Many things have changed over the 30 years I’ve worked in higher education, but one constant has been the steady stream of jeremiads calling for the end of tenure and an equally impassioned defense of the status quo. For the most part, institutional notions of faculty tenure have persevered at top liberal arts colleges like Carleton. I am heartened by the resilience of tenure, as I believe it is the best way to ensure scholarly independence and academic freedom—which lead directly to great teaching and better learning.
Tenure allows faculty members the latitude and security to follow ideas wherever they lead, and to explore—without fear—the topics they believe are intellectually important. Such bold exploration leads faculty members to model independence of thought for students and to share with them the latest, evolving knowledge. Therefore, decisions about tenure are among the most important we make at Carleton. When we grant tenure to a faculty member, we not only commit to an individual for decades to come, we shape the institution for a generation.
Tenure is the last step in a multiyear process that begins with how we recruit faculty members and support them during their early years at the college. We hire faculty members who are committed to teaching in a small, personalized setting of a liberal arts college, where they will forge close connections and intellectual bonds with their students. Our junior faculty members participate in orientation and mentorship programs, yearly assessments with departmental colleagues, and a rigorous third-year review to ensure they’re progressing toward tenure. Carleton teachers benefit from regular conversations with their peers about teaching, special seminars about pedagogy in the Pearlman Center for Learning and Teaching, and a culture where we refuse to rest on our laurels. We’re proud of the fact that we are consistently recognized for outstanding teaching.
We look for three essential qualities when we award tenure: excellence in teaching, excellence in scholarship or creative activity, and excellence in service to the college and the broader academic community. The most central and nonnegotiable of those criteria is teaching. We promise our students they will study with smart, caring professors who want to be their mentors and intellectual guides. Our tenure process identifies and rewards professors who possess these attributes.
Faculty members who are coming up for tenure first write a detailed prospectus in which they reflect at length on their teaching: successes and failures, challenges overcome or yet to surmount, what invigorates them in the classroom or lab, and goals and ambitions. Next we solicit peer evaluations from every tenured faculty member in their department. We also ask current students and recent graduates to assess the quality of the professor’s teaching. They, too, take these evaluations very seriously and produce thoughtful and detailed responses.
Carleton isn’t a research university, but we believe professors who are engaged in rigorous scholarship are more likely to keep their classroom instruction fresh and current. We expect them to subject their ideas and work to the scrutiny of disciplinary peers, and to have their scholarly writing published in academic journals and presses, or their art displayed in prominent galleries or performed in notable venues. During the tenure review process, we examine each faculty member’s scholarship and solicit reviews from neutral experts in relevant fields.
In some ways, service is the simplest activity to gauge. We look for faculty members to be active, substantial contributors on various committees, editorial boards, and review panels.
After a candidate’s department colleagues have submitted a letter to the dean either recommending or not recommending tenure, a faculty personnel committee, chaired by Dean of the College Bev Nagel ’75 and consisting of myself and five other faculty members, spends hours poring over a candidate’s file before voting on tenure. Those recommendations eventually are passed on to the college’s Board of Trustees.
My happiest moments during the tenure review process are when I read a file that truly fills me with excitement because I know this professor’s potential is being realized. Tenured faculty members are like a college’s foundation and, because of them, Carleton will continue to stand strong for generations to come.