Tenure is such an accepted feature of academic life that there often appears to be little question of its inherent value. Beneath the surface, however, considerable debate over the effects tenure can have on the quality of teaching and research frequently takes form.
While several departmental heads expressed their strong support for tenure as an institution and could scarcely conceive of abolishing the system, many discussed flaws in how tenure affects professors' research agendas.
"Doing away with tenure is a ticket to mediocrity and worse," said Pam Crossley, Chair of the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Program.
Kirk Endicott, chair of the anthropology department, framed the advantage of tenure in economic terms. Although tenure at an institution like Dartmouth is a highly prestigious position, he said, people make many sacrifices in order to get tenure, one of the most important being pay.
"If you removed tenure and the prestige and job security that goes along with it, fewer talented people would go into academics -- the pay just wouldn't be sufficient to entice talented people," Endicott said.
As Crossley pointed out, job security is not a concept unique to academics -- partners in law forms enjoy a kind of tenure, for example -- but the nature of the scholarly life makes it especially desirable, and even necessary.
Tenure, which became common only the 1960s, is a relatively recent development in the world of academics.
The concept of a permanent, paid research position is not new, however. Wealthy patrons have long lent their financial support to all kinds of intellectual inquiry.
"In a sense, the university has taken over the role of those patrons in that it provides scholars with the means to do research," said William Fischel, chair of the economics department.
Other professors, while acknowledging the benefits of job security, cited academic freedom as the greatest advantage of the tenure system.
"Tenured professors don't have to worry about corporate opinion. This allows the occasional maverick to pursue whatever he wants. Who knows? Maybe what he's doing will end up making some great contribution to the field," math department chair Dana Williams said.
Crossley concurred. "Tenure is absolutely necessary in order for people to explore new ideas, including new realms of knowledge that could otherwise put them jeopardy. Without tenure, there would be no growth, no experimentation, and no chance to develop philosophical ideas," she said.
Jagdish Bhagwati, a university professor at Columbia, refuted the idea that tenure allows greater academic freedom.
"In America, everybody has freedom of speech. Presumably this right is being protected. If it is not, then people can take legal recourse," he said.
Also, the tendency of professors in certain fields such as economics or law to frequently accept large sums of money for outside consulting undermines this freedom by making them accountable to the companies that pay them, he said.
"By selling their services, they are unwittingly trading away their freedom of expression," Bhagwati said.
Dartmouth's Crossley and Williams both dismissed the idea of tenured professors abusing this freedom and veering off into less rigorous or relevant fields of study.
However, a possibility does exist for some professors to rest on their laurels and grow lax about publishing after receiving tenure, they acknowledged.
This is more likely to happen, however, once they have been named a full professor, sociology chair John Campbell said.
"People do get lazy. It happens. That's the downside of tenure," Campbell said. "If your emphasis is on publication, then tenure could be perceived as an ambiguous institution because it can also protect people who choose to back off the research side of things."
Nonetheless, the professors who spoke to The Dartmouth said they have not seen this happen at Dartmouth.
"I am happy to observe that about 98 percent of the faculty members I know continue to be obsessive. There is almost no dead wood here," Travis said.
Williams, though, offered an explanation: "You don't succeed at a place like Dartmouth unless you truly enjoy the subject matter and want to continue to research it even after receiving tenure."
Nevertheless, the amount of pressure to publish, if not the actual volume of scholarly output, does decline after receiving tenure, Campbell said.
Campbell and others agree that young, tenure-track professors are under considerable pressure to publish in order to receive tenure, but most said they do not think this pressure is excessive.
"It is appropriate for junior faculty to be under the gun to a certain extent," said Campbell.
Williams called this "an awful burden" for young professors.
Such intense pressure to publish could potentially have a negative effect on the quality of teaching if junior faculty spend their time researching instead of with students. And the extent to which ambition for tenure adversely affects teaching depends on the institution, Campbell said. While at Harvard, Campbell felt that there were "huge disincentives to spend time with students."
At Dartmouth, however, there is nearly an equal emphasis on teaching and research, and in order to get tenure, junior faculty must show themselves to be effective teachers, Campbell said.
It is also possible that the intense pressure to publish could adversely affect the quality of scholarly work produced.
"At some point, the pressure can become excessive," Travis said. "What you see, then, is people are pushing out articles that are not as fully seasoned -- just to have it on their resume."
Department chairs denied that women and minorities are in any way discriminated against when it comes to getting tenure.
The hiring process, in fact, benefits women and minorities, as the official College policy is to promote diversity, Endicott said.
When it comes down to the actual decision, however, those involved are required to be completely objective and make a decision based on the person's accomplishments alone, Endicott said.
Bhagwati said that this emphasis on measurable scholarly outputs indirectly disadvantages women, many of whom devote a substantial portion of their time to raising children.
"I don't know any men who really use their paternity leaves except to do research. For the most part it is women who are hurt in terms of getting tenure," he said.
Those who are denied tenure must cope not only with the shame of rejection, but with the reality of having to start anew, either at another university or in another profession altogether.
"There is a severe trauma that many, many people experience when they are essentially fired -- ironically, when they may be at the forefront of their field," Campbell said. "The psychological scars can be very deep and long-lasting."
Nevertheless, a finite number of positions in academe means that, by necessity, some people will not receive tenure.
Crossley said this is just a fact of life.
"A job on the Dartmouth faculty is tremendously difficult, and the expectations are very high, but tenure should be reserved as a very special kind of recognition," she said. "You should have to be a highly accomplished person to be awarded that distinct status."
