Tenure Reform: Will it Happen?

I've been following reports about reforming tenure within language departments. At present, a published monograph, i.e. a book, is pretty much standard at most research universities. The problems facing assistant professors are many, but one of the most fundamental in this case is economic. University presses, under pressure to make a profit, simply cannot afford to publish every scholarly monograph that comes along. These titles have a relatively small readership, for many fields about 1,000 people. To make matters worse, academic libraries at financially strapped state institutions have had their acquisitions budgets slashed in recent years. Consequently, university presses have been publishing fewer titles.

One possible solution, which I would like to see, is that electronic publications and journal articles will count for more in the tenure-revue process. My sense is that many first books are derived from journal articles anyway, so why not simply count those as one's contribution to the field? It's always struck me as a bit perverse to expect scholars at the beginning of their careers, who are learning the professional ropes and often get saddled with a disproportionate amount of bureaucratic work, to publish brilliant books right after graduate school. Give the professors time and the resources to develop their ideas in and out of the classroom. Let them publish articles and develop their ideas and methodologies more gradually, taking into account the responses and feedback they obtain through the journal-publishing process.

In any case, I'm glad to learn that the Modern Language Association (MLA) has been drafting a new proposal calling for a more transparent tenure-review process, one that provides multiple career options for obtaining tenure. I hope this tenure business gets straightened out soon. One of my worries is that Ira and I will be entering the market before new plans are in place and, to put it bluntly, will get screwed. I've heard the horror stories, which lead me to conclude that the more transparent the criteria for tenure are, the better.

My hunch is that the monograph will continue to be regarded as the most reliable measure of one's academic merit, and as the number of new titles published shrink, books will only continue to grow in prestige. Whether the aura surrounding the published book constitutes a version of fetishism is a topic I'll let others debate. Read more on the tenure-reform issue at Inside Higher Ed:A Tenure Reform Plan With Legs. The page includes linnks to related articles published previously.