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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Sun 2/29/2004 7:57 AM
Random Thought: On Promotion and Tenure
I was just watching an insightful piece on CBS' Sunday Morning
dealing with a truly modern-day rennaisance man, Michael Hawley of M.I.T.
After a decade at M.I.T., this young accomplished visionary computer
scientist, inventor, award-winning musician, master teacher, and
philantropist is without tenure. He says, with his outside interests in
music and medicene and Hollywood and the military and the computer
industry, he's not bothered by that fact. Tenure, he asserted, has become
a pigeon-holing barrier to imagination and creativity.
Boy, did that hit me square between the eyes. Recently, I've
decided he just may be right. Joseph Campbell said that organized
religion is the greatest barrier to the religious experience. That just
may be true of tenure in academia. I'm coming more and more to the
conclusion that the politics of, kowtowing to, quest for, fear for, need
of, compromising for, and granting of tenure and promotion have become
obstacles for rather than educational promoters of some of the most
energetic, creative, imaginative, and caring people on our campuses.
Tenure is fast becoming, if it alredy hasn't become, a self-interested end
in itself. It has become denigrated to no more than job guarantee.
Highly educated and highly talented and well meaning people have allowed
themselves to sink into "fit-the-mold" uniformity and conformity,
compromised themselves,
danced to others' tunes, turned themselves into preservers of a museum
piece rather than become a dynamic and promotional educational force.
And, I'm not sure tenure and promotion as it is seen inside
academia today is worth the price almost all people are willing to pay to
get it.
I think I just got myself into trouble.
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