Politics, Religion, and Education.

[Alluveal]

You can find assholes in any spectrum. The three students who are wetting themselves over something a professor is teaching (that offends their Christian beliefs) can take their life-crippling drama queen antics and shove em up their arses. I have my share of conservative views, but crap like this is why conservatives get so much shit. I hate dumb-asses like this. They're right up there with the zealots who claim Disney movies are all straight from Satan and the US is going to hell because of it!

I'd like to personally thank them for being one reason "conservative" is such a dirty word these days. Fuckers.

[Stormaye]

You have -no- idea how education would suffer if tenure were eliminated.

Enlighten us?

P.S. An education that offends no one, informs no one.

[vaulos]

It would guarentee an outcome to science. In other words, if you can threaten a professor with his job if his study comes to a result that your University doesn't want, then you've guarenteed that the study will come out however the University wants it to come out. It would also make individual unversities and colleges even more neo-liberal or neo-conservative than they already are, by allowing universities to purge teachers who's philosophies they don't believe in. Whether it is the token liberal or token conservative on your campus, his job would disappear if tenure went the way of the dodo.

[Relbeek Einre]

Stormaye - Google "academic freedom."

[Stormaye]

Stormaye - Google "academic freedom."

I'm familiar with the concept.

How does tenure ensure it? It certainly doesn't prevent the kinds of infighting, petty departmental politics, and administrative brown nosing that commonly occurs at universities.

The biggest downside of tenure is the absolute inability to remove those that desperately need removing. Total incompetence, sexual harassment, criminal charges, mental illness: I've witnessed all of these, and none of them were grounds for dismissal.

vaulos: education ($--), not research ($++). When someone gets funded to study mouse urine production (a recent example ), more power to them. When it involves students, it becomes important.

In general, I actually agree that tenure isn't a bad protection for professors. It's carried too far. Peer review, student review, hell, psychological counselling could be factored in to make it a better process.

[Relbeek Einre]

Peer and student review ARE factored in... and sexual harassment and criminal convictions (not charges) are certainly grounds for dismissal of a tenured prof in any college with which I'm familiar.

I'll get into the whys and wherefores later.

[Lord Holervabeese]

"Compare and contrast capitalism with socialism. Include in your essay examples of how socialism has helped bring up the living standards of populations around the world, and contrast them with limited benefits capitalism provides to a priviledged few."

You know, I'll bet the Soviet Union would've been a great example. Let's see, lives of the people in the completely socialist Soviet Union sucked, and now that they're capitalist they still suck but at least now they have choices of what to spend what little money they have on. Essay done and I flunk.

[Aabe]

Being a rebel is popular at the High school/college age (some never grow out of it.) I love the line: I want to be different, just like everyone else.

A friend grew up in a party high school. He became very "christian" and was considered a rebel because he wouldnt drink, smoke, swear or party. His family moved to Utah and he lost his rebel status. Which he said frustrated him greatly. For then the rebels were those that partied.

Since a perception has been projected that most professors and univeristies are liberal. You can argue that doing what these students are doing is "rebelling against the "new" system".

Throwing stuff up in the face of the conservative institutions (very popular in the 60's and beyond), is no longer such a "rebel" thing to do. It is more the norm and much more boring than it used to be. I bet history shows this cycle back as far was we have records.

[Partha]

"Comparest thou and contrast the divers natures of the Church of England and unholy Papism."

[Cartumandua]

That's all it is Torakus.

I did my four years in college, with both liberal and conservative professors. I assure you every one of them pushed their philosophies in the classrom. As a Political Science major, especislly so. Scott Johnston was a conservative, and was in the late 40s and early 50s one of the preeminent scholars on the newly burgeoning state of Israel in the country. Nick Hayes, a moderate to liberal, one of the preeminent authorities on Russia and the Soviet Union. Joseph Uemura, a Christian conservative, author of several books on Christian philosophy, taught my ethics course.


.

Wonder why...

Because he had the "I'm better than you, and you should do what I say." thing nailed?

[Relbeek Einre]

OK Stormaye, I'm gonna try to tackle this one.

The tenure system is in place because for a professor to be free of the pressures of the administration's whims - which are generally to please the trustees - and pursue the interests of his or her field of knowledge.

A professor takes six years to get tenure. This is a very long time to show the faculty and staff of the college that he knows what he's doing. A lot of professors simply don't make tenure, period.

I've seen firsthand what administration does to professors to force them to kowtow, at the expense of the quality of education of the institution. In recent years, the pressures on a college's administration are to push the college's faculty to produce more and more research - because research increases prestige which increases donations to the college. But it also takes professors' time away from teaching, which decreases the quality of education. But they can't fire the tenured profs, which leaves them free to devote their time to the education of their students.

Now, there are mechanisms in place to keep professors from slacking. Promotion from assistant to associate to full professor are based on quality of teaching and quality of research, and annual raises depend on performance. The former is generally a peer review process, the latter tends to come from the administration.

And for severe transgressions - sleeping with students, failing to do their job at all, crimes - even tenured profs can lose their jobs.

It's a highly effective system that has worked for centuries. Eliminating it now would turn colleges into businesses - and the bottom line isn't in the best interests of quality of education.

[vaulos]

To put it bluntly: tenure allows professors to disagree with thier boss and/or colleeges. If you don't understand the value of that, in a organization which pretends to be dedicated to discovering the truth of <enter scientific, literary, mathmatic, etc topic here> and/or discovering new things about the same, then there is nothing which can sway away from your folly.

[yutsano]

Wanna see the value of an education without tenure? Go to a state college in Europe.