Like many legislators, the regents are concerned that tenure is being abused to protect unproductive faculty at the University. Quite simply, it can restore the high standar ds of its once-famous College of Liberal Arts. But, in fact, many professors turn into dead wood as soon as they get tenure, even though some of them continue to be popular in a classroom of undergraduates.
Academics die professionally when they lose their motivation for creative scholarship.
By im parting their scholarship to colleagues internationally, professors make the whole world their classroom. To this end, tenure is indispensable. Its defenders sometimes forget, however, that tenure does not relieve professors of responsibility for communic ating their research. To put it bluntly, professors who do not publish deserve to perish. They aren't pulling their weight as scholars .