Owen: For me, the best thing about tenure was that it allowed me to take up to two years of unpaid-leave whenever I wanted, safe in the knowledge that my job (with fine retirement and health bennies) would be there when I came back. Without that safety valve, I surely would not have been able to bear my 19th century dean and many of my colleagues as long as I did. This, of course, may not be universal policy, and it was something that I only discovered after receiving tenure.
I can say, however, that half my colleagues never even took sabbaticals (a semester off at full pay or two at half pay), much less invested in their own continuing education during the regular year. -tom On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Nicholas Thompson < [email protected]> wrote: > Owen asked: > > "I've never had Tenure. Does it really help?" > > It would do, if academia didnt attract people who are so damned riskaverse. > But at least at Clark, it seemed that people were looking form > opportunities to have their freedom restricted. And if you are looking to > be restricted, there are lots of excuses to be restricted in Academia. For > instance, you can do the research that you think will please journal > editors. Or you can only do research that you think federal agencies will > support. Or research that university resources are being directed towards. > Or research that attracts graduate students. Once the academic community > bit down on Academic Reaganism, everybody started evaluating one another on > how much money they were bringing in. And, of course, the University did > all it could to encourage this sort of behavior. It tried to regulate > faculty behavior with so-called merit raises .... George Orwell would have > been proud ... which, on average were hardly up to the standard of living. > In all my time there, I NEVER heard anybody stand up and say, "F* this > crap: I am just going to do my thing" > > So, in the end, I am not sure about tenure. I think it made it possible > for me to relax a bit in midcareer, write on what I cared about, and stand > up for things I believed in. My family never suffered for my lippiness. > Well, not much anyway. Consequently, I am for it for me. But then, I > dont work there anymore. > > All the best, > > Nick > > Nicholas S. Thompson > Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology, > Clark University ([email protected]) > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/> > > > ========================================== J. T. Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA www.analyticjournalism.com 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) http://www.jtjohnson.com [email protected] "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -- Buckminster Fuller ==========================================
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