghs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135655/original/image-20160826-17851-m7ghs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135655/original/image-20160826-17851-m7ghs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135655/original/image-20160826-17851-m7ghs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135655/original/image-20160826-17851-m7ghs8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Why extending the same benefits to men and women is not equitable.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/4951115696/in/photolist-8xvLcJ-aWN3aZ-cbJFtQ-dA8x4Q-8xcvWU-oKZPoz-8xaYJe-9J9QEE-8x6Q8w-8xcw7Q-82tgXJ-8xcw4q-qJYS1C-8xzYy8-9TnBXc-8xvLqb-8x6Ftb-nosFYK-8xpnYW-8xcSjn-nosH4j-gZmMB-8xvP1b-taicRH-8x6Kyh-4Tdy2J-8xvPPq-8xvLHQ-qsu5Ym-6pFWBa-sB5Hk4-bU8CDP-9FYmZK-not3Ex-8xsFVv-7EsE7K-8xaXQg-8xsMJF-8xsCdx-esCrt-nyobHw-btmnkf-8x7aBH-4TdxUh-4T9jYP-8xsM8K-8xsJDP-4T9kDg-8xe15Y-4T9krr">Penn State</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our research findings, based in the discipline of economics, do raise the question whether extending equal benefits to men and women is equitable in practice. We also don’t know if these policies had a similar effect in other disciplines with different publication requirements. </p>
<p>While it is easy to instruct the people making tenure decisions to ignore the additional time on the tenure clock, it is not as easy to know how it actually affects their thinking about the tenure case and hence their evaluation. </p>
<h2>Need family-friendly policies</h2>
<p>In theory, gender-neutral policies that attempt to level the playing field by adjusting measures of productivity to account for early child-rearing sound promising. However, as our research shows, such policies could have unintended consequences that actually hurt women.</p>
<p>We believe university administrators need to reopen the discussion on tenure policies, and the extent to which these benefits are extended to men and women. </p>
<p>But universities are not the only places where family-friendly policies may have unintended consequences. Lawyers, financial professionals and doctors are also likely to be promoted based on early measures of success. <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiEteCTqN3OAhUWS2MKHX-ND4sQFggmMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fftp.iza.org%2Fdp9904.pdf&usg=AFQjCNE9JoLz78IGge9gm_Db789HrYGwTg&cad=rja">Evidence shows</a> family gaps in each of these professions, especially among top earners. </p>
<p>As we celebrate Women’s Equality Day, let us emphasize the need for more family-friendly policies to create a more level playing field for high-skill professionals who face rigid and important promotion decisions early in their careers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many research universities have adopted ‘family-friendly’ tenure rules to help women balance family and career. However, men, not women, seem to benefit from having the extra time.Kelly Bedard, Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa BarbaraHeather Antecol, Boswell Professor of Economics, Claremont McKenna CollegeJenna Stearns, Ph.D. Student, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/639832016-08-19T02:12:47Z2016-08-19T02:12:47ZShould writing for the public count toward tenure?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134683/original/image-20160818-12284-12nzrwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why scholars need to talk about their research with the lay public.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/experts/lee-badgett/lee-badgett/">AIDSVaccine</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many pressing issues have been calling for attention these days – <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html">the unprecedented increase in mortality rates</a> among white Americans, the <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/">Black Lives Matter movement</a> and the upending of the Republican Party. </p>
<p>At the root of many of these issues are complex sociological reasons. For example, there is good reason to believe that the rising mortality among white Americans is related to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/why-are-white-death-rates-rising.html?_r=0">declining economic fortunes</a> of white working-class men over the past four decades. </p>
<p>But how is the general public to understand these issues? And how are they to know how best to respond to such concerns?</p>
<p>Surely, hundreds, if not thousands, of articles and university press books could provide insights. The problem is this bounty of expert knowledge can hardly be accessed by the general public, politicians or practitioners.</p>
<p>I am the director of the <a href="https://www.umass.edu/pep/">Public Engagement Project</a> at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I lead a peer mentoring group that provides training to scholars on how to be public intellectuals, work with practitioners and policymakers, and influence social change. </p>
<p>But the challenge is that such public engagement does not count within the academy. Faculty evaluations rarely consider articles written for the popular media.</p>
<p>Now, in a move of far-reaching significance, the American Sociological Association aims to start a conversation among university scholars and administrators about how to include “public communication” in the assessment of a scholar’s contributions. </p>
<p>On August 20 – the first day of its annual meeting in Seattle that will draw 6,000 sociologists from around the country – the ASA plans to release a seminal report, titled <a href="http://www.asanet.org/sites/default/files/tf_report_what_counts_evaluating_public_communication_in_tenure_and_promotion_final_august_2016.pdf">“What Counts? Evaluating Public Communication in Tenure and Promotion.”</a> </p>
<p>I see this report as critical. When we include public communication – not just peer-reviewed scholarly communication – in evaluating faculty, we encourage them to share their knowledge with the members of society who could most benefit from it.</p>
<h2>The problem</h2>
<p>It was late in my Ph.D. training at the University of California Berkeley that it dawned on me how the knowledge produced in my discipline was not getting out of the proverbial ivory tower. </p>
<p>During a heated argument about the American economy, my brother took issue with my assertion that for many Americans real wages had stagnated since the late 1970s. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134675/original/image-20160818-12303-6rz0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134675/original/image-20160818-12303-6rz0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134675/original/image-20160818-12303-6rz0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134675/original/image-20160818-12303-6rz0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134675/original/image-20160818-12303-6rz0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134675/original/image-20160818-12303-6rz0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134675/original/image-20160818-12303-6rz0te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is academic knowledge stuck inside the ivory tower?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cushinglibrary/4032791258/in/photolist-79n7kL-79hQwT-axCaWs-4pQGFy-79mQCq-6QLy3A-pdwNdb-79meCh-6z9XMd-79meSJ-79nfiq-79ho12-79meRE-79hYWP-79nfnu-axCaR1-79ifpV-oXojuH-79meTS-oXosJQ-79ifrD-bnb9Ax-79i8sg-79mZbd-79meMQ-79n7iL-8pLQNK-79meBf-79nsiS-79nfjj-pTLTuA-qxHVfG-79meEG-6xyNy8-8KX1EC-79hYU2-79meTd-79ioyH-axCaPC-8w13FU-6ixgvR-79iJ18-h8ZTkY-79nfmh-96hnw8-9Ga8Dx-9GaFip-egq2av-8ig9un-8ig8QZ">Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The year was 2000 – before the 2008 recession, before Occupy Wall Street, before Bernie Sanders. The changes in the economy and the social policies that had for decades been driving the stagnation at the bottom of the income distribution and growth at the top were <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/5877.html">well-established</a> within sociology. </p>
<p>But it was not so well-known outside of the discipline. The reaction of my well-educated, well-read and normally agreeable brother attested to that.</p>
<p>It was at that moment that I realized that the fruits of my profession – all those painstakingly researched facts and carefully considered analyses – were not reaching even reasonably well-informed people. </p>
<p>Since cofounding the Public Engagement Project in 2007, I have seen this problem over and over again. Crucial research-based information on, for instance, housing discrimination, health impacts of chemicals in our everyday environment or the causes and consequences of health inequities, remains largely unknown to the outside public and politicians. This is information that could inform and have an impact on policy.</p>
<p>So, how did we end up in this situation?</p>
<p>There are many forces at play. An important one is that research universities only reward peer-reviewed research. They do not teach scholars – or count the time it takes – to communicate with anyone else.</p>
<h2>Where are the academics?</h2>
<p>This disconnect between research – often publicly funded – and the society that stands to benefit from it has not gone unnoticed. </p>
<p>For example, in 2014, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof called on faculty to make their voices heard. In his column <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-professors-we-need-you.html?_r=0">“Professors, We Need You!”</a>, Kristoff wrote,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Some of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don’t matter in today’s great debates.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134667/original/image-20160818-12295-1kz0yhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134667/original/image-20160818-12295-1kz0yhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134667/original/image-20160818-12295-1kz0yhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134667/original/image-20160818-12295-1kz0yhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134667/original/image-20160818-12295-1kz0yhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134667/original/image-20160818-12295-1kz0yhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134667/original/image-20160818-12295-1kz0yhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Where are the academics?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smullis/5675785267/in/photolist-9DxTdF-9K2C9s-rpwSC9-fbwv49-6wSC6Z-c3S3xq-eqVTd4-6wWNgu-fxgy7B-qEqPQY-nnienN-4ffJSL-s3ZEz8-uzJvY-c3S2Dj-fxvL19-2xfWVx-snhxJB-48pxQ-9DM219-5LniRB-bXoqfz-eLxdYi-ejjB5j-cP7Cks-cP7xN7-eLxdHZ-7GUVCj-8bLvzt-c4sLUN-a7b9jn-nFJtug-eLJBzj-eLJCeb-9P6MBW-npt86v-eLJCdh-eUi1LH-obfyne-nscEJz-ofvBBz-fbyWhJ-eUuodo-bFe1XY-54Hgmk-nLtecZ-o2CG8z-7ZABrV-nJFNua-qsuGSN">Steve Mullis</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars such as <a href="http://stevenpinker.com/why-academics-stink-writing">Steven Pinker</a> and <a href="http://www.megankatenelson.com/is-there-a-future-for-creative-academic-writing-in-academia/">Jill Lepore</a> have argued that faculty must learn to seize, rather than shy away from, the power of story and idiom. Such creative tools need not diminish heft, as professors often fear. Instead, they can help communicate complexity.</p>
<p>In fact, many initiatives inside and outside the academy are now seeking to address the absence of professors in public dialogue and debate.</p>
<p>The National Science Foundation requires grantees to spell out the <a href="https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/nsf022/bicexamples.pdf">“broader impacts”</a> of projects. And private foundations are supporting new channels of communication between academics and decision-makers. <a href="http://www.centerforcommunicatingscience.org/">Other initiatives</a>, <a href="https://contemporaryfamilies.org/">all over the country</a>, are aiming to shore up the public communication capacities of scholars, including this very publication, The Conversation.</p>
<p>A challenge though has been our disciplinary training which emphasizes “methodological and theoretical” contributions. That makes it hard for us to explain the broad significance of our work to noninitiates.</p>
<p>Academics can become mired in academic jargon, or just fall silent.</p>
<p>But like any new skill, mastering writing for the public requires community, commitment, courage, and a lot of practice. </p>
<p>The Public Engagement Project at the University of Massachusetts offers an example of crucial peer support. A group of seven to nine faculty, drawn from across the disciplines, engage each year in peer mentoring of colleagues during a semester-long Public Engagement Project Faculty Fellowship. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>The process of learning a new language can be humbling. But the benefits are tangible.</p>
<p>For example, one Fellow, who prepared a policy memo to share with lawmakers, was asked to provide scientific advice to her national senator. Her public outreach also resulted in her appointment to the U.S. EPA’s Science Advisory Board. </p>
<p>In another example, a general interest <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-we-eating-too-much-arsenic-we-need-better-tests-to-know-40732">article</a> written by a chemistry professor reached more readers than the scholar had in all the preceding decades of work. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134684/original/image-20160818-12281-1sh0d9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134684/original/image-20160818-12281-1sh0d9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134684/original/image-20160818-12281-1sh0d9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134684/original/image-20160818-12281-1sh0d9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134684/original/image-20160818-12281-1sh0d9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134684/original/image-20160818-12281-1sh0d9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134684/original/image-20160818-12281-1sh0d9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The benefits of taking work to a lay audience are significant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/poptech/4826930613/in/photolist-8mxhiB-8mC143-a5BhGt-8mwgqR-8mzf8w-8mwutg-8myAUB-hTFssS-8mBJV1-8mBHDJ-8mADBo-cWcvgy-8myRb6-8mx95c-fcjW9o-8mAz83-8mzrXs-8mwp4X-8myssT-8myTwn-8mycZi-8mA6id-8mzdr3-8myEZ2-8mxx3z-8mxrav-8mzJUu-8mxExM-8mx82B-cc6Y3N-8mzcN9-cE8eYG-8my6je-8mBZkC-b61xdH-8mzH9W-8mxZvP-8mzAvf-8mybWK-8mC5td-8mA933-hTEVKF-8mzMQ1-8mC2HG-8mywGz-8mARoj-8mwWt4-8mAm1w-8mzmJQ-8mzwVS">PopTech</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In my own work on adolescent sexuality, culture and families, I have found that my <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24schalet.html">articles</a> for general audiences resulted in much greater visibility for my academic publications.</p>
<p>Furthermore, as a result of writing for practitioners and lay readers, new ideas emerged for future research projects, and other opportunities came up for public engagement. </p>
<p>What was most rewarding was that I found a way to reach parents with information that could improve their relationships with their teenage children. </p>
<p>A significant benefit that I have seen in my work with the Public Engagement Project Fellows is that it helps scholars clarify their thinking. In a recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-why-academics-should-write-for-the-public-50874">article</a>, researchers Jonathan Wai and David Miller report similarly: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“not only did the process [of writing for the public] improve the quality of our writing, but it also brought more clarity to the way we were thinking about scientific problems.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In her book, <a href="http://nyupress.org/books/9781479861392/">“The Public Professor: How to Use Your Research to Change the World,”</a>, economist and <a href="https://www.umass.edu/pep/steering-committee">publicly engaged scholar</a> Lee Badgett details numerous stories of academics who are able to “speak truth to power” through public communication. </p>
<h2>But does it count?</h2>
<p>We know faculty public engagement matters for society. From my experience, I also also know that it matters for individual faculty. They report a greater sense of purpose, fulfillment, a better mastery of their topic area and new chances for future funding. </p>
<p>But does the public engagement work they do – the hours they spent crafting an op-ed or a policy brief, and cultivating relationships with policymakers, practitioners or the news office – matter in the eyes of those tasked with assessing their productivity and their value?</p>
<p>The answer all too often is no.</p>
<p>That is where, the American Sociological Association’s August 20 report, “What Counts?,” comes in. The report draws attention to the place where the rubber meets the road in any academic’s career – namely, the process of being granted tenure. The report proposes that universities consider how to include the work of faculty who engage in public communication in tenure and promotion cases and in overall faculty assessment.</p>
<p>Tenure is the make-or-break of academic life – a process through which a faculty member either gets promoted or loses a job. What counts in this process are publications in peer-reviewed journals or university press books. </p>
<p>Public communication is seen, at best, as a nice, but unnecessary bonus. </p>
<h2>Research matters</h2>
<p>“What Counts” does not tell individual sociologists, members of tenure and promotion committees, or administrators that faculty should engage in public communication. </p>
<p>What it does is recognize that many faculty do already engage in public communications, and that such work has much to contribute to the world and the discipline.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134674/original/image-20160818-12309-1yodhfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134674/original/image-20160818-12309-1yodhfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134674/original/image-20160818-12309-1yodhfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134674/original/image-20160818-12309-1yodhfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134674/original/image-20160818-12309-1yodhfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134674/original/image-20160818-12309-1yodhfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134674/original/image-20160818-12309-1yodhfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Whose voice counts is important as well.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/richardsummers/4106004896/in/photolist-eykgLV-6vvcho-aqYRuD-6vvgmf-5R86X3-6WAq6H-eykgCv-f8nL4u-5APCnP-6vr8pk-ezchiS-sohETV-5ANWz6-6vr7nX-fGPt2P-5mTr8q-6vvhhE-6vr17a-6vr1cF-eykhXH-5qgxb7-ewYqb1-7rf7xg-7fQmcS-eShRDq-ezcgFQ-earxnC-eyosYA-6vr2sT-ez9bQc-ezcfSh-8aLCVR-5mPdhv-4aLVBN-5ATTFL-ez95nB-6vvh4J-eykgLn-6ws4hB-6vr8ji-6vr2dt-ez93hT-ewYqfb-ez9bWt-8ZxFCf-6vvfc9-5mTn9h-6vu1iS-eyoqHN-ez94yp">Banalities</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It urges leaders in the discipline to start a conversation about counting this work in tenure and promotion. It outlines three criteria for evaluation: The first criterion is the content of the writing. The second is quality and rigor. And the third is public impact.</p>
<p>Finally, the ASA report notes that women and minority scholars are less likely to gain access to high-status news outlets and more likely to be attacked when they take public positions on contentious issues. </p>
<p>So, “What Counts?” also asks the question of “Who Counts?”</p>
<p>For when we return to such pressing issues, like the rise of Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter movement, what stands out is the question of whose voice counts and who feels not heard. This question pertains not only to people in the streets and at the rallies, but also to experts.</p>
<p>Research matters. It can help us understand and act in the world – in a more informed way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Schalet is a member of the American Sociological Association Subcommittee on the Evaluation of Social Media and Public Communication in Sociology, which wrote the report, “What Counts? Evaluating Public Communication in Tenure and Promotion." She has received funding from The Ford Foundation.</span></em></p>The American Sociological Association is starting a conversation to include “public communication” – work often largely ignored – in the assessment of a scholar’s contributions. Why does it matter?Amy Schalet, Associate Professor of Sociology, Director of the Public Engagement Project, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/599592016-06-29T01:06:53Z2016-06-29T01:06:53ZIs it time to eliminate tenure for professors?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128401/original/image-20160627-28362-mh9bsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is tenure outdated?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/merrimack/8782450939/in/photolist-eo5mFV-eoE6Ls-eoZXxa-eo5m2M-eoZWex-eoE6WS-epWaVC-epWasG-epWbCW-eoE6UJ-eo5mKc-a1JSoT-eoE8d7-8UeCdm-eo5kUF-eoE6CY-eoE6rY-epWbvW-eoE6nd-eoE6no-eo5k62-eoZXmP-epWbgA-eo5mHD-eoE6Fb-eoE6w7-eo5mor-eoZWUv-eoawkP-epWbD7-eoE6MU-eo5k4V-eoE6Rs-eoZXtk-eoZXf8-eoE6tb-epWbXu-eoKgX9-eo5mBx-epWc71-epWbYd-epWc6h-eoZWXF-epWbAG-eo5mGT-eoE6wU-epWbnb-eoZXJX-epWbSu-eoZXoH">Merrimack College</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The State College of Florida <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/24/state-college-florida-eliminates-continuous-contracts-puts-all-faculty-members-one">recently scrapped tenure</a> for incoming faculty. New professors at this public university will be hired on the basis of annual contracts that the school can decline to renew at any time.</p>
<p>The decision has been highly controversial. But this is not the first time tenure has come under attack. In 2015, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-else-will-we-lose-when-wisconsin-faculty-loses-tenure-42929">called for a reevaluation of state laws</a> on tenure and shared governance. As of March 2016, a new policy at the University of Wisconsin <a href="http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/regents-approve-new-policies-for-uw-tenure-over-professors-objections/article_e0aa29b5-438b-5182-8870-5cd76fb80144.html">has made faculty vulnerable to lay offs. </a></p>
<p>The tenure system <a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure">provides lifetime guarantees</a> of employment for faculty members. The purpose is to protect academic freedom – a fundamental value in higher education that allows scholars to explore controversial topics in their research and teaching without fear of being fired. </p>
<p>It also ensures that faculty can voice their opinions with university administration and ensure that academic values are protected, particularly from the increasingly <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/academic-capitalism-and-new-economy">corporate ideals invading higher education institutions.</a></p>
<p>Our research on the changing profile of university faculty shows that while the university enterprise has transformed dramatically in the last hundred years, the tenure employment model remains largely unchanged. So, has the tenure model become outdated? And if so, is it time to eliminate it altogether?</p>
<h2>Growth of adjunct faculty</h2>
<p>The demographic of higher education faculty has changed a lot in recent years. To start with, there are <a href="http://www.uscrossier.org/pullias/research/projects/delphi/">very few tenured faculty members</a> left within higher education. </p>
<p>Tenure-track refers to that class of professors who are hired specifically to pursue tenure, based largely on their potential for producing research. Only 30 percent of faculty are now on the tenure-track, while 70 percent of faculty are <a href="https://www.aaup.org/report/contingent-appointments-and-academic-profession">“contingent”</a>. Contingent faculty are often referred to as “adjuncts” or “non-tenure track faculty.” They are usually hired with the understanding that tenure is not in their future at that particular university, and they teach either part-time or full-time on a semester-to-semester or yearly basis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128525/original/image-20160628-7840-14z3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128525/original/image-20160628-7840-14z3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128525/original/image-20160628-7840-14z3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128525/original/image-20160628-7840-14z3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128525/original/image-20160628-7840-14z3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128525/original/image-20160628-7840-14z3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128525/original/image-20160628-7840-14z3nm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are fewer tenured faculty in the higher education system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/queensucanada/10088223925/in/photolist-gnsMvg-gntarD-ayha1Q-fhkLKb-mfmDv2-ptQ96-5zqnrm-mfmFk4-8tjn4j-bvqVw3-nBfP4i-9eb3iA-njLSMC-bJkEU8-dBZUWD-a6ncMu-8y32yB-fhg82y-6TpM8i-8Hpynr-q5PjAp-kFXkQZ-egkvkz-kFVUSr-r48VyF-kFUNBR-6feAz2-cjtoSE-nsgQhu-gntaWg-ajJeYQ-fgBjaD-kbKRQP-7Cs5gQ-6fiMoo-mfmFUR-mZJX9M-6XtWzW-dyyyYU-fvrqUB-dx5GKi-kFWyyh-jKSgJP-cjt6MU-mZJKp2-mxHweV-cjt43h-cjtqpd-dx5F7e-eepnwh">St. Ambrose University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most contingent faculty have short-term contracts which may or may not be renewed at the end of the contract term. As of 2010, <a href="http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/aa_partimefaculty0310.pdf">52 percent of contingent faculty</a> had semester-to-semester part-time appointments and 18 percent had full-time yearly appointments. </p>
<p>Researchers suggest that the <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/teaching-without-tenure">increase in contingent appointments</a> is a <a href="http://crw.sagepub.com/content/36/1/5.abstract">result of the tenure model’s failure to adapt</a> with the significant and rapid changes that have occurred in colleges and universities over the last 50 years. </p>
<p>The most significant of these changes is the rise of teaching-focused institutions, the largest growth being in the community college, technical college and urban institutions that have a primary mission to educate students with little or no research mission. Between 1952 and 1972 the number of community colleges in the United States nearly <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED389384.pdf">doubled</a>, from 594 to 1141, to accommodate a large increase in student enrollments, leaving four-year institutions to focus on research and development.</p>
<h2>Campuses changed, not tenure system</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tiaainstitute.org/public/pdf/changing-faculty-workforce-models.pdf">Most commentators</a> have described the growth of contingent faculty as a response to financial pressures in the 1990s. </p>
<p>But our research shows that this growth actually began in the 1970s when <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ810310">market fluctuations</a> caused unexpected growths in college enrollment. Between 1945 and 1975, college enrollment increased in the United States by 500 percent. However, rising costs and a recession in the late 1970’s forced administrators to seek out part-time faculty to work for lower wages in order to accommodate these students. The practice increased dramatically thereafter. </p>
<p>In addition to enrollment changes, government funding for higher education <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/teaching-without-tenure">decreased</a> in the late 1980s and ‘90s. The demand for new courses and programs was uncertain, and so campuses needed more <a href="http://www.tiaacref.org/ucm/groups/content/@ap_ucm_p_tcp_docs/documents/webcontent/tiaa02029947.pdf">flexibility</a> in faculty hiring. </p>
<p>Further, over the last 20 years new technologies have created new learning environments and opportunities to teach online. </p>
<p>Tenure-track faculty incentivized to conduct research were typically not interested in investing time to learn about <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ746693">new teaching technologies</a>. Consequently, a strong demand for online teaching pushed institutions into hiring contingent faculty to fill these roles. </p>
<p>As a result, what we have today is a <a href="https://www.tiaainstitute.org/public/pdf/changing-faculty-workforce-models.pdf">disparity</a> between the existing incentive structures that reward research-oriented, tenure-track faculty and the increased demand for good teaching. </p>
<h2>Why the contingent faculty model hurts</h2>
<p>Critics of tenure argue that the tenure model, with its <a href="http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/about/news/2013/figlio-schapiro-tenure.html">research-based incentives</a>, does little to improve student outcomes. But the same can be said of the new teaching model that relies so heavily on contingent faculty – it is not necessarily designed to support student learning. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tiaainstitute.org/public/pdf/changing-faculty-workforce-models.pdf">Research</a> on contingent faculty employment models illustrates that they are poorly designed and lack many of the support systems needed to foster positive faculty performance.</p>
<p>For example, unlike tenure-track faculty, contingent faculty have little or no involvement in curriculum planning or university governance, little or no access to professional development, mentoring, orientations, evaluation, campus resources or administrative support; and they are often unaware of institutional goals and outcomes. </p>
<p>Furthermore, students have limited access to or interaction with these faculty members, which research suggests is one of the most <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118002660.html">significant factors</a> impacting student outcomes such as learning, retention and graduation.</p>
<p><a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/55/11/1485.short">Studies</a> have shown that student-faculty interaction provides students with access to resources, mentoring and encouragement, and allows them to better engage with subject material.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128527/original/image-20160628-7815-2melqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128527/original/image-20160628-7815-2melqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128527/original/image-20160628-7815-2melqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128527/original/image-20160628-7815-2melqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128527/original/image-20160628-7815-2melqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128527/original/image-20160628-7815-2melqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128527/original/image-20160628-7815-2melqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Studies show lower graduation rates as a result of the faculty workforce model.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sakeeb/4647211575/in/photolist-85Eb6v-9Hm4GQ-jHNzvP-jHQFGW-4ShTvQ-qvVyex-cmufUE-cmtSrQ-cmtR8o-fbdVsP-Rd8H8-4Rq9qA-CR4PQ-ePSA8R-cmtMxU-ePSAjr-9JoeC6-2K6HUd-9dfH2D-6oSuFo-cfi8rA-9JoezX-egnTku-4HNZBr-rCWcoo-rCW9CU-fbdVxP-9H5zai-eAgvxd-roDhTm-qJdXQd-cfqro5-qJrfTM-TEV9t-roEo8Q-rCWbQ9-rFdP3e-KNdgr-yyA6-roLM2H-9H8qM3-egh93M-82pwxj-egnR9d-egh5Gg-9Ha8Yj-9H8quN-Rd8CB-6oS96o-roEqBN">Sakeeb Sabakka</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recent research on contingent faculty has also identified some <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ825258">consistent and disturbing trends</a> related to student outcomes that illustrate problems related to new faculty workforce models. These include poor performance and lower graduation rates for students who take more courses with contingent faculty, and lower transfer rates from two-year to four-year institutions.</p>
<p>Using transcripts, faculty employment and institutional data from California’s 107 community colleges, researchers <a href="https://ced.ncsu.edu/people/ajjaeger/">Audrey Jaeger</a> and <a href="https://gseis.ucla.edu/directory/kevin-eagan/">Kevin Eagan</a> found that for every 10 percent increase in students’ exposure to part-time faculty instruction, <a href="http://crw.sagepub.com/content/36/3/167.abstract">they became 2 percent less likely</a> to transfer from two-year to four-year institutions, and 1 percent less likely to graduate. </p>
<p>Additionally, studies of contingent faculties’ instructional practices suggest that they tend to use <a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/55/11/1485.short">fewer active learning, student-centered teaching approaches</a>. They are also less engaged with new and culturally-sensitive teaching approaches (strategies encouraging acknowledgment of student differences in a way that promotes equity and respect).</p>
<p>Consequently today, when the pool of Ph.D. students is growing, the number of <a href="http://icorsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Too-many-phds-Nature-2015.pdf">tenure-track positions</a> available for graduates is shrinking. As a result, a disconnect has evolved between the types and number of Ph.D.s on the job market in search of tenure, and the needs of, and jobs available within, colleges and universities. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/its-a-mess-graduate-schools-are-failing-to-prepare-students-for-jobs-43565">Some estimates</a> show that recent graduates have less than a 50 percent chance of obtaining a tenure-track position. Furthermore, it is graduates from the top-ranked quarter of graduate schools who <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005">make up more than three quarters of tenure-track faculty</a> in the United States and Canada, specifically in the fields of computer science, business and history.</p>
<h2>A new tenure system?</h2>
<p>We appear to be at a crossroads. The higher education enterprise has changed, but the traditional tenure model has stayed the same. The truth is that universities need faculty who are dedicated to teaching, but the most persuasive argument in support of tenure – its role in <a href="http://www.aaup.org/report/tenure-and-teaching-intensive-appointments">protecting academic freedom</a>– has come to be too narrowly associated with research.</p>
<p>Academic freedom was always meant to extend to the classroom – to allow faculty to teach freely, in line with the search for truth, no matter how controversial the subject matter. Eliminating tenure completely will do little to protect academic values or improve student performance.</p>
<p>Instead, the most promising proposal that has emerged many times over the last 30 years is to <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137506108">rethink the traditional tenure system</a> in a way that would incentivize excellent teaching, and create teaching-intensive tenure-track positions.</p>
<p>Under an incentive system, when considering whether to grant tenure, committees can take into account excellence in teaching, by way of student evaluations, peer review, or teaching awards. For faculty on a teaching-intensive track, tenure decisions would be made based primarily on their teaching, with little or no weight given to research.</p>
<p>Though not every contingent faculty member would be eligible for such positions, these alternative models can change the incentive structures inherent in the academic profession. They may be able to remove the negative stigmas surrounding teaching in the academy and may eliminate the class-based distinctions between research and teaching faculty that have resulted from the traditional tenure model.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrianna Kezar received funding from Teagle, Spencer and Carnegie foundations for Delphi Project on Changing Faculty and student success. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Bernstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With 70 percent adjunct faculty, who work on a semester-to-semester basis, the current system is not helping students. What can replace the traditional tenure system?Samantha Bernstein, PhD Student, University of Southern CaliforniaAdrianna Kezar, Professor of Higher Edcuation, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/526042015-12-30T13:26:13Z2015-12-30T13:26:13Z2015, the year that was: education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106924/original/image-20151222-27894-1r46xgv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">2015 showed how much race still matters in education.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/illinoisspringfield/14028616900/in/photolist-nnEk4b-eiuvry-KDhJy-ej1W7q-55XtUM-eiVc1e-ej1W31-eiVcN4-eiVbVi-ej1Wgh-eiVbJt-nnE5di-nDRU4x-nE8SN7-nDRTSF-nnEixq-eiVd42-eiVcyz-4SzDm9-bXYQjm-bXYQfb-ekDWdG-ekyb2e-ekDW4N-eioLFi-nE8Vx5-eiVcng-ej1VDd-eiVc7n-eiVbRe-eiVbwp-eiVbpt-nDWs9C-nE9MZD-nE9Mx6-eiVbFa-ej1Wkm-ej1V2w-ej1UUC-ej2fzj-eiVvST-bWUZvG-nDWtLq-nDRVyB-nnE6BR-nnEjSE-nnE8qj-nFWawZ-nDWsDf-nDWstf">Illinois Springfield</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>As we approach 2016, we look back at the big stories of The Conversation’s education coverage over the past 12 months.</em></p>
<p>2015 was a year of much turmoil: higher education witnessed student activism not quite seen <a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-how-history-is-shaping-the-studentblackout-movement-51078">since the free speech movement</a> of the 1960s.</p>
<p>The spark for the protests came from the University of Missouri – where students’ demands for racial justice <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-and-troubled-racial-past-of-mizzou-50639">had gone unheard</a>. With the football team joining the protesting students, events took a different turn and resulted in the resignation of the president, Tim Wolfe. Thereafter, protests spread to <a href="https://www.eab.com/daily-briefing/2015/11/24/student-protests-spread-to-more-than-100-campuses-nationwide">over 100</a> other campuses.</p>
<h2>Racism on campus</h2>
<p>Over the past year, scholars writing for The Conversation have emphasized how much race continues to be a factor in students’ success – and not just in college, but even through their early school years.</p>
<p>As some have pointed out, academia suffers from a <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-academia-black-professors-are-expected-to-entertain-while-presenting-46249">“stunning lack of diversity.”</a> Black scholars <a href="https://theconversation.com/reflections-of-a-black-female-scholar-i-know-what-it-feels-like-to-be-invisible-39748">describe experiences</a> ranging from <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-academia-black-professors-are-expected-to-entertain-while-presenting-46249">racial slights</a> to outright discrimination. At the K-12 level, research shows that black students <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-harsher-disciplinary-measures-school-systems-fail-black-kids-39906">are more likely</a> to receive out-of-school suspensions for minor violations of the code of conduct. </p>
<p>On campuses, students have been <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-missouri-president-ouster-offer-lessons-to-universities-grappling-with-a-racist-past-50493">demanding for some time the renaming</a> of buildings whose names evoke a troubled racial past. Many universities and their past leaders were <a href="https://theconversation.com/unsurprised-by-missouri-scholars-on-the-roots-of-racial-unrest-on-campus-50636">intimately connected</a> to the slave trade and slavery. This year further escalated some of the tensions.</p>
<p>In this environment, Fisher v University of Texas, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-crucial-texas-case-on-race-considerations-in-college-admissions-44117">case</a> challenging the University of Texas’s race-conscious admissions policy, took on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-scholars-emphasize-the-need-for-affirmative-action-43692">even greater significance</a>. The policy <a href="https://theconversation.com/ban-on-affirmative-action-in-medicine-will-hurt-all-39904">allows the university</a> to build a racially and ethnically diverse student body. But the case challenging it says it violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.</p>
<h2>Tenure, college costs, guns</h2>
<p>The debates on university campuses in 2015 were many, and not just to do with race. </p>
<p>The issue of academic freedom became a fractious one after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker put forward a proposal to slash spending on education and <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-else-will-we-lose-when-wisconsin-faculty-loses-tenure-42929">modify the state laws</a> on tenure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106925/original/image-20151222-27890-phlnmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106925/original/image-20151222-27890-phlnmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106925/original/image-20151222-27890-phlnmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106925/original/image-20151222-27890-phlnmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106925/original/image-20151222-27890-phlnmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106925/original/image-20151222-27890-phlnmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/106925/original/image-20151222-27890-phlnmb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There were many issues of concern this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dustpuppy/6852779/in/photolist-B86n-B6Lt-B6YW-B7Ps-B8mC-B84A-B8ht-B7nq-B87p-pjYumV-pztNyb-aExUV3-B6E4-B7MX-B8ck-B6FR-B7u4-B7HG-B7eu-B8f3-B7zp-B7Vz-B733-B835-B76t-B7BW-B7bp-B8ko-B6Rn-B71h-B7wz-B786-B7py-B81G-B6K3-B7L7-B7DZ-B6Xo-B6SS-B79N-B7Xb-B7jt-B6Q8-B7cL-B8ac-B6MU-B7Tj-8ZPW1y-ym1o-ym1c">Björn Láczay</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All over again, issues of college affordability were <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-reduce-debt-give-students-more-information-to-make-wise-college-choice-decisions-46064">brought center-stage</a> by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s announcement of a US$350 billion debt-free college plan. <a href="https://theconversation.com/clintons-debt-free-college-comes-with-a-price-tag-46378">Our experts argued</a> how such a large expansion in federal dollars would come at a cost. </p>
<p>And while students struggled with debt, smaller colleges struggled to keep student enrollment high enough. One of them, Sweet Briar, a women’s liberal arts college, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-can-we-learn-from-sweet-briars-near-death-44055">among those hit hard</a> by declining enrollment. While the board voted to close the doors, its alumnae made efforts to keep it going for at least another year.</p>
<p>In Texas, meanwhile, a “Campus Carry” gun law passed in spring 2015, <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-guns-on-campus-lead-to-grade-inflation-40748">raising faculty fears</a> about the possibility of grade inflation. </p>
<h2>Teachers, testing, new ESSA</h2>
<p>If higher education was in turmoil, so was K-12. </p>
<p>Testing pressures led to an ever-growing number of parents, teachers and students “opting out” of testing <a href="https://theconversation.com/students-are-opting-out-of-testing-how-did-we-get-here-40364">across all 50 states</a>. Some experts <a href="https://theconversation.com/arne-duncans-legacy-growing-influence-of-a-network-of-private-actors-on-public-education-48790">put the blame</a> on the influence of a “network” of private actors over the policies implemented under US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who will be leaving office at the end of this year.</p>
<p>A number of scholars commented on how policies have left schoolteachers <a href="https://theconversation.com/crisis-in-american-education-as-teacher-morale-hits-an-all-time-low-39226">highly demotivated</a>. In an effort to <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-somber-message-on-world-teachers-day-2015-our-teachers-are-at-risk-48550">improve the “annual yearly progress”</a> of their students, some schools not only <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-child-left-behind-fails-to-work-miracles-spurs-cheating-38620">resorted to unethical practices</a>, but also punished teachers for low scores. </p>
<p>How then are teachers being evaluated? It isn’t clear. Not least when music teachers can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-it-get-more-absurd-now-music-teachers-are-being-tested-based-on-math-and-reading-scores-47995">evaluated</a> based on the math and reading scores of students.</p>
<p>In answer to some of these concerns, before the end of the year, President Obama signed The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – which will replace the NCLB and end many of testing and evaluation policies, although <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-every-student-succeeds-act-still-leaves-most-vulnerable-kids-behind-46247">experts still urge caution</a> on wholeheartedly embracing the ESSA.</p>
<p>Despite the odds, schoolteachers and university professors remained unfailing in their commitment, innovation and dedication to their students. Indeed, innovative examples of teaching were among our best-read stories as well. Here are some:</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-understanding-the-prisoners-dilemma-can-help-bridge-liberal-and-conservative-differences-46166">How understanding the prisoner’s dilemma can help bridge liberal and conservative differences</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/want-more-innovation-try-connecting-the-dots-between-engineering-and-humanities-42800">Want more innovation? Try connecting the dots between engineering and humanities</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/a-teacher-uses-star-trek-for-difficult-conversations-on-race-and-gender-43098">A teacher uses Star Trek for difficult conversations on race and gender</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/through-the-brewing-class-what-beer-making-can-teach-students-about-business-42396">Through the brewing class: what beer-making can teach students about business</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/using-wikipedia-a-scholar-redraws-academic-lines-by-including-it-in-his-syllabus-39103">Using Wikipedia: a scholar redraws academic lines by including it in his syllabus</a></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-artists-creative-ways-to-teach-english-to-immigrant-kids-42588">‘Teaching artists’: creative ways to teach English to immigrant kids</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The year 2015 escalated many of the tensions that have existed on university and college campuses for a long time. It will be remembered as the year of student activism.Kalpana Jain, Senior Religion + Ethics Editor/ Director of the Global Religion Journalism InitiativeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/469202015-10-16T09:57:57Z2015-10-16T09:57:57ZOn global campuses, academic freedom has its limits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96512/original/image-20150928-30970-bjue5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can global campuses promise the same academic freedom?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/liz/6314937/in/photolist-8Suuxc-8WL1jK-8WL1BH-kADnA-pZo63R-9GUBLH-ynaZ-9DJQmz-ynde-8qdikG-yndY-ynem-yncm-yng2-yncJ-ynbZ-ynbm-yneT-8XCMJo-j4oL6y-pH3Nm3-pH24Rn-pZvZny-p3DubT-k6v7T3-dsYon6-9eXNo2-9f2hPy-9f2hPQ-9f2hPJ-dv2B6F-6TwPQJ-9eXNj4-9eXNak-9eXNcK-9eXNeB-9eXNgi-9f1W9S-9f1WeJ-7LmPMt-dv8btj-2dJPPy-cnNgms">Liz Lawley</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation’s international teams are collaborating on a series of articles about the Globalisation of Higher Education, examining how universities are changing in an increasingly globalised world. This is the second article in the series. Read more <a href="https://theconversation.com/search?q=globalisation+of+higher+education+series">here</a>.</em></p>
<p>Last spring, a New York University professor was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/nyregion/nyu-professor-is-barred-from-the-united-arab-emirates.html">prevented</a> from traveling to the United Arab Emirates to conduct research. The UAE government did not like his criticisms of the use of migrant labor in the Emirates. </p>
<p>The fact that this academic scholarship was politically unacceptable to the Emirati leadership may not be surprising. But what is important here is that NYU has a branch campus in Abu Dhabi. The university <a href="http://nyuad.nyu.edu/en/about/faqs.html">promises</a> that academic freedom will be protected there in exactly the same way that it is in New York City. </p>
<p>It turns out, though, that protection has its limits. As an NYU spokesperson later <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/nyregion/nyu-professor-is-barred-from-the-united-arab-emirates.html">said</a>, “it is the government that controls visa and immigration policy, and not the university.”</p>
<p>As a faculty member in the United States, I am free to write and speak about any topic. But outside of the US, local laws and cultural prohibitions create a different situation. Plus, governments can use the visa process to keep out people with disruptive ideas. Under these circumstances, academic freedom simply cannot provide the same protections to faculty. </p>
<h2>History of academic freedom</h2>
<p>Academic freedom has its origins in the 19th-century German universities, where the freedom to teach <a href="http://www.ditext.com/searle/campus/6.html">(Lehrfreiheit) and study (Lernfreiheit)</a> were considered <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/academic-freedom-in-the-age-of-the-university/9780231085120">fundamental</a> to the research ambitions of the faculty. </p>
<p>The concept was initially codified in the United States in the early 20th century as a formal rejection of wealthy industrialist control of university activities. In 1900, a faculty member at Stanford University was <a href="http://www.aaup.org/about/history/aaup-archives">fired</a> for criticizing railroad labor practices. Several faculty members resigned in protest and began organizing the American Association of University Professors to investigate similar firings of other faculty. </p>
<p>In 1940, the <a href="http://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure">Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure</a> of the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges and Universities provided the modern framework for academic freedom that universities – including NYU – still use today. </p>
<p>By these standards academic freedom is considered “fundamental to the advancement of truth.” Therefore, faculty should not be constrained in their ability to examine and explain their subjects. </p>
<h2>Freedom within borders</h2>
<p>As universities become more and more engaged in international activities, the blanket protections of academic freedom are increasingly difficult for institutions to guarantee.</p>
<p>This is particularly the case for <a href="http://theconversation.com/is-todays-university-the-new-multinational-corporation-40681">institutions</a> that have opened branch campuses and other foreign higher education outposts. These locations are often established at the invitation and encouragement of local leaders, and many are financially supported with subsidies from the foreign government. </p>
<p>Sometimes this support comes with restrictions as to what subjects can be taught at the outpost or specifications on the students it can enroll. In essence, foreign higher education outposts have less autonomy compared to the home location as a consequence of these partnerships.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96515/original/image-20150928-30974-ccihzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96515/original/image-20150928-30974-ccihzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96515/original/image-20150928-30974-ccihzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96515/original/image-20150928-30974-ccihzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96515/original/image-20150928-30974-ccihzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96515/original/image-20150928-30974-ccihzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96515/original/image-20150928-30974-ccihzk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Chinese government has banned discussions of some sensitive subjects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rlerdorf/508620686/in/photolist-LWPdb-gWAGRo-jb153-e6tUMK-h9fQmZ-h9evaX-6VUmd2-h9fREF-4QFt72-aPHBxe-h9eFuJ-h9eBAo-aENj3Q-pvak44-m47sn-m47u1-vvqQdz-jLBNbc-muo9o6-9TnBXc-iJGcM-MXVMP-67eFn-pNksTp-e3fwNw-e39QYR-h4soXS-e3fwEE-e39RsM-5uDM8Y-7k8a7r-rqPto-aFtpne-8KZ8J8-cuye1N-aFtpdT-9SEiHH-qW5FL-cuyfJ3-9FYAR2-MXJCQ-m47wW-78VhRk-6BWvz-MXJTC-78Fy9n-MXUgt-MXKQ5-MXJr7-MXUsi">Rasmus Lerdorf</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The potential threat to academic freedom for international higher education is clear in countries with authoritarian governments. According to data compiled by my research group at Albany, <a href="http://globalhighered.org/">the Cross Border Education Research Team</a>, the top countries to host foreign branch campus are United Arab Emirates (with 32 campuses), China (28), Singapore (13), Qatar (11) and Malaysia (9). All of these countries have governments that control dissent and have policies restricting freedom of speech and freedom of the press.</p>
<h2>Restrictions in many countries</h2>
<p>We’ve already seen what the UAE’s response has been to a critical academic voice. But what about the others?</p>
<p>Chinese-sponsored Confucian institutes, which are culture and language centers hosted by universities outside of China, have been <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-confucius-institute-hearing-met-20141204-story.html">criticized</a> for avoiding controversial subjects like the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/cron/">Tiananmen Square protests of 1989</a>. The government has also reportedly banned classroom discussion within China of sensitive <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/China-Bans-7-Topics-in/139407/">subjects</a> such as <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/chinese-communist-party-magazine-blasts-university-professors-spreading-western-1794018">mistakes made by the Communist Party</a> and the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-leadership-takes-hard-line-in-secret-memo.html">wealth of its leadership</a>. </p>
<p>Most branch campuses in China have a senior administrator who represents the Communist Party, and <a href="http://www.nj.com/education/2015/07/kean-wenzhou-china_ad_says_communist_party_members.html">preferences</a> are given to party members in some hiring decisions.</p>
<p>Singapore has been <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Yale-Faculty-Registers-Concern/131448/">criticized</a> by academics for its laws against homosexuality and restrictions on public demonstrations. Similar charges apply to Malaysia and Qatar. Malaysia sedition law has just been <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-13/opposition-says-authorities-using-sedition-act-to-stem-criticism/6693210">strengthened</a> to counter growing protests over government corruption. </p>
<p>Qatar’s strict censorship laws create circumstances where necessary teaching materials <a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/faculty-senate/from-the-president/commentary/Report%20on%20Northwestern%20University,%20Qatar.html">cannot be officially obtained</a>, and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/21/us-qatar-poet-court-idUSBRE99K0LM20131021">criticism of the ruling family</a> carries a steep sentence.</p>
<h2>Freedom within campus gates</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, international campuses usually have broad assurances from the host governments that academic freedom will be respected.</p>
<p>The reality of academic freedom in international education is actually somewhere in between the extremes of government control and the full ability of universities to protect their institutional autonomy. </p>
<p>My research team has visited over 50 branch campuses in countries around the world, including UAE, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Qatar. We found little evidence for restrictions on academic freedom on the campuses themselves.</p>
<p>Rather, we typically find an academic community that is allowed to debate topics that might be off-limits elsewhere in the country.</p>
<p>This academic freedom, however, ends at the campus gate. A free-wheeling discussion in the classroom cannot continue in a coffee shop. A publication meant for students’ eyes is not meant to be seen by the broader public.</p>
<h2>Scholarship should not be controversial</h2>
<p>Additionally, certain subjects are not even part of the curriculum, which is problematic. </p>
<p>We know of no scholar of queer studies, for example, teaching in Malaysia or Singapore. The most common subject in international education is business, which doesn’t usually pose a challenge to the existing social and political order. </p>
<p>And faculty we interview usually say the subject of academic freedom simply never comes up – they never run up against a problem, because like most faculty, their scholarship and teaching is simply not that controversial.</p>
<p>Moreover, people working and studying overseas recognize that there are different cultural mores that should be respected. Most, like taking off your shoes before entering a home, are accommodated with little affront to deeply held academic values. </p>
<p>Even ones that would be considered out of place at home, like gender-segregated learning environments, can be addressed without needing to reject the tradition it comes from.</p>
<p>But others truly are a bridge too far. </p>
<p>As campuses expand and establish a global presence, I believe, explicit restrictions on academic freedom should be vociferously challenged. And home campus administrators should not get complacent in the assurances from their hosts about the academic freedom they will enjoy.</p>
<p>It is clear that there are limits to academic freedom in international higher education. But that doesn’t mean that all engagement has to stop.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46920/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Kinser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As universities set up campuses globally, the blanket protections of academic freedom are becoming increasingly difficult to guarantee.Kevin Kinser, Associate Professor of Education, University at Albany, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/433622015-06-29T09:33:27Z2015-06-29T09:33:27ZExplainer: how Europe does academic tenure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86389/original/image-20150625-12994-1oj3597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Germany's universities have two academics classes: professors and everyone else. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/meironke/4611049669/sizes/l">meironke/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The word “tenure” is usually associated in universities with job security and professional autonomy. It is a term familiar in North America, where the notion of a “<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-12-28/why-i-have-a-big-problem-with-academic-tenure">job-for-life</a>” for professors who achieve “tenure” has come under pressure in recent years, most recently in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/wisconsin-controversy-with-fewer-tenured-positions-who-benefits-from-academic-freedom-43167">legal case in Wisconsin</a>. But across Europe there are a variety of different employment tracks through which academics can reach professor level. </p>
<p>I have had the pleasure of working as an academic in three European countries – Germany, The Netherlands, and the UK – each of which highlights some of the alternative options to the tenure-track model in the US. </p>
<h2>Germany – a two-class system</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, I began my academic career in Germany – a country well-known for its strong welfare state tradition and labour protection. In universities things were and still are different. Academics are basically divided into two classes. On the one hand, professors are employed as civil servants of the state and hold tenure as a highly safeguarded employment for life. On the other, there is a much bigger group of “junior staff” on fixed-term contracts, research grants, fellowships, and part-time jobs. <a href="http://www.buwin.de/site/assets/files/1002/buwin2013keyresults.pdf">In 2010</a>, 9% of academic staff were professors, 66% were “junior staff” (including doctoral candidates on contracts), and 25% were other academic staff in secondary employment.</p>
<p>Permanent positions below the professorial level are rare exceptions. Becoming a professor therefore means a big step up in terms of status and job security while the road to professorial tenure is long and windy. In many subjects aspiring academics follow a patchwork career for more than a decade, busily preparing their “<a href="http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/scholars/postdocs/habilitationen/index.html">Habilitation</a>” (a kind of broader second PhD thesis) and eventually achieving tenure – usually at another university – in their early 40s. For all universities, in-house promotion to a professorial position used to be legally forbidden. </p>
<p>For decades, the structure of academic careers formed a highly debated topic in Germany. Various programmes were developed to temporarily support “junior staff”. New positions for untenured “junior professors” have, for example, been inspired by US tenure-track models. They are expected to work more independently from the full professors; and some of them might even get promoted to tenure in-house. However, the basic logic of the two academic classes persists and things are not getting better for junior staff: fixed-term contracts, part-time contracts and research grant-based contracts <a href="http://www.buwin.de/site/assets/files/1002/buwin2013keyresults.pdf">are all on the rise</a>.</p>
<h2>The Netherlands – different tracks</h2>
<p>At the beginning of the new millennium, I continued my academic career as a tenured professor in the Netherlands. Some things were and are clearly different in the lowlands. Professors are civil servants but no longer employed “by the Crown”. In the 1980s, staff responsibility had shifted to the university as an employer and to collective bargaining. </p>
<p>The meaning of “tenure” is different as well. Since the 1980s, tenured staff in the Netherlands no longer have a guaranteed lifetime job and can be dismissed, for example, because of redundancy. These dismissals entail a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive procedure. Compared to Germany, there are considerably more permanent positions for lecturers and main lecturers below the full professorial level. </p>
<p>Tenure <a href="http://theprofessorisin.com/2013/05/13/the-dutch-academic-job-market-for-americans-and-other-english-speakers/">can be achieved</a> after a probationary period of a few years and in-house promotion from lecturer to main lecturer is quite common practice, and is based on individual assessment. It is also quite common for main lecturers to stay on in their position until retirement. It was a stunning experience for me as an academic who had been socialised in the German system; except perhaps for the shared suspicion in both countries that it was somehow “odd” or “bad practice” to promote an existing staff member to a professorship from within the same university. </p>
<p>While I was in the Netherlands, universities started to experiment with new ways of promotion inspired by the US tenure-track model. Practices differ among universities and tenure-tracks do not always provide a route to a professorship. Such tracks also eventually extend the pathways to “tenure” and promotion and raise the bar of performance expectations – especially as regards the hazardous business of grant-making. It seems that life is getting tougher for promising young academics. </p>
<h2>United Kingdom – legal tenure doesn’t exist</h2>
<p>Recently, my academic career brought me to the UK – a classical example of a more regular career system that neither followed the US tenure-track system nor the German “junior staff” system. The long-established system of lecturer – reader – professor allowed for “tenure” as a young lecturer after a probationary period as well as for an in-house career to higher ranks given successful assessment. </p>
<p>This essentially still holds true until today. Over recent decades, UK higher education has experienced major changes in regulation and funding that also affect academics’ status and career. In the late 1980s, much like in the Netherlands, all academic staff became employees of their institution and the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/40/contents">government passed legislation in 1988</a> to eliminate tenure. </p>
<p>Legal tenure has therefore faded away and has been replaced by permanent or indefinite contracts that can be due to redundancy, sometimes avoided by voluntary redundancy or premature retirement. Academics who worked in the UK’s former polytechnics, which <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/sep/03/polytechnics-became-universities-1992-differentiation">all became</a> universities in 1992, never had tenure but rather fixed-term or indefinite contracts. In the pre-1992 universities, performance expectations for promotion are due to local variations but overall the bar has certainly been raised over time.</p>
<p>The tough race to do well in the UK’s national research evaluation exercise, <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-is-the-ref-and-how-is-the-quality-of-university-research-measured-35529">the REF</a>, and the various other rankings and league tables, plays out in individual performance expectations for “tenure” and promotion. Over the years, the use of fixed-term (and part-time) contracts for teaching staff and of fixed-term research posts has established a shadow market with limited opportunities to rise up the traditional academic career ladder. In this respect, the development in the UK has some resemblance to the growth of a shadow market of non-tenure track faculty in the US.</p>
<p>The Netherlands and the UK show that university systems can be highly productive while providing early “tenure” to their academic staff. Germany could certainly learn from these experiences. But tenure is no longer what it used to be in the UK or the Netherlands. The bars of performance expectations are also raised and the number of academics who are not on the main career track is increasing. As funding becomes more competitive and insecure, universities turn some of their risk over to academic staff.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jürgen Enders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The routes for academics to become professors are different in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.Jürgen Enders, Professor of Higher Education Management, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/431672015-06-25T10:36:55Z2015-06-25T10:36:55ZWisconsin controversy: with fewer tenured positions, who benefits from academic freedom?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86305/original/image-20150624-31495-azycse.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In a changing environment, how do universities ensure academic freedom for all?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/egcpr/8370329171/in/photolist-dKE8fc-5cXkaL-atHNcX-crzFpL-nntR9k-fbyHBZ-aYLAW6-ccmyzw-c1PUnY-ciiFdd-9K9UcL-7ZsTGG-cA1vF1-bYCapY-5jwMRP-bAoNAA-84VWcG-eTeNWq-dBRCFd-dBQMZu-dKE8jn-nQaWGb-o7Eroc-nQbRY8-o7xtfw-o7n62R-o7zcXw-o7nhax-nQbg2X-aYLEon-8UWrsR-8UX7ua-faZ62q-83iibT-o7UhXf-31hb8u-ara9dG-aYLuEH-aYLwbx-aYLsNT-7ZpGAF-thfvB6-2cTUBx-o3cYz8-85Zfj4-93Vmdd-crzKcf-fciTR5-6mGrrp-eggC1B">East Georgia State College</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sitting here in Madison, Wisconsin, a chancellor of <a href="http://www.uwex.uwc.edu/chancellor/">two UW institutions</a>, I find myself at the vortex of an enormous national conversation about tenure and shared governance. </p>
<p>After decades of being enshrined in <a href="http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/36/13">Wisconsin state law</a> and often seen as the national gold standard for tenure protection, tenure policy in Wisconsin will now instead be covered by a <a href="http://budget.wisc.edu/content/uploads/2015/05/UW_omnibus_motion.pdf">policy</a> (item #12) approved by the <a href="https://www.wisconsin.edu/regents/">UW Board of Regents</a> (18 individuals, mostly appointed by the governor who oversees the UW system). </p>
<p>Essentially, when the budget is signed, tenure at UW will move from law to policy, a move some perceive as a weakening of tenure in Wisconsin. Three months ago, anticipating legislative action, the Board of Regents passed a resolution <a href="https://www.wisconsin.edu/news/download/news_documents/2015/SharedGovernanceandTenureContinuationResolution-Adopted3-5-2015.pdf">confirming</a> its commitment to tenure. </p>
<p>Despite this action, many here still see this change in law as an erosion of tenure. This perception is reinforced by a new state law that could also include <a href="http://wispolitics.com/1006/150529UWOmnibusMotion.pdf">much broader provisions</a> (item #39) for layoff of tenured faculty beyond extreme financial emergency. </p>
<p>For many, the tenure conversation zeros in on the “employment protection” component of tenure, when another component – academic freedom - should, I would argue, be more important to us. </p>
<h2>Protecting new ideas</h2>
<p>Academic freedom allows faculty to teach, research and publish free of political, commercial and other influences. As the <a href="http://www.aaup.org/file/1940%20Statement.pdf">American Association of University Professors (AAUP)</a> says: “the common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition” and has been with us since 1915. </p>
<p>Though the purpose of tenure is academic freedom, employment protection comes into play because academic freedom exists only if faculty can perform their teaching, research, and shared governance duties free of threats of dismissal.</p>
<p>As we know, new developments, new thinking and new knowledge are often uncomfortable, unpopular and controversial. </p>
<p>Today, think of <a href="http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/stemcells/scissues/">stem cell research</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/global_warming_controversy.htm">climate change</a> or the <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050222">competing interpretations of urban poor</a>, to name a few. Theater productions and artwork created by faculty could also challenge prevailing views. </p>
<p>Academic freedom provides protection to these ideas. It is a pillar of US higher education, one that separates us from <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/23/report-calls-attention-crisis-attacks-higher-education-worldwide">many other</a> higher educational systems around the world. </p>
<p>However, as American higher education continues to adapt and respond to the demands and desires of today’s students, how do we continue to live the value of academic freedom in this new environment?</p>
<h2>Growth of contingent ranks</h2>
<p>Let’s look at the changes in the academic workforce.</p>
<p>Over the last four decades, the composition of faculty in the US <a href="http://agb.org/trusteeship/2013/5/changing-academic-workforce">has flipped</a>. From primarily full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty (78.3% in 1969), higher education institutions have moved to mostly adjunct or “contingent” faculty – those without tenure, who work on limited term agreements (66.5% in 2009). </p>
<p>The main reason for this shift is economic. </p>
<p>Salaries and benefits constitute 80% of expenses within colleges and universities. And as institutions become increasingly tuition-dependent and face pressure from students, families and elected officials to focus on affordability and student debt, managing expenses becomes key. </p>
<p>Contingent faculty are paid at a lower rate and receive few or no benefits, providing a high level of flexibility to administrators as they confront the ebb and flow of student enrollments and course demands. Contingent faculty are more likely to teach lower-level courses that tenured faculty do not care to teach (eg, basic writing and math).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86307/original/image-20150624-31498-lh8ftd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86307/original/image-20150624-31498-lh8ftd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86307/original/image-20150624-31498-lh8ftd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86307/original/image-20150624-31498-lh8ftd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86307/original/image-20150624-31498-lh8ftd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86307/original/image-20150624-31498-lh8ftd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/86307/original/image-20150624-31498-lh8ftd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The percentage of tenured faculty on campuses is reducing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jirka_matousek/8439515052/in/photolist-dRLHNd-dR5U2j-fCjnU6-dUkJPn-dQZdBa-dRFqv8-dRFo8R-dUsq2w-dRKdU1-dRDGot-8H3oeg-dUmTER-dUkCYM-dUsrCU-dUmq72-8ND3sF-8ND3vx-iiUd8i-iiTUbs-dUsikf-9VDoSf-dR4kbG-8H6wDG-dUmwZp-dQZnke-dQWAqX-dUssDo-dUmDWD-dUqX47-dQWsnH-dRMdk7-dRLFqd-dRPrs2-fuP9Ha-8H3ogM-iiTUuy-dUsudW-dQV9Cg-eFpBvf-d7wUvy-d2uGrS-fCLhpR-dRPpZ8-d7xaKb-7UygUQ-adnmpT-a3SE4j-8dfYZC-4msxSN-ag8JMc">Jirka Matousek</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The growth of for-profit institutions as well as the growth of <a href="http://rpb.ucr.edu/fprm/graduate.html">self-supporting degree programs</a> that cover their own cost within public institutions has also contributed to this trend.</p>
<p>Rather than being seen as highly educated, independent professionals, contingent faculty operate on a spectrum of independence. The most extreme end of the spectrum considers them performers of a curriculum developed by other experts. </p>
<h2>Evolving faculty roles</h2>
<p>In addition, we’re also hearing a lot these days about the disaggregation of the faculty role. </p>
<p>This means breaking down the teaching portion of faculty work into smaller and discrete activities, like developing course outlines, defining specific outcomes students should master, identifying readings and course materials, creating exercises and exams, lecturing, mentoring students, and evaluating student performance. </p>
<p>Part of what’s influencing this shift is the growth of online programs with technology platforms that allow us to gather more and more data about student learning behaviors and student learning outcomes.</p>
<p>Now we can isolate the different components involved in teaching and can change specific activities and techniques in ways that improve student learning. </p>
<p>Some institutions have addressed this head-on, <a href="http://www.onlineschools.com/blog/online-school-spotlight-western-governors-university">breaking down faculty roles</a> into smaller parts and hiring different kinds of individuals to carry out different teaching functions. These individuals typically are not tenured or tenure-track faculty and therefore have little or no assurance of academic freedom.</p>
<p>This shift in teaching roles and increasing reliance on non-faculty academics has occurred under the radar. Today we have a tiered structure of faculty, with some carrying out different functions and rewarded with different employment protections and different levels of academic freedom. </p>
<h2>Academic freedom going forward</h2>
<p>As we continue to evolve, how do we ensure that academic freedom remains alive and well for all faculty, regardless of whether they are headed for tenure or performing the traditional role of faculty inside and outside of the classroom?</p>
<p>The fact is that US higher education is being compelled by internal and external forces to change. We need to recognize we have many different categories of faculty now, not all of whom may pursue or receive tenure. </p>
<p>At Wisconsin, we believe that academic freedom is such a core tenet of what we do that these protections are extended to all faculty, whether they are eligible for tenure or teaching one class a year on a contingent basis. </p>
<p>This protection is reflected in the UW Madison <a href="http://acstaff.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ASPP-Chapter-15.pdf">policy</a> for academic staff (academic staff is our name for part-time or non-tenured instructors).</p>
<p>While it’s common for colleges and universities to reinforce academic freedom for tenured and tenure-track faculty, it is less common to see policy protection for other categories of faculty. I’m glad Wisconsin institutions extend their academic freedom protection more widely across teaching staff, and I hope we’re applying that policy effectively.</p>
<p>In the dynamic and rapidly changing big-picture world of post-secondary education, the whole subject of tenure and academic freedom is more complex and nuanced than we may realize at first glance. </p>
<h2>Let’s be honest here</h2>
<p>Do I believe we need tenure as historically defined? Absolutely, yes. We would not have a higher education system that still is the envy of the world without it. </p>
<p>Faculty are the heart and soul of an institution. They make a lifetime commitment to an institution, while students and administrators come and go. For those who are more economically motivated, big donors to colleges and universities often mention favorite faculty as motivation for making their large gifts. There is no doubt tenure retains faculty and contributes to these benefits.</p>
<p>With so many of our teachers and instructors ineligible for tenure, is there more we need to do to provide some level of employment security – and, more importantly, to define and extend academic freedom beyond the tenured ranks?</p>
<p>I am proud to be affiliated with a great university that has, for decades, committed itself to live by the values of academic freedom enshrined by these words on all our campuses: “Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great State University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth may be found.”</p>
<p>Perhaps it’s time for higher education to do its own “sifting and winnowing” by looking more closely at our tiered faculty structure, in which some faculty enjoy tenure and the majority do not. We need to be more deliberate and honest about how academic freedom applies to different teaching roles within this new environment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathy Sandeen works for University of Wisconsin Colleges and Extension.</span></em></p>With an increasing percentage of adjunct faculty, tenure and academic freedom are way more complex and nuanced than we realize.Cathy Sandeen, Chancellor, University of Wisconsin Colleges and the University of Wisconsin-ExtensionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/429292015-06-09T10:08:15Z2015-06-09T10:08:15ZWhat else will we lose when Wisconsin faculty loses tenure?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84243/original/image-20150608-8725-t7dkx4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What consequences will it have on academic freedom? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beautifulcataya/1296923994/in/photolist-2YB5jw-rc5uVX-oDFvrv-oDFNNV-oDVW2W-oDFz4v-onsT3X-56fay4-bm7RNf-s2Zavu-9AjVJn-oQka9f-aFdCfV-mM6hcT-rkU93-fvY1Ty-a1doqJ-jJnR3M-f4ZEMf-2YwCa4-qUvy2d-rbVxK8-qUvxtE-r9M4Dm-c3cA6d-dFf3p-wBazL-7CUwbu-aFdBtg-nXFK5-bz2LzB-vQbhw-7CQGvH-sgo7th-9SPQh8-a1doqf-nXCaf-oS69oP-vQbqc-7CQFoV-tmHyH-7CUv1b-7CUvdJ-7CQGfc-7CQG3p-pBtPS1-aFhwRu-vQbfb-fJx8CQ-a1dAM1">beautifulcataya</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The University of Wisconsin (UW) system could, within the month, no longer have a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/politics/unions-subdued-scott-walker-turns-to-tenure-at-wisconsin-colleges.html?_r=0">nationally recognized tenure system</a>. </p>
<p>Recently Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee <a href="http://college.usatoday.com/2015/02/03/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-to-slash-300m-from-public-universities/">announced</a> a plan to slash state spending on education in the 2015-2017 budget (UW System will receive a $250 million cut) and modify the state laws on tenure and shared governance. </p>
<p>Walker has said that the proposed tenure changes will provide “more autonomy” for the UW system’s Board of Regents (the governing body that oversees the UW system) and for chancellors to manage the cuts. It would do so by allowing tenured faculty to be laid off at the discretion of the chancellors and Board of Regents.</p>
<p>As a faculty member at UW-Madison, I am heartbroken that my state government has seemingly decided to undermine, instead of <a href="http://www.wisconsinbudgetproject.org/">prioritizing</a>, the K-16 education system. </p>
<p>As a researcher whose work examines the politics of education in the US and around the world, I am deeply concerned by the threat this legislative shift poses to the ability of public university faculty to conduct research about politically inconvenient facts and teach in politically disfavored fields: the core purposes of faculty tenure and shared governance in public universities.</p>
<h2>What changes in Wisconsin</h2>
<p>First, let me explain how tenure has worked in the UW system and what this proposal means, as there have been some misunderstandings about the proposed changes to UW tenure.</p>
<p>Most state university systems leave tenure policies in the hands of their <a href="https://www.wisconsin.edu/regents/">University Board of Regents</a>. The UW system is the only system in the country in which <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/university/uw-cut-trimmed-but-tenure-shared-goverance-changes-infuriate-faculty/article_796817cd-c2e5-59b1-acfb-0595fcc8c3f9.html">tenure policy</a> is enshrined in state law. </p>
<p>The proposed changes are being described as a <a href="http://www.wpr.org/future-uw-tenure-now-rests-board-regents">simple shift of control</a> over tenure policy from state law to Board of Regents policy; hence, the proposed changes will simply result in UW having the same tenure system as most other public university systems. </p>
<p>One might ask, if this is simply a change in the location of tenure policy, why is it being made in the first place? </p>
<p>In this case, it is absolutely essential to understand that the Wisconsin legislature has not simply decided to hand tenure policy over to the Board of Regents. </p>
<p>Instead, the state legislature will modify (not remove) state law, so that Section 39 of state statute will instruct the board on when they can terminate a faculty member in <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/39">the following way</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Layoff due to budget or program decision: Modify current law to specify that the Board may, with appropriate notice, terminate any faculty or academic staff appointment when such an action is deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision regarding program discontinuance, curtailment, modification, or redirection, instead of when a financial emergency exists as under current law.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If Section 39 is adopted, the Board of Regents will always have the legal right to terminate anyone for any reason related to “program discontinuance, curtailment, modification, or redirection…” And on June 5, the UW System Board of Regents did <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/uw-regents-vote-to-protect-tenure-in-system-policies-b99513929z1-306286971.html">vote unanimously</a> to add tenure protections to regents policy, but declined to request the removal of Section 39. The motion they adopted <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/05/faculty-members-protest-tenure-shared-governance-changes-board-regents">says clearly</a> that the Board’s policy “must comply with applicable state law.” </p>
<p>It is for this reason that the <a href="http://www.aaup.org/">American Association of University Professors (AAUP)</a> has already <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/national-focus-on-uw-sharpening-over-tenure-governance-b99511901z1-306017731.html">declared</a> that the proposed law would represent the loss of a viable tenure system. </p>
<h2>Why destroy tenure?</h2>
<p>The rationale offered to the public for transforming UW’s tenure system is <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/report-advocates-giving-uw-system-chancellors-a-stronger-hand-b99511009z1-305725261.html">cloaked in the corporate language</a> of increased “flexibility” and more authority for campus leaders. It is accompanied by efforts to make the university function more like a corporation. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84246/original/image-20150608-8692-9vri83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84246/original/image-20150608-8692-9vri83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84246/original/image-20150608-8692-9vri83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84246/original/image-20150608-8692-9vri83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84246/original/image-20150608-8692-9vri83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84246/original/image-20150608-8692-9vri83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84246/original/image-20150608-8692-9vri83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Academics say much will change on campus if tenure rules are modified.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=1433779097966945300&searchterm=commencement&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=245926543">Graduation image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The proposed tenure changes are accompanied by new <a href="http://wispolitics.com/1006/150529UWOmnibusMotion.pdf">state laws</a> and Board of Regents policies designed to centralize power by severely curtailing faculty, staff and student rights — and more particularly, to take apart the current democratic system of <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fN3uINKZZBMJ:https://uwspaft.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/aft-wisconsin-higher-ed-council-statement-on-shared-governance.docx+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us">checks and balances</a> among faculty, staff, students and administrators. </p>
<p>For example, UW’s nationally recognized shared governance system will be gutted, shifting faculty, staff and student governance from a partnership model with the chancellor to a subordinate advisory position. </p>
<p>This will have an immediate impact on campus decision-making. </p>
<p>For example, Wisconsin legislators made a big show of freezing tuition for Wisconsin students for the next two years, but then <a href="http://www.wrn.com/2015/06/uw-student-group-worried-about-fate-of-shared-governance/">removed</a> all caps on student fees while watering down student oversight of fee increases and usage. </p>
<p>The chancellor will now have much greater power to raise student fees and use them as he or she wishes.</p>
<p>The new model won’t just make faculty, staff and students subservient to their chancellors — it will also make the chancellors more subservient to the politically appointed Board of Regents (16 of the board’s 18 members are governor appointees). </p>
<p>Now, chancellor search committees will be <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/move-to-strengthen-hand-of-regents-in-chancellor-searches-advances-b99513393z1-306180101.html">chaired</a> by a board member instead of a faculty member and the majority of committee members will be non-faculty.</p>
<p>This centralization of power and removal of democratic checks and balances should concern all of us, but it is particularly troubling in Wisconsin, where the governor leads a national trend in sharply politicizing what were previously considered bipartisan educational and scientific enterprises. </p>
<h2>There is a pattern</h2>
<p>These changes have already significantly affected <a href="http://fox6now.com/2015/05/27/lawmaker-wants-prevailing-wage-repeal-vote-ahead-of-budget/">labor</a>, <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/budget-brings-enormous-change-to-k-12-landscape-b99513978z1-306375971.html">education</a>, <a href="http://www.wawhbudgetproject.org/">women</a> and the <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/state-budget-would-weaken-counties-regulations-to-protect-shoreland-b99513722z1-306393701.html">environment</a> issues throughout the budget. </p>
<p>For example, just before the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee discussed the proposed tenure and shared governance changes, they voted (along party lines) to direct the secretary of natural resources to <a href="http://fox6now.com/2015/05/30/joint-finance-committee-votes-to-eliminate-80-positions-within-department-of-natural-resources/">fire</a> over half of all researchers in the department’s science bureau and over 60% of its science educators. </p>
<p>This followed an April 7 2015 vote by the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/us/wisconsin-agency-bans-activism-on-climate.html">ban all discussions</a> on climate change in the agency.</p>
<p>The budget bill similarly includes <a href="http://budget.wisc.edu/content/uploads/2015/05/UW_omnibus_motion.pdf">provisions </a> removing legislative requirements to support a faculty environmental chair position at UW-Madison (Section 57) and to support conservation and mass transit on UW campuses (Section 44). </p>
<p>Lest anyone wonder about the politicization of the Board of Regents under <a href="http://walker.wi.gov/">Governor Scott Walker</a>, his most recent appointment is the <a href="http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/son-of-scott-walker-s-former-campaign-chairman-appointed-to/article_74b451a7-fd15-5816-a094-d0d5df96584c.html">son of his campaign chairman</a>.</p>
<p>What this all means is that the UW system’s tenure and shared governance battle has national ramifications. It represents, to my mind, broad, national efforts on the part of conservatives to <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/03/31/why_conservatives_hate_college/">roll back</a> fundamental democratic rights and processes. It also represents efforts to defund, privatize and <a href="http://prospect.org/article/coming-war-universities">strip public schools</a> of a public mandate.</p>
<h2>Realities won’t change, but they will be hidden</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.aaup.org/import-tags/rudy-fichtenbaum">AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum</a> sums up the political consequences of the tenure battle as follows: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Tenure is protection that ensures faculty will not be punished for doing their jobs… The truth can be extremely unpopular politically, commercially and economically. Would you want to be a climate change scientist without protection from consequences directly related to the expression of your views?… Protecting academic freedom is important to protecting the public interest. … Without academic freedom, the university will be there to <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/national-focus-on-uw-sharpening-over-tenure-governance-b99511901z1-306017731.html">serve the interests</a> of whichever political party is in power. The regents are appointed by the governor, and they determine priorities.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fate dealt to state-employed scientists whose work infuriated Wisconsin’s Republican legislators is <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/30/north-carolina-governor-joins-chorus-republicans-critical-liberal-arts">mirrored in North Carolina</a>, where the governor is turning up the heat on UNC to show the “employability” of graduates while legislatively mandated <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/new-politics-at-the-university-of-north-carolina">closings</a> occur at university centers whose research uncovers <a href="http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-gops-attack-on-universities-and-free-speech/Content?oid=4345126">uncomfortable truths</a> about increasing inequality and the decimation of democratic processes.</p>
<p>Back in Wisconsin, the proposed changes to tenure and shared governance will curtail the central mandate of public universities, as expressed in an 1894 report from a very different Wisconsin Board of Regents: the “continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.” </p>
<p>The curtailment of the faculty’s ability to research, speak, write and teach freely about what is happening in our world will not change the hard truths and inequitable consequences of the political, economic and social policies being adopted in Wisconsin. </p>
<p>But it will make them harder to identify and address, and that, sadly, is the triumph of limiting tenure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42929/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nancy Kendall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The proposal to change Wisconsin tenure rules comes up for a vote by the state’s full Senate and House later this month. What will be the consequences?Nancy Kendall, Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin-MadisonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.