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Come on, you know better than that. You know I don't defend bad management practice anywhere. Just because I don't believe in hand holding and spoon feeding doesn't mean I support bad policies. I know you had a bad experience in college but not everyone did.
I wouldn't say I had a bad experience in college, since the on campus living experience was worth far more than the academic experience, plus I enjoyed the 4 year vacation. I did have a bad experience in grad school.
Sounds like a decision by a bunch of whacko liberal Supreme Court justices. Maybe now with a more conservative Supreme Court, a taxpayer will sue and take the case to the Supreme Court and win.
I always thought that it was due to the Pendleton act, signed by corrupt, racist, accidental president Chester Arthur. The jerk who assassinated Garfield certainly caused us taxpayers a lot of damage.
Think about this for a minute. Do you really want public employees who are beholding to particular individuals for their jobs? That is the 3rd world path to corruption. Do you want have to pull out your wallet when the local building inspector or tax assessor drives by? Would you prefer more Tammany Hall?
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Originally Posted by mitsguy2001
So you are admitting that it's basically impossible to prove "cause".
If it's a professor who is never in his/her office, then I doubt he / she would care about losing his / her office.
My college had professors who showed up to class drunk and/or on drugs and were never fired.
Then why do higher ups always say "I'm aware that professor is a problem, but he/she has tenure, so there is nothing I can do about it"?
Yes, and that has exactly the same effect. If higher ups refuse to take the steps necessary to fire a worthless professor, it's no different than if they are outright unable to do so.
So again, you are admitting that they are effectively unable to fire tenured professors.
In summary, don't confuse bad management with policy. Say you can't fire government employees? I've done it. The biggest obstacle is not the law or policy but senior management who lacks the round steel bearings to do their jobs. It's bad enough that politics influences management as it is; yet you want to do away with basic protections and add more politics.
Think about this for a minute. Do you really want public employees who are beholding to particular individuals for their jobs? That is the 3rd world path to corruption. Do you want have to pull out your wallet when the local building inspector or tax assessor drives by? Would you prefer more Tammany Hall?
It can't possibly be worse than our current situation.
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In summary, don't confuse bad management with policy. Say you can't fire government employees? I've done it.
It was probably during his/her first year.
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The biggest obstacle is not the law or policy but senior management who lacks the round steel bearings to do their jobs. It's bad enough that politics influences management as it is; yet you want to do away with basic protections and add more politics.
But why are you entitled to these "basic protections" when the rest of us are not?
I only just learned this year, interestingly enough, it's actually based on the Constitution (5th amendment iirc) and has to do with with being a public job. Public positions come with "propertied interest" and that what tenure is, legally. This goes back to the 19th century and has been hashed out in Supreme Court cases.
It doesn't mean a school can't fire one. They can let one go at any time for any reason. But contractually it has to be for cause. If it's not for cause, then they're breaking the contract and they will lose a suit when the former prof sues them for several years salary plus some.
The easiest way to get rid of them to eliminate the position or department, not the person holding the position, aka "layoffs."
If it has to be ‘for cause’, then it’s not ‘for any reason’. Faculty contracts are typically for the academic year. The way you terminate a tenured faculty member is you have clearly defined job expectations, along with annual performance reviews. The College faculty handbook should clearly spell out what happens to any faculty member if his/her performance is not satisfactory. This way you have a justification for terminating a faculty member. Except in unusual circumstances, faculty members are not usually terminated in the middle of an academic year.
There are various carrots and sticks administrators can do if they REALLY want rid of a tenured faculty. Step raises can be withheld; that would probably be the biggest stick they've got. Smaller sticks might be things like taking away their office, ie: putting them in the proverbial basement like Milton in Office Space.
Firing one has to be for cause, or else the school will pay out on a lawsuit and a president will not look kindly on a dean or provost that made the school waste money on lawsuits. Cause can be all kinds of things, to include not doing their job. E.g. at the school I work for, we fired a tenured faculty who was showing up drunk to work. That cause didn't take long to prove; he was gone before the end of that year.
My experience is that tenure is more of a psychological benefit to faculty than anything real. At the end of the day, a faculty member can be fired if cause is documented, and the board of directors can step in and fire anyone for any reason at any college. They are, ultimately, hired help.
You almost make it sound like terminating tenured faculty is an everyday occurrence. It is not.
I think you will find that it is college administrators who don't have the will to do something about it, rather than not having the ability to do something about it.
You are correct in that department heads need to be skilled in giving performance feedback and reviews. Unfortunately, many, many are not. I’ve seen many department heads that had no business of being department heads. No leadership, no skills in performance appraisal, little communication or people skills etc..
In order to terminate a tenured faculty member for poor job performance, job expectations must be clearly articulated to the faculty member and there must be a structured, systematic way of measuring performance. If the faculty member’s performance is not up to par, ramifications should be clearly spelled out (ie.,training, termination, etc..). With that said, I’ve seen department heads hauled into court for discrimination. Performance aooriaisal is often linked to merit pay.. As a result, some department heads may not be willing to adequately assess performance for fear of legal ramifications. Department heads are likely going to be more willing to adequately assess performance when they feel competent of the process and their abilities, and have the support of upper administration.
That's more what I meant. They can re-arrange, re-organize in such a way as to get rid of someone.
I suppose that a faculty who teaches in-demand classes is quite a bit safer.
Other ways to do it are carrots - incentivize retirement somehow. Since the kind of faculty that seems to be what people here are talking about are older ones who haven't updated much.
You don’t rearrange or reorganize because you have 1 or 2 poor performing faculty.
Come on, you know better than that. You know I don't defend bad management practice anywhere. Just because I don't believe in hand holding and spoon feeding doesn't mean I support bad policies. I know you had a bad experience in college but not everyone did.
Most graduate faculty at R1 universities assist and guide their students in the publication process and may be second or third author, but I highly doubt the majority are trying to take advantage of their students.
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