T he University’s Flagship Agenda calls for the hiring of about 200 tenure-track professors in the next six years; but what does it really mean for the campus community?
Tenure.
For Jeremy Springer, a general studies freshman, it means someone who can’t be fired.
Office of University Special Events Director Randy Gurie just knows that tenure is a long process.
Recently tenured professor Joseph Skillen appreciates it for the academic freedom.
And Faculty Senate President Carruth McGehee first thinks of how hard it is to get.
There is little understanding between students, faculty, instructors and even administrators as to what tenure is and what it means to the University. Yet, by the year 2010, Chancellor Mark Emmert hopes to hire 150 to 200 more professors who should earn this title.
The objective is one part of the Flagship Agenda that will affect every person in the campus community as early as next semester.
Reveille Investigates
Walking through the Quad and the Union on a chilly January morning, the most common definition students give for tenure is “someone who can’t get fired.”
In addition to Springer, Erin Wereskla, a fashion merchandise junior, thinks of a tenured professor as someone who is older. He is someone who has been here a long time. And he wears buttoned-up shirts with a briefcase.
Student Government president Allen Richey answered a little differently. Tenure is associated with a difficult process that involves work beyond the classroom, he said.
Still, Emmert knows the misunderstandings are part of the reason there is so much concern and confusion about an objective to move toward more tenure-track and tenured professors and away from instructors.
Currently the University employs 646 tenured professors. About 250 more are tenure-track professors. They are working toward the chance to apply for tenure. There are 332 non-tenure-track faculty working at the University. This figure includes instructors.
Emmert wants the number of tenure-track professors to increase. While doing so, the University will lower the number of instructors it employs.
“I think most students don’t fully understand the complex role that professors play at a university. We all think that a professor is a teacher and they are the same as an instructor,” Emmert said. “I remember when I was a freshman, I wasn’t sure who was a TA, who was an instructor, who was a professor. I had no idea; that was just this person in front of me who could flunk me if I misbehaved or who could teach me things if I paid attention.”
Specifically, Emmert’s objective in the Flagship Agenda calls for an “increase in research productivity in support of long-term economic development.” It further explains a goal to “add a minimum of 150 faculty.”
“What we are trying to do is make sure we have enough to be competitive,” he said. “Academics isn’t like football. In football, you put 11 men on the field and that’s it. If you put a 12th man on there, they’ll call a penalty. In academics you can put as many players on the field as you want.”
So, when the University’s chemistry department competes against a chemistry department in Texas, Emmert explains their chemists probably double the amount here. The probability of Texas having a better chemistry department than LSU is great.
The disadvantage is not necessarily in the volume of teachers, but in the quality of work they are producing, Emmert said.
About 150 to 200 more tenure-track or tenured professors will put LSU on a national level.
The Reveille thought it necessary to examine this goal and its impact on the University.
Technically, it will cost the University about $9 million in employee salaries. Hiring tenure-track professors costs about $3.6 million more than hiring the same amount of instructors.
According to many, though, the objective means a much needed facelift for the faculty.
Joseph Skillen’s Story
Professor Joseph Skillen earned tenure in the School of Music one year ago.
This year, he teaches a music appreciation course on Tuesdays and Thursdays. During the rest of the week, 18 students rely on him for tuba and euphonium instruction.
Teaching is only one-third of Skillen’s contributions to the University.
“Research is a significant component to a tenured professor’s life that students never see or hardly ever see,” Skillen said during a lunchtime interview. Lunch usually is the only time he takes a break from his duties for phone calls or e-mail.
The job of all tenure-track and tenured professors is a three-tier job. In addition to teaching, professors are required to conduct original research and serve both their department and the public.
Specifically, Skillen fulfills his research obligations by publishing in scholarly journals, writing textbooks, recording music and performing that music nationally and internationally. Just recently, he performed in Italy and Japan.
He then serves the University as the chair of the brass and percussion division of his department. He is involved in helping graduates write dissertations, serves on master’s committees and is a Faculty Senate member for the department. He also travels around the country to recruit talented students and faculty for the School of Music.
With students, Skillen will grade recitals, judge auditions and write letters of recommendation.
And, every now and then, he stops for students who just want “to hang,” as one did during the interview.
“Those are the things the University expects to see from me. And, if they don’t see it, I don’t get tenure,” Skillen said.
Once earned, tenure does not allow professors to slow down, though. If anything, Skillen thinks his workload has increased in the past year just because he is seen as a more valuable colleague. The difference is he now has the freedom to take on projects he is most passionate about.
It’s called academic freedom, he said.
At the University, tenure is a title professors can earn after excelling at teaching, research and service for seven years. It usually is associated with a promotion from assistant professor to associate professor.
Tenure originated as a protection for professors under the civil service laws around 1890 and 1910. Skillen said new administrations would come into a department and fire everyone. Tenure allowed professors to freely teach and study without fear of a disapproving new administrator.
“The idea is that it is an academic freedom issue much more than it is a job security issue, at least for me,” Skillen said.
Because of tenure, a new chancellor or provost cannot close the music department because he or she objects to music. Similarly they cannot tell professors what to pursue in terms of research.
Also, the system protects professors at a public university from a state legislature that may often want to intervene with what is going on at the state institution, Emmert said.
Therefore, when the University hires assistant professors from graduate schools, their contract requires them to teach, research and serve for six years. During that sixth year, they begin applying for tenure. In the seventh year, the University decides whether the professor is of enough quality to remain on staff.
It is a process that involves evaluation by department colleagues and external academic peers, said Carruth McGehee, Faculty Senate president and a math professor.
McGehee said that decision in the seventh year often is called the “up or out” decision.
Stepping Stone
Earning tenure is just another step in Skillen’s and many other professors’ careers. Once surviving the “up or out” decision, professors still are required to perform at quality levels — if not for a promotion to full professor four years later, they must perform for funding for their projects.
Earning tenure is a milestone in so many professors’ careers because of the work applicants must put into their applications, Skillen said.
Mass communication professor Xigen Li is a professor currently going through his tenure application. He understands the pressure of that “up or out” decision very well.
A person will receive tenure if they have been doing well in all three aspects: teaching, research and service. Standards encourage applicants to conduct research on a national level so those granted tenure are some of the best in the field.
Li, a former news reporter from China, came to the University after earning his doctorate degree from Michigan State University. His goal was to teach and research. So far, he’s conducted numerous studies in mass media theory, specifically dealing with the the news media on the Internet. Last year he investigated whether presentations of the news on the Internet will affect audience perception of what are the priority issues.
All the work has given Li a tenure application packet that includes folders with 20 to 30 categories in it. Before being awarded tenure, other mass communication tenured faculty and a committee of media researchers from around the country will evaluate Li’s work.
“You have to document so many things,” he said. “It requires attention to details.”
But the process gives him an opportunity to look back at all he has accomplished. It gives his colleagues something to gauge his level of productivity after earning tenure.
He is confident in his research ability and service. Li is in the process of improving the teaching portion to meet the criteria. All of his student evaluations are included in the application to show how he has performed since he came to the University, he said.
In the meantime, Li said he just continues working toward his goal — to improve, regardless of the tenure process.
In Skillen’s case, he applied for tenure early at the encouragement from his colleagues. They recognized he was producing work on a quality level. Skillen also had another job offer.
“The University wanted to retain me,” he said. “A way of doing that is sometimes offering tenure.”
Emmert looks at tenure as hiring a career.
Skillen said his career is not much different now than it was before he reached a tenure status.
“I’m still doing the same amount of research,” he said. “That’s why I’m tenured. It’s because I didn’t look at it as a goal, it was just an opportunity for me to continue to pursue the life I’ve always wanted before tenure.”
Importance to the University
It is not that Special Events Director Randy Gurie necessarily thinks the Flagship Agenda is the perfect solution to the University’s problems. But, it always is good for any institution to be planning or setting goals for its future, he said.
It also is important for people to remember that a high number of tenured professors at a university does look good to peers, said the administrator who heads many of the University’s leadership efforts such as Leadership LSU.
“It is important for us to be able to present ourselves and say we are a top-level university,” Gurie said.
Emmert agreed. Competition and peer evaluation of LSU is an important reason for wanting to increase the number of tenured and tenure-track professors. He also strongly believes the strength of a university lies in its faculty and their performance.
Skillen equates the performance of a tenured professor to a commodity. Professors create knowledge and knowledge is a commodity, he said.
“It’s like when a scientist creates a new invention that they put a patent on it and it revolutionizes something, or if I were to be a composer that could create a composition that could win a Pulitzer Prize or something,” he said. “That’s all free thought that’s gone into creating a commodity that has real value.”
No one was willing to say instructors did not serve an important role at the University. Research assistants who only research and never teach also have important functions, Emmert said.
But, he wants the campus community to understand why he would rather have a long-term goal to hire professors.
“If we are going to move toward a university that can compete with the best academic institutions, we’ve got to have a better balance between the number of faculty who are contributing in all directions of University work and less reliance on those who contribute in only one direction,” he said.
Balancing Act
Should the University employ professors or instructors?
This objective in the Flagship Agenda will have costs for everyone on campus, from jobs to actual dollar amounts.
Jason Champagne, an English senior, said tenured professors generally have a better understanding of what they are doing. But they care more about the material and less about how students perform.
Emmert disagrees. Tenure and tenure-track professors are essential to both students and the University.
“There’s always debate about whether you have to ignore your teaching to be a good researcher or you have to ignore your research to be a good teacher,” he said. “The fact of the matter is, there are always conflicts for your time. There are always those kinds of trade-offs, even as a student taking three, four or five classes, you spend more time with one than on the other and you always have to balance the tasks.”
Great universities are those where the faculty are highly successful at all three components of their job — teaching, research and service, Emmert said.
And sticking behind the decision to cut the number of instructors at the University, Emmert said he does not agree instructors have more to offer students than professors.
“We expect the instructors to really only focus their time and attention on one of those things — teaching,” he said.
Instructors may teach well, but Emmert looks at what they contribute in the long run. They rarely will contribute to the development of new course or upperclassmen education, he said.
Even in a curriculum like mathematics, McGehee sees a need for research. Research leads to improved curriculums. For example, the course offerings for math and physics are vastly different today than when McGehee started teaching in 1971.
But, employing professors could cost the University twice as much as instructors.
When asked if it was a cost he was willing to pay, Emmert immediately answered “yes.” They are that valuable to the University, he said.
Richey did not respond as quickly. Paying for higher quality teaching will in some way fall on students, either through fee increases or a tuition increase.
“Compared to other schools, LSU’s cheap,” he said. “Extra costs are a burden on the students, but it’s an easier burden to take for quality”
As of last semester, campus instructors now face the possibility of losing their jobs. Specifically, the math department will cut several instructors within the next year. More specifically, the business calculus class will seat about 600 students to make up for the loss in teachers.
McGehee argues the University is long overdue for this change in proportions.
According to McGehee, the University in the 1980s hired instructors for a large volume of entry level and remedial teaching. But with stricter admission standards, students are smarter.
In 1985, almost 70 percent of students entering were not ready to take advanced math classes. Now, few students even need to take algebra, he said.
In McGehee’s opinion, the University needs fewer instructors.
Champagne sees nothing wrong with having instructors stay in the lower level classrooms if it means smaller classes. In his four years at the University, he rarely has taken a class that had more than 50 students in it.
Richey also doesn’t necessarily believe cutting instructors is the answer, both for the same reason as Champagne and one other.
“Is it possible that new instructors just are not hired?” Richey asked. He is under the impression that instructors already have a high turnover rate.
The transition is scary for some. Despite any good intention Emmert may have by putting forth the objective, some students are worried about how costs will affect the plan.
Erin Wereskla, a fashion merchandise junior, ultimately thinks the Flagship Agenda and its objectives are a good idea. She has noticed positive change at the University and hopes to see it continue. She also said she understands there may be sacrifices to reach those goals.
But when Wereskla complains to her younger sister at University High about the trouble she has scheduling classes and the shortage of teachers, negative impressions will spread, she said.
“And even though we might get there, what if we don’t?” she asked.
Richey echoes her worries.
Louisiana is facing budget cuts that could hurt the University’s ability to catch up to where it needs to be.
He is aware a correlation exists between education and a thriving economy. For example, the University of Texas in Austin greatly has impacted the economy in its area. The example suggests thriving universities can build strong economic arenas. And the Flagship Agenda would help move LSU to the type of university found in Austin.
“But I don’t know all the answers,” Richey said.
Even with answers, Randy Gurie, Special Events director and head of the Leadership LSU program, thinks not everyone will be happy with instructor cuts and tenure-track hires. Some always will have biases.
“But for others, I think the confidence will come when they can see the tangible results of what we are trying to do,” he said. “This objective will take some time for tangible results to appear and some students have difficulty seeing how this is beneficial to them. But you have to look at it from the standpoint of the greater good.”
The objective is like the things every parent urges their child to do as they grow up. Eat certain foods. Go to the doctor and get rest.
“We didn’t always want to do it, but it’s what our parents thought was best,” Gurie said. “There are knowledgeable folks at the University who seem to know what’s best.”
And in Emmert’s mind, what is best for the University “better be good for students.”
“‘Cause that’s what we’re here for,” he said.
What makes LSU different from a liberal arts college or a community college is that its faculty are involved in original research and scholarship, Emmert said.
“We have very high expectations of them because that’s how we advance knowledge and that’s how we advance society,” he said.
A Student’s Role
Almost everyone interviewed agreed some students always would believe tenure takes the quality out of a teacher.
The idea is understandable. For example, Jeremy Springer questions whether deans and department heads place much value in student evaluations of teachers.
“Maybe if there were really low marks, but there is so much else for them to do,” Springer said.
But almost every administrator and faculty member in this story said students have significant power in making sure that dead weight does not build up in a department.
True, it is hard to fire someone who has tenure, McGehee said. Departments still evaluate faculty each year with the help of student evaluations.
Besides simply improving a class, there are many incentives for faculty to earn high evaluations and excel after reaching tenure — money being the biggest.
Few administrators will grant research money or raises to a professor who is getting bad reviews, McGehee said.
He did agree with Springer that an administrator can tell little from student evaluations except when the scores are either high or low. For this reason, McGehee suggests something he said already happens in his department.
“If [a score] is very low, deans and department heads should already know about the problem before the numbers come in,” he said. “Problems will be reported to the supervisors and generally they have a good idea of how people are doing in the classroom.”
Students can find their professor’s supervisor and give feedback — both good and bad, McGehee suggests. The feedback should be continuous and is especially helpful before someone reaches tenure.
“The place where bad teachers are usually stopped is when someone is up for tenure and there is a problem in the classroom,” McGehee said. “Bad evaluations really hurt a case.”
McGehee knows of departments that have let people go early because of trouble in the classroom. Music professor Joseph Skillen said this usually happens at the three-year evaluation in his department.
The Flagship Agenda’s objective to hire more tenure-track professors will change the nature of teaching students receive. Students again do not have to sit back and watch as the decisions are made from above.
Emmert said many conversations with faculty and staff went into creating the objectives in the Flagship Agenda. He tried hard to get outside opinions. And he still is willing to accept them, he said.
“I’m never so presumptuous to think that I have all the answers,” Emmert said. “I’ve raised children, I know I don’t have all the answers.”
The Flagship Agenda is a loose rubric to define where LSU wants to go as a university. It is a living document that lays out guidelines and not a blueprint, he said.
“If, as we move along in that direction, students see something and they’re like, ‘I don’t know about this,’ then we want to hear their thoughts and ideas,” Emmert said.
SG President Allen Richey is also committed to making sure students have a venue for their questions to be answered. This is the main reason he organized Chats with the Chancellor, a monthly meeting when students can freely ask Emmert questions about his actions or lack thereof.
Richey said students also should not be afraid of hindering the Flagship Agenda if questions are not answered. During the fall semester, SG members went to the Board of Supervisors to lobby for them not to increase student fees.