Tenure isn't the problem: we should want all educators to have tenure. Tenure is just sparkling job security. Given our current institutions, who is granted opportunities to attain tenure and who is disproportionately awarded tenure is what bears scrutiny. - ThreadSky

shengokai.bsky.social • 10 days ago

Tenure isn't the problem: we should want all educators to have tenure. Tenure is just sparkling job security.

Given our current institutions, who is granted opportunities to attain tenure and who is disproportionately awarded tenure is what bears scrutiny.

Reposted from nora-hakase (野良博士)

I'm curious about the direction of causality here. I feel like tenure functionally suborns people right- or at least status-quo-ward. Perhaps contrariwise contingent employment. So if we had 70% tenure instead of 70% adjunct, what would that look like politically? Not my area but intriguing

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shengokai.bsky.social•10 days ago

Indeed, there is a common refrain given to those who are seeking tenure: keep your head down, do your publishing, and don't make waves. By "making waves," we typically mean don't do anything that pushes back against the status quo. This is an institutional problem, not a tenure problem.

shengokai.bsky.social•10 days ago

(I should note that this advice is not dissimilar from the advice given in many other institutionalized structures. Corporate jobs have similar refrains given to people who seek to climb the corporate ladder.)

shengokai.bsky.social•10 days ago

Thus, this isn't a function of tenure proper but a function of the ways that higher education institutions are embedded in a larger society structured by white supremacy, ableism, and other forms of systemic oppression. This is a function of the institutional structure of higher-ed.

shengokai.bsky.social•10 days ago

That said, if we had 70% tenure, that would still be a fucking travesty because adjuctification represents the peak of the ways in which higher education institutions have wholly abdicated their missions.

Of course, the "pivot to AI" is giving adjunctification a run for its money.

nora-hakase.bsky.social•10 days ago

Here I don't completely understand you. Adjuncts can be a great, well, adjunct to what an academic program offers. Not everyone—especially in fields where people can earn more money outside academia than in—wants to be faculty full time, but many of these folks still offer great shit to students.

nora-hakase.bsky.social•10 days ago

The AI thing I do understand. It sucks balls

nora-hakase.bsky.social•10 days ago

Okay. As I understand you, you seem to be agreeing with me. Tenure is something that can embed people into their institutions and therefore the status quo.

I am not arguing against tenure, just thinking out loud about one of its possible effects.

tylerjameshill.com•10 days ago

...that's a weird thing to say about tenure

nora-hakase.bsky.social•10 days ago

OK. I don't think it's all that strange to wonder about. If you know of any research on the topic of tenure and political identity or policy preferences, let me know. If it's just that your jimmies are rustled, well, that's life out here on the Internet.

nora-hakase.bsky.social•10 days ago

YES, absolutely.

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