well, as you say, tenure varies from place to place, but it's perfectly possible to be tenured and have no more participation in management than any tenure-track faculty member. you could very well never be department chair and quite possibly never even chair a faculty committee. and there are places where the whole faculty pretty much never meet. and you are very unlikely to have even a meaningful vote in the hiring of administrators at any level, never mind at the senior level. but i'm no longer sure i know why we're talking about this. lol. :) ior maybe better put: i'm not sure i know why we still are. although it's kind of an interesting question on its own. i guess i just was pushing back a little on the comparisons between "other industries" and academia. it seems to me one of the most poisonous things in the academy is this ridiculous fetishization of the private sector, as if in "the real world" you could never get away with this, that, or the other thing. which is wholly and completely crap. but it doesn't stop administrators and faculty management (e.g., dept chairs, in some cases, or certain committees) trying to make the college "more like a business." hello, guys, it IS a business -- but that doesn't mean that it's just like that bizarre fantasy of A Business or of The Business World that you, who have never really worked there, have in your head.
j On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 2:31 PM, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > me: > >> in non-academic jobs, sometimes higher-level or unionized employees > >> have something akin to tenure (though usually it's weaker) once they > >> get beyond the probation period. In law and medicine, they have > >> something even more like tenure, i.e., being made a partner. > > Jeff: > > an interesting point, but again not the same security as tenure, in the > case > > of post-probation, and partner is actually a form of ownership, right? so > > much much bigger than tenure, in certain ways. > > i think. > > there are degrees of job security, and I'd bet that some tenure is > stronger than others. Or has the AAUP standardized it? > > Being partner involves owning part of a firm, but I don't know if > lawyers or doctors have to make actual financial contributions to > become partners in their firms. (I'd like to know, if anyone is an > expert on this.) If they don't have to make financial contributions to > become partners, it's pretty much the same as tenure. You earn the > partnership/tenure via "hard work" (as defined by those who already > have partnership/tenure and perhaps hired managers). > > Having tenure as a professor is like having a kind of property rights > in a job. (It's a superior type, I think, because I can't pass the > property rights down to my heirs.) If one is tenured, one is supposed > to participate in various management-type functions, so it's like > being a "partner." Of course, it's different from owning stock, > because some jerks could decide to stop giving you raises or to > publicly shun you (as happened to Paul Baran at Stanford). This might > happen if you don't participant in management functions (or because of > political bias, as with Baran). > > Perhaps the main difference between partnership in a law or medical > firm and tenure at a college or university is that the firms are > for-profit while colleges and universities are (officially) not > for-profit. > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own > way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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