Page 47 - Crisis in Higher Education

22 • Crisis in Higher Education

that is going to be closed or a school that is in serious financial diffi-
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culty. Nationally, about 2% of tenured faculty are dismissed each year.
Dismissing a tenured faculty member is not as easy as many administra-
tors would like it to be, but it can be done. The primary purpose of tenure
is to prevent administrators, who usually have tenure and hold faculty
rank, from firing faculty who disagree with them on theory and concepts,
have slighted or criticized them in the past, or have a history of personal
differences. Tenure is intended to create an environment where freedom
of thought and expression are not only tolerated but encouraged.
For years, tenure has been a lightning rod, used to explain what is
wrong with higher education. In the minds of many, eliminating tenure
is a problem solver, but consider the following. Tenured faculty make
up less than 30% of the faculty at colleges and universities. 20,21 Table 1.3
lists the percent of faculty by the type of institution. In 2007, across
all institutions, tenured faculty was 27.3%. There was a big difference
between two-year community colleges, which teach primarily founda-
tional and hands-on courses, at 17.5% and public, four-year institutions,
which have no or very small graduate programs, at 39%. For public,
doctoral granting institutions, only 28.9% of faculty had tenure because
these institutions used many graduate assistants to teach undergradu-
ate courses. At private, four-year and private, doctoral institutions, only
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about 29% had tenure. Therefore, the impact of tenured faculty is much
smaller than what most people believe, and moving forward, the impact
will most likely be less as the portion of tenured faculty continues to
decline. From 1978 to 2014, administrative positions have increased
by 369%, part-time faculty by 286%, and full-time, non-tenure-track
faculty by 259%. During this period, full-time, tenured positions have
increased by only 23%. 22,23
It is difficult to blame the rising costs of higher education on greedy
faculty. The median salary for part-time faculty at a public research
university was $3,200 per course. It was only $2,250 at community col-
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leges. In 2013–2014, full-time instructors and lecturers, which are
usually non- tenured positions, earned $48,388 and $53,343 at public
institutions, respectively. At public institutions, earnings for assistant
professors, associate professors, and professors, which is the normal
progression for tenured faculty, were $69,100, $80,448, and $112,897,
respectively. 23
The salaries for tenured faculty are not exorbitant when one considers
the time it takes to earn a PhD. At a minimum, it requires five years of