This is an interesting story, showing that the percentage of tenure track faculty members is on the decline.
Inside Higher Ed :: The Shrinking Tenure Track
This is an especially relevant question for a place like UWO, which claims that budget expenses make it impossible to fill the vacant tenure-track lines. Invariably, those lines are then filled by part-timers and adjuncts who teach more and have very little input into the governance of the university.
UWO has particularly ineffective faculty participation in governance, based on my experiences at many different institutions. Eliminating the number of tenure-track faculty, who have some protection against arbitrary decisions by administrators, makes sure that our voice will continue to be, well, pathetically weak.
Some will claim that tenure is an outdated institution, and I am sympathetic to many of those arguments. However, without that protection, job security takes precedent over serious, open disagreement. Although no one threatens openly, it is well understood that you don't want to get on the wrong side of those in charge if you want to stay at this or any institution.
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I am currently reading a book by Seymour Melman, "from managerialism to workplace democracy". In the book, Melman clearly tracks the growth of top down managerial control for the manufacturing sector . Here take a hit off this, The ratio of managers to production workers in 1899 was 10:100, in 1947 22:100, and check this out in 1996 53:100, these are averages in manufacturing (pp 178-179 Melman). I wonder if this top down growth has also been occurring in academia. Question, for every professor teaching how many people are administrating? If there has been a great rise in centralized control, would it not also be true that tenor would threaten such control? Last but not least, with the rise of administration wouldn't such rise take a greater slice of the pie, therefore leaving less for professors.
I really must stop reading books like Melmans, they tend to get under my skin, especially statistics like the following, us government outlays by function, 1940 to 1996: defense 16.31 trillion, nuclear weapons and infrastructure 5.83 trillion,...education, employment and social services 1.55 trillion (p 144 Melman). I mentioned these statistics during a call in to NPR when they had some nut job professor from AEI . He hemmed and hawed then stated, “traditionally it is the states that fund universities and education.” That may be true, but I think numbers do not lie and these numbers tell a tale of Americas true priorities. I cannot remember the professors name ,but he was proposing that universities all become privatized.
Next semester i need to not read stuff like Melmans and just stick to classwork. I also need to stop thinking, shut my mouth and just hand in my work on time. I think if I do the former my GPA should get better.
Frank mccandless
I am currently reading a book by Seymour Melman, "from managerialism to workplace democracy". In the book, Melman clearly tracks the growth of top down managerial control for the manufacturing sector . Here take a hit off this, The ratio of managers to production workers in 1899 was 10:100, in 1947 22:100, and check this out in 1996 53:100, these are averages in manufacturing (pp 178-179 Melman). I wonder if this top down growth has also been occurring in academia. Question, for every professor teaching how many people are administrating? If there has been a great rise in centralized control, would it not also be true that tenor would threaten such control? Last but not least, with the rise of administration wouldn't such rise take a greater slice of the pie, therefore leaving less for professors.
I really must stop reading books like Melmans, they tend to get under my skin, especially statistics like the following, us government outlays by function, 1940 to 1996: defense 16.31 trillion, nuclear weapons and infrastructure 5.83 trillion,...education, employment and social services 1.55 trillion (p 144 Melman). I mentioned these statistics during a call in to NPR when they had some nut job professor from AEI . He hemmed and hawed then stated, “traditionally it is the states that fund universities and education.” That may be true, but I think numbers do not lie and these numbers tell a tale of Americas true priorities. I cannot remember the professors name ,but he was proposing that universities all become privatized.
Next semester i need to not read stuff like Melmans and just stick to classwork. I also need to stop thinking, shut my mouth and just hand in my work on time. I think if I do the former my GPA should get better.
Frank mccandless
Tenure is also an economic safety net to compensate for low pay. A company might fire an employee at will, even after relocating that person. The fired person was likely highly compensated while working. Compare this to a professor, who would be paid much lower (than a corporate employee an organization moves for employment). At the rates universities pay faculty and under-reimburse for moving, tenure becomes the economic reason to be a faculty member. If we were fired so easily, few of us could afford working in this field.
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