Despite decreases in tenure nationwide, University administrators insist tenure at the University is safe.
Though University faculty have few qualms with tenure procedures at the University, many professors fear the national trend of hiring faculty without the intent of granting them tenure.
Tenure allows professors to express opinions and conduct research without fear of losing their jobs in the face of controversy. Professors are granted tenure after they are promoted to associate professor.
Paul Bell, attorney and former University agronomy professor, said the University’s faculty handbook does not specifically outline the procedure for gaining tenure. He said tenure is the only thing that protects faculty employment in Louisiana, one of only five states that does not protect employment in other ways.
Cecil Eubanks, tenured political science professor, said the percentage of tenured faculty nationwide is decreasing. He said professors are increasingly hired as instructors and never become tenured professors.
“Yes, it’s a problem,” he said. “Not a serious one here yet, but it could be.”
Chuck Wilson, vice provost for Academic Affairs, said a goal of the University’s Flagship Agenda was to increase tenure-track professors – those whose department intends to grant tenure.
“The intent was to add more tenure-track faculty over that ten-year period,” Wilson said.
Dominique Homberger, tenured biology professor, said the University must honor tenure to attract an admirable faculty.
“The kind of dedication and hard work that is necessary to make LSU a pre-eminent place of research and teaching, you simply do not get if people have to worry where their next paycheck comes from,” she said.
Joshua Gunn, former University communication studies professor, said he left LSU for the University of Texas at Austin after three years for personal reasons – not tenure issues.
“My department was going to put me up for tenure very early,” he said. “That was one of the hard things to leave.”
Jeffrey Herndon received a political science doctorate from LSU. He currently teaches at Texas A&M University-Commerce.
He said he left the LSU because he did not qualify for a tenure-track position at the University immediately after graduate school.
Herndon said he was aware of the qualifications when he came to LSU.
“I would love to teach at LSU again, I would love to be at LSU, but I understand the reasons why I did not qualify for a tenured faculty position at that time at LSU,” he said.
James Wharton, former University chancellor and current chemistry professor, said the University currently has less than 1,000 tenure-track faculties.
“We’ve got, I think, 977 tenure-track faculty members,” Wharton said. “We’re small because of our financial constraint.”
Wilson said standards for tenure are increasing as the University grows.
“Over the past thirty years, the expectation of productivity for tenure has gone up,” Wilson said. “As we have improved the quality of the faculty that we hire, I think that faculty have imposed greater expectation on their peers for reaching tenure.”
Gunn said, in his three years at LSU, the requirements for tenure increased dramatically.
“The standards for tenure when I arrived at LSU in 2002 were radically different when I left in 2005,” he said. “It was my perception the University was setting the standard much higher.”
Tenured faculties are periodically subjected to post-tenure review. Its results include pay raises and class increases.
“Academic freedom isn’t as strong as many think,” Bell said, citing post-tenure review as a threat to “academic freedom.”
Wharton said few professors lose their tenure in post-tenure review.
“It’s so hard to get tenure that very few of the faculty members that get tenure are going to have trouble with post-tenure review,” Wharton said. “And I don’t see post-tenure review as all that serious — I’ve not heard of anybody going through a post-tenure review and losing their tenure.”
Gunn said post-tenure review diminishes the protection of tenure.
“If one is subjected to post-tenure review each year then what’s the point of tenure?” Gunn asked.
Wilson said post-tenure review aims to “help those who have lost their competitive edge.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever fired a faculty member at LSU through the post-tenure review process,” Wilson said.
Wharton said LSU has always protected tenure. He said terminating a tenured professor requires cause.
“If it’s for cause, there’s going to be tenure hearings, and you’re going to have to prove that the faculty member abused his position,” Wharton said.
Eubanks, a University professor of 40 years, said the University has made “judicious and fair” decisions regarding tenure.
“Appeals have been made and controversial decisions have been made,” he said. “Those were the exception more than they were the rule.”
Herndon said any problems were not unique to the University, and he hopes to return to the University.
“The best students I’ve ever had, I had at LSU,” he said. “Institutionally, it was a good fit for me.”
—-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected].