a question about colleges' hiring

[modelerdc]

I don't know if anyone has any stats for your specific question. However it has been reported in many media in recent years the trend for colleges to keep costs down by using instructors instead of tenure track proffessors. Instructors may be hired from semester to semester so they don't get raises, can be hired or let go to match enrollment, often are part time and don't qualify for benefits. The hiring of instructors also doesn't have to meet the same standards as tenure track, so it's much easier for the head of a department to just appoint who they want. One irony of this situation is that I can think of a college where for many decades the tenure track trombone (and trumpet btw) position was never granted tenure, so every few years they hired a new one. It's believed this situation served the interests of the faculty who already had tenure becuase they had the politics of the music school where they wanted it and giving tenure to additional faculty could upset the apple cart.

[bearphonium]

I have roughly the same actual knowledge of the process as bloke, if not less. I do know (living in a University town) that more folks are denied tenure across the board than was the case 20 years ago or so. Can't speak about the situation at the school of music, but I know that in two different schools recently, two really good instructors were not tenured for no real obvious reasons...

[Trevor Bjorklund]

Bloke - I assume you are suggesting that this would be a covert process, known only to the dean and possibly chair, and would be a "dirty little secret" in a department. And in no way are you suggesting that departments should do this, right?

Also, for the record: the tenure track is a six year process. If you don't get tenure by your sixth year (working - not including maternity leave or the like), you are not rehired. Sometimes people get it before 6 years, but never after.

[Michael Bush]

I started writing a response, but it just got more and more complicated. So here's a quick list with little detail. (And I should say I have zero state university experience, SLAC only, for whatever that is worth.)

Partly it depends on where the decision to deny or recommend against tenure was made. Was it the department, the tenure committee, the dean, etc. There are lots of places where a tenure application can get derailed, and each one has its own priorities and politics.

If it's in the department, I think keeping a pattern like this going for long would be nearly impossible except someplace like Yale where tenure denial is the norm institution wide, and for totally different reasons. The politics of a department of any size shift around all the time most places. Maybe if there were a large proportion of stable, mid-career tenured faculty such a pattern could be sustained. I'm very skeptical that such a group would keep up such a pattern in order to save the department or institution money, though.

If such a pattern exists, and money is the reason, then it's coming from no lower than the department chair, and very probably higher up than that.

Lots of times when capable people get denied tenure it's because they don't have anyone among the senior faculty who is willing to go to the wall making the case for them.

The bottom line is that I'm pretty skeptical about the scenario.

[Alex C]

One university in the area used to hire brass and woodwind faculty and deny tenure. So every five years they had an almost completely new faculty. When they finally wanted to hire one particular player, he refused unless he was given immediate tenure.

I believe he demanded that other new hires in the department be given tenure track positions. The whole department has been upgraded by this.

When I was paying attention, the trend seemed to generally be to hire on a non-tenure track. If enrollment in the music department drops they can convert you to part time or assign you to other duties until you quit. Good strategy for management, bad for the professional.

With the drop in opportunities to make a living as a musician, it is only a matter of time before enrollment in universities drops.