Reconsidering tenure

The article “When tenure fails ” by Toni Feder (Physics Today, October 2023, page 44) points to the need for academia to consider whether the tenure system needs revamping. Of course, any demanding role needs a thorough selection process. But we must weigh its costs and benefits. In tenure’s case, the benefits can include a high quality of research and teaching. The costs include the stress applicants face and the significant faculty resources that go into the tenure review. Not to mention, the outcome of that review can be largely arbitrary, as noted in Feder’s article by Meg Urry, director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, who has observed the tenure system for 40 years.

The UK stopped using the tenure system in the late 1980s. Newly hired lecturers typically have a probationary period with some strings attached, such as requirements to graduate from a teaching course or to submit a certain number of large grant applications (but not necessarily win them, since that is beyond applicants’ control). The requirements are much less stringent than those of the US tenure system. The lecturer-selection panels I have sat on have all agreed that the current level of competition and the quality of short-listed candidates are so high that appointed lecturers are almost guaranteed to be successful. Of course, sometimes things go wrong in ways we cannot foresee, but that risk is too small to worry about.

Without a tenure system, the UK is still successful in terms of research output. According to a 2019 UK government report comparing the research output of many countries, the UK had the highest field-weighted citation impact. It was also the country from which publications are most likely to be highly cited. ¹

It would be interesting to see whether different outputs related to physics in particular are correlated with the tenure system. Armed with this evidence, physicists could lead the way in improving faculty-hiring processes.

Feder reports that current academic practices have resulted in assistant professors receiving the advice to keep their research “mainstream.” We should consider such a system problematic, as it stalls progress and is at odds with what research is about.

Feder also notes that “an unwritten requirement” for tenure “is that a candidate be a ‘good fit.’” It is unclear what “fit” means exactly, but we can assume that it means to be like others both professionally and socially. Fitting has not been discussed at the panels I have been a part of, but I can imagine that the issue exists outside the US tenure system. I can think of many ways in which being different, and not fitting, is positive and contributes to versatility. That also goes well with the recent “bin the boffin” initiative led by the Institute of Physics in the UK. ² There clearly will be cases when not fitting is a problem. We need to have tools to deal with such cases, and we often do. And in my and my colleagues’ experience, dealing with those cases has often been easier than dealing with issues created by those who “fit.”