Promotion and tenure

The link (click above) is to Wikipedia’s entry on tenure.

I have a couple of thoughts on this matter which are relevant to research institutes such as Krasnow:

The first is that tenure serves a real function for us at Krasnow (especially when viewed in comparison to stand-alone research institute’s which may not grant same): it allows us to recruit top flight faculty under conditions when we otherwise might not be able to. In other words, tenure is a major carrot.

The second is that the reason for tenure was originally to protect academic freedom–particularly during the 1950’s when academics who had sympathies for left-wing causes had reason to fear for their jobs. That raison d’etre is no longer a valid concern. Academic freedom is reasonably secure in the Academy.

What concerns me is that the granting of tenure may remove the powerful job incentive that most other high performance professions have as a matter of course (imagine the coach of the Washington Red Skins having tenure!). And in science, particularly basic research, this loss of incentive can be a very bad thing.

Jim