Another Article Documents Decline of Tenure

In the midst of an incredibly hectic week, I am sneaking in a post. Here is an article from the New York Times. Although there doesn't seem to be anything in particular driving its appearance, it notes that the shift from tenure-track appointments to limited-term ones continues apace.

My favorite bit from the article is this:

Dr. Ehrenberg and a colleague analyzed 15 years of national data and found that graduation rates declined when public universities hired large numbers of contingent faculty.

Several studies of individual universities have determined that freshmen taught by many part-timers were more likely to drop out.

These two statistics should be more prominently displayed. There is a real impact on students--not just the institution or the teachers--when the type of teacher changes!