Tenure. Current Issues in Higher Education No. 6, 1979.

The question of the viability of tenure for college faculty is considered in three papers. In "The History of Tenure," Walter P. Metzger considers the history of academic tenure and the history of opposition to this practice. It is concluded that tenure continues to be a vital institution and has provided a better quality faculty. Its important historical contribution has been to provide due process by peers for faculty threatened with dismissal. In order to provide tenured positions for junior faculty, it is proposed that higher education be exempt from the necessity of raising the retirement age to 70. In "The Poverty of Historicism: A Critique of Walter Metzger's Defense of Tenure," James O'Toole suggests that the disadvantages of tenure outweigh the advantages. Disadvantages include immobility or lack of career options for the tenured professor; the tendency to tenure individuals who do not give offense or make intellectual waves; the pressure to publish for its own sake; and putting power in the hands of senior faculty members to impose doctrinal orthodoxy on untenured junior faculty, thus restricting academic freedom. In "The Concept of Tenure and an Alternative," Penina M. Glazer describes how the contract system can work, based on the experience of Hampshire College, which has never had tenure and which does have multiple-year contracts. The following problems are noted: the time it takes to conduct periodic evaluations and how evaluations of senior faculty should differ from those of junior faculty. (SW)