When I was a freshman in college, I would roam the halls trying to find my professor’s office and pass it three times before I let go of my pride and asked someone for help. As I walked into their office with a plush couch for advising sessions and plaques all over the walls, I noticed one particular award given to my professor that acknowledged his tenure at the college.
What is tenure? I had no clue what that was, so of course I typed away at my computer trying to figure out what this fancy name meant.
Tenure is a prestigious honor given, which grants a professor’s permanent job contract after a period of five to seven years. The time in which a professor works for this title is called a “tenure-track appointment” where they are evaluated on their teaching ability, publication record and departmental service.
Tenure is usually granted to those who have reached their terminal degree, which means the highest degree possible. So basically, my professor, who really was sub par at his job, had a permanent stay at my college. Is that good or bad? It is hard to say.
I think that tenure is a great way for professors who have worked hard at their degrees to feel a sense of security with their job, especially when they are great educators of their field. That is where this whole tenure thing can get a little tricky.
In my experience, most professors who have received tenure are not the best teachers. They seem so focused on obtaining their PhD or Masters and writing a two-hundred page thesis to publish in a book that they forget they are humans, too. I think that is the biggest problem with tenure. Students are still learning, and they need a professor who wants to teach them with passion.
At Cabrini, I have only run into one professor who really did not seem to care about teaching and was more focused on their own degree.
I did horribly in that class because I started to not care either. But when I am in my other classes, I get this sense that the professors want to be there and are completely involved with each student’s career path. Yes, tenure can make some professors lazier because they feel they have a permanent stake in their college, but it can be taken away these tenured professors to make sure they are meeting certain requirements, so I believe that tenured professors can be great assets to a college and negative impacts as well. But as long as there are set rules and guidelines that these professors have to follow, I think that tenure will be less of a negative connotation among students.
