Tenure is often thought of as part of the problem with academia, but getting rid of it takes away academic freedom that I think is at the foundation of the entire enterprise.
Garg's plan for when he's king of the ivory tower:
What we need is a restructuring of the reward system. R1 universities need to start giving a damn about teaching. If a tenured professor's research lags and teaching evaluations drop, start dropping their salary (tenure should not be the end of internal review).
Professors need to be teaching what they are researching, and find a way of communicating that to undergrads as well as grads. While I'm talking about grad students, they need to be part of the decision making process for curriculum, since 1) they tend to be more up to date on current issues, 2) more willing to integrate approaches from other disciplines, 3) are actually the ones doing the instruction for some classes.
Anyway, we implement some of that, then we can stand a better chance of breaking down disciplinary boundaries and getting some really creative stuff done.
Having recently graduated college.... I definitely agree that there needs to be some restructuring at Universities. I almost always hated taking courses from tenured professors because most of them really didn't give a crap about teaching. The most informative and enjoyable courses I took in college were almost always taught by either grad students or non-tenured professors. I found it to be a damn dirty shame.
Bandrik
Elkhart, IN Icrontian
Comments
Garg's plan for when he's king of the ivory tower:
What we need is a restructuring of the reward system. R1 universities need to start giving a damn about teaching. If a tenured professor's research lags and teaching evaluations drop, start dropping their salary (tenure should not be the end of internal review).
Professors need to be teaching what they are researching, and find a way of communicating that to undergrads as well as grads. While I'm talking about grad students, they need to be part of the decision making process for curriculum, since 1) they tend to be more up to date on current issues, 2) more willing to integrate approaches from other disciplines, 3) are actually the ones doing the instruction for some classes.
Anyway, we implement some of that, then we can stand a better chance of breaking down disciplinary boundaries and getting some really creative stuff done.