During the class session with the Dean on the Penn State scandal, one of the students asserted that professors with tenure teach less well.
I was a bit shocked. I had never thought about it much, but my instinct was that the reverse would be true: faculty striving for tenure would put less effort into teaching because they have other things to do. It’s very hard to get tenure if you haven’t got serious grants, but grant success has become the hardest task in the business. To teach well, you just have to be better than the gal/guy down the corridor. To get a grant, you have to be among the best in the world.
On top of that, your application has to be completely perfect, guaranteed to work and so incredibly well written that not a single one of the many reviewers will be in the slightest way offended or bored. The National Science Foundation forces scientists to show how their science will impact teaching. I can’t help think that the system itself bleeds out the time, energy and enthusiasm that generates the very teaching excellence we all want.
The Dean answered the student by saying that ….
…not everyone tap dances well, meaning that Penn State appoints faculty for their abilities on a number of different criteria, of which teaching is quite rightly just one. But just a few months back, prompted by an article our local newspaper about the luxury of tenure, my colleague Marcel Salathe and I concluded that the talented could survive without it and indeed, that maybe it would sharpen everyone’s game to be without the tenure safety net. Sure there might be some subjects (economics?) where the protection is necessary so that faculty can investigate the unpopular. But most disciplines don’t need it, surely not ours. And there are PSU Faculty who take it seriously easy once they get tenure.
But they are not Penn State’s finest. The hardest working people in my Penn State have tenure, many of whom are exceptional teachers. And over the summer, for the first time ever, I became grateful for tenure. My science is warped enough by the conservatism of the grant awarding process. I realized in June that if my family’s security depended on conservatism as well, I’d be reduced to pathetic.
The experience was this. In March I drafted a paper I currently consider one of my best*. We thought hard about every word.
The paper concerns the bizarre orthodoxy that you must take your antibiotics long after you feel better. For over 15 years, I have found that idea odd. I finally wrote down my disquiet. When the paper was about to come out, I sent it to my very supportive NIH Program Officer, who passed it to the NIH press office. Next thing I am getting calls from NIH folk worrying about the message. And yes, in a very real sense we were questioning conventional wisdom. But maybe conventional wisdom is wrong? Nevertheless, I found myself working with the College of Science press office to write a defusing press release.
The result was so insipid, barely any press outlet covered it.
So I learnt two things. Its very hard to have a serious discussion about medical orthodoxy. And tenure is essential so that we feel free to question. Now more than ever we need Penn State employees to challenge authority without fear.
*I reserve the right to change my mind if it turns out we are wrong.
