Tenure system under review at Iowa universities

Professors and administrators from Iowa's regent universities say faculty productivity and the tenure system is coming under increasing scrutiny as budget woes heighten the demand for accountability.

In response, they said they are happy to show that tenure doesn't mean a professor can stop being accountable, and they hope a new system of measuring faculty work at the three universities will better demonstrate how faculty spend their time.

“In tight budget times it gets even more significant that everyone wants to make sure you're accounting for every nickel and every moment of time and to make sure that's been used efficiently,” Virginia Arthur, associate provost for faculty affairs at the University of Northern Iowa, said. “I do think we can expect to have more conversations about it.”

Regent Craig Lang wants the state Board of Regents to have an annual discussion about tenure, with perhaps an audit or report card as part of an annual review.

“If a half a dozen out of 100 that were tenured were encouraged to do better, I'd kind of like to know that,” said Lang, of Brooklyn, Iowa.

After raising questions about tenure at a spring regents meeting, Lang met with some UI faculty leaders to discuss how faculty are reviewed and held accountable for work through a post-tenure review process.

“What I found out is that the process has changed over time and that the deans are certainly making sure there's accountability,” Lang said. “That if there are those who are slacking, it's just a very small percentage. That was my concern.”

Lang was satisfied with what he heard, but said he still thinks an annual discussion by the regents would serve the system well. He originally raised the idea of having a philosophical discussion about tenure because of the rising cost of education.

“I think whenever you're using taxpayers' money, it's very important that there's an accountability within the process,” Lang said.

Tenure myth

Jane Singer, a UI associate professor of journalism and mass communication, said it's a myth that faculty can “hit tenure and stop working.” Colleagues hold each other to a high standard, she said. And while teaching and related duties takes up about 90 percent of her time during the academic year, she uses summer to focus on research and scholarly writing, even though she is on a nine-month contract.

“There's really no time to slack, but were anyone doing that, there is a process to deal with it” Singer said.

Regents President David Miles said it's a reasonable interest on the part of legislators or citizens to wonder to what degree the faculty are teaching students. But research also is a large part of what faculty do, and research is a great boon educationally and financially to the state, Miles said.

“Are tenured faculty being productive? Are they continuing to improve their skill sets? Are we monitoring their performance?” Miles said. “I expect the answers to those questions will be positive, but I think it's a fair thing to look at.”

Tenure is designed to protect the academic freedom of professors in their writing, teaching and research. Faculty must meet criteria and be judged by peers to receive tenure, and they go through regular post-tenure reviews.

Report to regents

The state Board of Regents gets a report every two years - it used to be annual - on faculty activities, with data on the average workload and the breakdown between teaching, research and service.

The report shows faculty workload has fluctuated slightly but on the whole has varied little in recent years. Faculty in the 2008-09 report averaged 58.1 hours of work per week at the University of Iowa, 57.9 hours at Iowa State University and 53.6 hours at the University of Northern Iowa.

Looking back 10 years from the most recent faculty activities report in 2008-09, there is a pattern of decline - though not steady every year - at all three universities in the share of undergraduate credit hours taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty.

At the UI, 56.9 percent of undergraduate class hours were taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty in 1998-99 compared to 46.2 percent in 2008-09. At ISU, it was 62 percent in 1998-99 and 56.7 percent in 2008-09, and at UNI it was 68 percent in 1998-99 and 65.1 percent in 2008-09.

That may be the result of a greater emphasis on obtaining research grant funding in a more competitive funding environment, faculty being asked to take on more service duties as overall faculty ranks decline during cuts, and more adjunct instructors being hired due to cuts, professors and administrators said.

Higher expectations

David Perlmutter, director of the UI School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said the standards for research productivity required of young faculty on the tenure-track have increased sharply over the past two decades. Perlmutter recently published a book, “Promotion & Tenure Confidential,” and writes a column on it for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“We have much higher productivity expectations,” he said. “Naturally, without any real outside influence, we've increased our own workload voluntarily.”

It's always been a bit mysterious to some people what faculty do when they're not teaching students in a classroom, UI Associate Provost for Faculty Tom Rice said.

When people think of teaching, he said, they may not think of writing academic blog posts, conducting research, writing papers for academic journals, chasing research funding, serving on faculty committees or student scholarship panels and keeping up with the latest articles or research in your field, Rice said.

“Those questions get raised in part because I don't think we've done a good enough job conveying what faculty do,” Rice said.

Officials with the three universities have developed a new survey they plan to start using this fall that they hope will better reflect how faculty spend work hours outside the classroom. The current survey asks faculty how much they work and estimates a breakdown of teaching, research and service based on their job responsibilities. The new survey will be more exact when it comes to measuring how those work hours are spent, Rice said.

“It's information we owe the regents, the state, legislators,” Rice said. “I think it will help us convey to the state the importance and relevance of what we do.”