Tenure and the Entrepreneurial Academy: A Reply

Abstract

Professor Finkin unpacks critique of tenure written by economist David Breneman for American Association of Higher education's New Pathways project. Finkin argues that Breneman's argument is historically inaccurate, that his assessment is indeterminate of result he claims for it, and that his proposal for change is intrinsically inimical to academic freedom. Finkin sees Breneman's proposal as an effort to socialize young academics to accept a market-driven model of professoriate that pits young against old and more applied disciplines against humanities and many of social sciences. He questions whether Breneman's proposal will better conduce toward the common good than does academic tenure. David Breneman, a distinguished economist of higher education, university Dean and former college president, questions continued viability of academic tenure and proposes a scheme for its elimination, at least for those relatively underendowed and relatively unselective colleges and universities that constitute majority of higher (1997). He takes an and economic perspective to advance his argument; but, tack he takes is freighted with sociological significance as well. In what follows, I propose to examine his arguments and his proposal; and to raise a question concerning academic world he would move us toward. CHANGE AND DYSFUNCTION [C]hanging circumstances, Breneman argues, create a need to rethink employment relationship in higher education (1997:3). The circumstances he adverts to are and social; and a benchmark against which that change is to be measured is 1940, AAUP's statement on tenure and academic freedom was written and widely (1997:1) Just what these changes are is advanced with verve: *Direct all correspondence to: Matthew W. Finkin, College of Law, 306 Law Building, The University of Illinois, 504 East Pennsylvania Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.35 on Sat, 03 Sep 2016 04:02:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 730 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES Volume 41, Number 4, 1998 [W]e are well into a period of entrepreneurial institution, an era when each college and university is rather mercilessly cast into competition for for growth, for quality enhancement. Market forces are operating on institutions in powerful ways, and without buffers that earlier periods provided. This change is not only in fact; it has ideological roots as well, as talk of privatization, limited government, productivity, assessment, outcomes, and efficiency dominates much public discourse about higher education....As a result, colleges and universities have lost much of autonomy and independence from market that they enjoyed in earlier periods. Higher is now a mature industry... .(1997:2). Consequently, for many institutions tenure is largely (1997:4) in ways that Breneman catalogues: (1) as a drag on institutional flexibility in this new, market-driven world, a flexibility needed for institutional survival; (2) as imposing a cost on junior faculty who, failing to achieve tenure, face a labor market of excess supply; (3) as depressing academic salaries; and, (4) as depressing total level of academic employment. As will be shown below, Breneman's historical arguments are mistaken and his arguments are indeterminate of result he would reach. But a word before addressing them. Ordinarily, one would think dysfunctionality of tenure would require an assessment first of extent to which it performs its intended function i.e., primarily protection of academic freedom, and, second, of whether drawbacks inherent in system, and drawbacks there are, outweigh its advantages in that regard. But Breneman dismisses relationship of tenure to academic freedom in passing observation that academic freedom can be protected in other ways. In other words, tenure never had a chance: If academic freedom can be protected adequately without tenure, then tenure could not possibly be necessary for its intended purpose, and any drawback renders tenure dysfunctional by definition. Historical Change in Institutional Circumstances Breneman argues that institutions today face a stark threat to their very survival, in contradistinction to circumstances obtaining when 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure was negotiated, when institutions were far more buffered and far more autonomous from market forces. Let us see. Negotiations between American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and Association of American Colleges (AAC), then leading organization of liberal arts colleges (mostly private and many denominational), began in 1937.1 A draft was agreed to two years later, and a final document was accepted by both organizations following year. These negotiations were informed by a comprehensive study conducted by AAUP and financed by Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching, Depression, Recovery and Higher Education. According to that study, in 1931-1932, there were 931 colleges and universities in United States: 262 (28%) were publicly controlled; 669 (72%) were private, 464 of these under denominational control. The vast majority This content downloaded from 157.55.39.35 on Sat, 03 Sep 2016 04:02:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Tenure and Entrepreneurial Academy 731