Recruiting the Next Generation of the Professoriate

The traditional tenure system has not changed significantly in the past one hundred years, despite major transformations in higher education and shifting demographics of the professoriate. Some institutions have incorporated "stop the clock" provisions for tenure, which allow pretenure faculty members to take one semester (or a year) to care for newborns, newly adopted children, or ill family members without this time counting against their tenure schedule (Committee on the Status of Women 2001; Quinn, Lange, and Olswang 2004). Other schools have adopted part-time tenure-track positions or established mentoring programs. However, most institutions retain a traditional tenure system. There were only two instances in the twentieth century when policies regarding tenure were updated. In 1940, representatives from the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges agreed upon a restatement of principles set forth in the 1925 Conference Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure. This revised document was known as the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Nearly fifty years later, following a series of meetings in November 1989 and January 1990, these associations adopted changes in language in order to remove gender-specific references from the original text. It is imperative that scholars reexamine the core assumptions and values that dominate the academic profession in light of current realities. Only 35 percent of all university instructors hold tenure-track appointments (25 percent have tenure and 10 percent are probationary), and the remaining 65 percent are full-time non-tenuretrack, part-time, and graduate assistants who provide an almost interchangeable contingent labor force (Benjamin 2008). In her recent article on rethinking tenure, Cathy Trower (2009a) uses the perspective of a business analyst to examine the hierarchical organization of the academy. Gary Hamel, one of the world's leading experts on business strategy, encourages organizations to identify where new opportunities may exist. He cautions that people at the top of any organization "have the least diversity of experience, the largest investment in the past and the greatest reverence for the industry's dogma. " In academe, senior faculty members usually fit this description and, as Trower notes: "It is very difficult for those who rank lower in the organizational hierarchy to challenge the combined forces of precedence, position, and power precisely when change is most needed. " ENTERING THE PROFESSORIATE The increased numbers of part-time and non-tenure-track positions, coupled with the distressed economic climate at most institutions, make it challenging for recent PhDs in all fields to find tenure-track positions in which to begin their academic careers. This problem is particularly acute in the humanities, as was highlighted in a recent issue of the Chronicle Review titled, "The Crisis in Graduate Education in the Humanities. " Writing in this issue, Richard Greenwald suggests that the situation is especially discouraging for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds: "[these students] were raised to believe that the more education they acquired, the better they would fare in life. And yet a starting professor's salary in the humanities is barely lower-middle class" (B 19). As Anthony Grafton (2010) observed in the New Republic, newly minted PhDs often find themselves "precariously employed as 'visiting assistant professors' ('visiting' is a technical term for minimal benefits, more courses to teach and no security) or flying the freeways from one school to another, working as adjuncts for $1,500 or $2,000 a course" (32). The path to a faculty career in the sciences is also challenging. Many scientists and engineers spend years in underpaid postdoctoral positions before moving on to the tenure track. Additionally, graduate students across disciplines, but particularly in the sciences and engineering, find that seeing the lives of their own professors up close causes them to reconsider their own decision to become faculty members. …