  in the united states and canada, tenure is a teacher or college professor's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause. it is awarded after a probationary period. ==academic tenure (colleges and universities)== under the tenure systems adopted as internal policy by many universities and colleges in the united states and canada, some faculty positions are with tenure and some are not. typical systems (such as the widely-adopted "1940 statement of principles on academic freedom and tenure" of the american association of university professors,http://aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure; this statement has been adopted by more than 200 scholarly and academic groups (http://aaup.org/endorsers-1940-statement). the american association of university professors also publishes "recommended institutional regulations on academic freedom and tenure" recommended institutional regulations on academic freedom and tenure.) allow only a limited period to establish a record of (depending on the institution and discipline) published research, ability to attract grant funding, academic visibility, teaching excellence, and administrative or community service. they limit the number of years that any employee can remain employed as a non-tenured instructor or professor, compelling the institution to tenure or terminate an individual, with significant advance notice, at the end of a specified time period. some institutions require promotion to associate professor as a condition of tenure. an institution may also offer other academic positions that are not time-limited, with titles such as lecturer, adjunct professor, or research professor, but these positions do not carry the possibility of tenure and are said to not be "tenure track." typically, they have higher teaching loads, lower compensation, little influence within the institution, few if any benefits, and little academic freedom protection. academic tenure's original purpose was to guarantee the right to academic freedom: it protects teachers and researchers when they dissent from prevailing opinion, openly disagree with authorities of any sort, or spend time on unfashionable topics. thus academic tenure is similar to the lifetime tenure that protects some judges from external pressure. without job security, the scholarly community as a whole may experience pressure to favor noncontroversial lines of academic inquiry. the intent of tenure is to allow original ideas to be more likely to arise, by giving scholars the intellectual autonomy to investigate the problems and solutions as they see fit, and to report their honest concl
Academic_terminology University_governance