This Theme Section consists of 11 essays aiming to explore diverse issues related to academic freedom and tenure, presenting the views and thoughts of 15 scholars from different disciplines. Historical, legal, theoretical, philosophical, political and educational aspects of aca- demic freedom and tenure are addressed; the decline in productivity of tenured faculty is ques- tioned; and the effect of marketization of education on tenure policies and their implications are discussed. Overall, the essays recognize that academic freedom has been increasingly challenged in recent years and affected by factors such as increased commercialization, the constraints imposed by the 'western way of thinking' and neo-liberal ways of valuing, changes from a colle- gial to a managerial mode of organization in universities, political pressures to suppress inconven- ient scientific findings, the economic crisis itself, even the current metrics of valuating research and the recent changes set by new media in disseminating ideas. We argue that today, academics can defend and promote academic freedom themselves, as has been done using various means with other aspects of academic life.
{"title":"Academic freedom and tenure: introduction","authors":"K. Stergiou, S. Somarakis","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00168","url":null,"abstract":"This Theme Section consists of 11 essays aiming to explore diverse issues related to academic freedom and tenure, presenting the views and thoughts of 15 scholars from different disciplines. Historical, legal, theoretical, philosophical, political and educational aspects of aca- demic freedom and tenure are addressed; the decline in productivity of tenured faculty is ques- tioned; and the effect of marketization of education on tenure policies and their implications are discussed. Overall, the essays recognize that academic freedom has been increasingly challenged in recent years and affected by factors such as increased commercialization, the constraints imposed by the 'western way of thinking' and neo-liberal ways of valuing, changes from a colle- gial to a managerial mode of organization in universities, political pressures to suppress inconven- ient scientific findings, the economic crisis itself, even the current metrics of valuating research and the recent changes set by new media in disseminating ideas. We argue that today, academics can defend and promote academic freedom themselves, as has been done using various means with other aspects of academic life.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"1-5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A series of intersecting trends now threatens fundamental changes in the character of higher education. The gradual replacement of full-time tenured faculty with part-time teachers is the bedrock change, but it simultaneously serves the political impulse to defund higher education and makes it easier to impose the corporate model of instrumental education devoted narrowly to skills acquisition and job training. Humanities education should resist these trends with an alternative educational model.
{"title":"Dystopia is now: the threats to academic freedom","authors":"Cary Nelson","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00158","url":null,"abstract":"A series of intersecting trends now threatens fundamental changes in the character of higher education. The gradual replacement of full-time tenured faculty with part-time teachers is the bedrock change, but it simultaneously serves the political impulse to defund higher education and makes it easier to impose the corporate model of instrumental education devoted narrowly to skills acquisition and job training. Humanities education should resist these trends with an alternative educational model.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"17-22"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this essay we describe the different blows that research in Greece has suffered because of the economic crisis (i.e. drastic budgetary cuts, hiring freezes for new positions, severe salary cuts, and austerity-driven brain-drain), despite the fact that Greek research is prospering in terms of publications and citations. In addition, we discuss the last blow to Greek research; notably, the abolishment of tenure and the change in the status of researchers through the new law for research passed in December 2014, and its effects on 'academic' freedom.
{"title":"Nailing down 'academic' freedom and tenure in Greek research institutions","authors":"K. Stergiou, A. Machias","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00161","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay we describe the different blows that research in Greece has suffered because of the economic crisis (i.e. drastic budgetary cuts, hiring freezes for new positions, severe salary cuts, and austerity-driven brain-drain), despite the fact that Greek research is prospering in terms of publications and citations. In addition, we discuss the last blow to Greek research; notably, the abolishment of tenure and the change in the status of researchers through the new law for research passed in December 2014, and its effects on 'academic' freedom.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"59-62"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay seeks to place the subject of academic freedom in the larger context of the management of the contemporary university. It does so first by reviewing the legal history of aca- demic freedom, a narrative that reveals its steady erosion over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The second section of the essay explores incursions by university administrators into the ownership of teaching materials. Though it was long taken for granted that instructors owned the content of the courses they taught, the transformation of pedagogy through technology has changed that, as administrators can now monitor, control and indeed commodify the courses they offer. Taken together, the legal redefinition of academic freedom and the erosion of what used to be called the 'teacher exception' to the work-for-hire rule have turned universities into more manageable workplaces and university instructors into ordinary workers.
{"title":"Academic freedom, the 'teacher exception', and the diminished professor","authors":"Frank Donoghue","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00162","url":null,"abstract":"This essay seeks to place the subject of academic freedom in the larger context of the management of the contemporary university. It does so first by reviewing the legal history of aca- demic freedom, a narrative that reveals its steady erosion over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The second section of the essay explores incursions by university administrators into the ownership of teaching materials. Though it was long taken for granted that instructors owned the content of the courses they taught, the transformation of pedagogy through technology has changed that, as administrators can now monitor, control and indeed commodify the courses they offer. Taken together, the legal redefinition of academic freedom and the erosion of what used to be called the 'teacher exception' to the work-for-hire rule have turned universities into more manageable workplaces and university instructors into ordinary workers.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"7-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In Canada, a persistent myth of academic life is that tenure was initiated and developed in order to protect academic freedom. However, an examination of the historical record shows that in both its forms — viz. tenure during pleasure, whereby professors could be stripped of their employment if it suited a president and governing board, and tenure during good behavior, whereby professors were secure in their employment unless gross incompetence, neglect of duty, or moral turpitude could be proven against them — the institution took shape as the main defense of academic employment. In this paper, I explore the development of tenure since the middle of the 19th century, and the concepts of academic freedom with which tenure has become closely associated. I also make the case that tenure during good behavior has become a major support of the academic freedom of professors even as that freedom is undergoing new challenges.
{"title":"Tenure and academic freedom in Canada","authors":"M. Horn","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00163","url":null,"abstract":"In Canada, a persistent myth of academic life is that tenure was initiated and developed in order to protect academic freedom. However, an examination of the historical record shows that in both its forms — viz. tenure during pleasure, whereby professors could be stripped of their employment if it suited a president and governing board, and tenure during good behavior, whereby professors were secure in their employment unless gross incompetence, neglect of duty, or moral turpitude could be proven against them — the institution took shape as the main defense of academic employment. In this paper, I explore the development of tenure since the middle of the 19th century, and the concepts of academic freedom with which tenure has become closely associated. I also make the case that tenure during good behavior has become a major support of the academic freedom of professors even as that freedom is undergoing new challenges.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"23-37"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The frenzy for evaluation metrics recognizes the value of research based on the impact factor of the journals that publish the results. Only some areas of science are conducive to publication in the best tribunes. In biology, for instance, organismal biology, or taxonomy, are not very fashionable, whereas molecular or global approaches are trendy. The citation system to measure the quality of a scientist's work is based on the acceptance of what is published: the more the rest of the scientific community likes it, the higher the value. In this framework there is little space for deviation from norms. Some examples are given here, within the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology, that show how difficult it is to enforce ideas, either new or old, that do not follow mainstream thought. In order to obtain tenure it is advisable to conform to mainstream, and publish your results in journals with high impact factors. New things can be attempted 'after' tenure has been granted; but 'after' is very often 'too late'.
{"title":"Scientists can be free, but only once they are tenured","authors":"F. Boero","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00164","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00164","url":null,"abstract":"The frenzy for evaluation metrics recognizes the value of research based on the impact factor of the journals that publish the results. Only some areas of science are conducive to publication in the best tribunes. In biology, for instance, organismal biology, or taxonomy, are not very fashionable, whereas molecular or global approaches are trendy. The citation system to measure the quality of a scientist's work is based on the acceptance of what is published: the more the rest of the scientific community likes it, the higher the value. In this framework there is little space for deviation from norms. Some examples are given here, within the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology, that show how difficult it is to enforce ideas, either new or old, that do not follow mainstream thought. In order to obtain tenure it is advisable to conform to mainstream, and publish your results in journals with high impact factors. New things can be attempted 'after' tenure has been granted; but 'after' is very often 'too late'.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"63-69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I treat ‘academic freedom’ as referring to the autonomy that academics need if they are to do their work well, on analogy with what is required in other professional occupations. In these terms, I argue that there are 2 aspects of academic freedom: the degree of autonomy that universities have from governments, and the autonomy that academics have within universities. Using this framework, I explore how, from the 1980s onwards, UK governments have increasingly intervened in higher education, on the basis of the assumption that universities must serve the economy, seeking to maximize and measure the ‘returns’ on public investment. I argue that these external developments have promoted internal changes within universities away from collegial modes of organization and towards more managerial ones, and as a result have significantly reduced academic freedom. I conclude by briefly examining developments in the UK in terms of a rather different conception of academic freedom, one that is currently quite influential, which virtually identifies it with ‘free speech’ for academics and students.
{"title":"The erosion of academic freedom in UK Higher Education","authors":"A. Traianou","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00157","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I treat ‘academic freedom’ as referring to the autonomy that academics need if they are to do their work well, on analogy with what is required in other professional occupations. In these terms, I argue that there are 2 aspects of academic freedom: the degree of autonomy that universities have from governments, and the autonomy that academics have within universities. Using this framework, I explore how, from the 1980s onwards, UK governments have increasingly intervened in higher education, on the basis of the assumption that universities must serve the economy, seeking to maximize and measure the ‘returns’ on public investment. I argue that these external developments have promoted internal changes within universities away from collegial modes of organization and towards more managerial ones, and as a result have significantly reduced academic freedom. I conclude by briefly examining developments in the UK in terms of a rather different conception of academic freedom, one that is currently quite influential, which virtually identifies it with ‘free speech’ for academics and students.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"39-47"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655504","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores the cultural and organisational dimensions of academic life that lay the foundations for academic freedom. We briefly review the relationship between university autonomy and academic freedom, the relationship between ethics and freedom and the impact of increased commercialisation on scholarly independence, particularly how the increasing casual- ization of employment limits the freedom of academics to teach critically and publish freely. We examine the geopolitics of knowledge and how the hegemony of Western thinking frames domi- nant epistemologies and imposes constraints on academic freedom. We also explore the ways in which Cartesian rationalism underpins contemporary understanding of what constitutes valid knowledge, and how this can and does act as a constraint in what we come to know and study, not least in terms of values but also in terms of how caring (affective) relations impact research and teaching. Our paper highlights the silenced doxa in the organisation of the academy, including the impact of care-lessness on women and primary care givers in particular. We examine the social class biases in how higher education is organised, and how class exclusions are themselves con- straints on being an academic or a student in a university. Finally, the paper illustrates the impor- tance of distinguishing between the institutional autonomy of the university, the personal and pro- fessional freedoms of individual academics, and each of these from subject autonomy, namely the freedom of scholars to create and maintain new disciplinary fields, especially fields of scholarship that are critical and challenging of prevailing academic orthodoxies.
{"title":"Academic freedom and the commercialisation of universities: a critical ethical analysis","authors":"Kathleen Lynch, M. Ivancheva","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00160","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the cultural and organisational dimensions of academic life that lay the foundations for academic freedom. We briefly review the relationship between university autonomy and academic freedom, the relationship between ethics and freedom and the impact of increased commercialisation on scholarly independence, particularly how the increasing casual- ization of employment limits the freedom of academics to teach critically and publish freely. We examine the geopolitics of knowledge and how the hegemony of Western thinking frames domi- nant epistemologies and imposes constraints on academic freedom. We also explore the ways in which Cartesian rationalism underpins contemporary understanding of what constitutes valid knowledge, and how this can and does act as a constraint in what we come to know and study, not least in terms of values but also in terms of how caring (affective) relations impact research and teaching. Our paper highlights the silenced doxa in the organisation of the academy, including the impact of care-lessness on women and primary care givers in particular. We examine the social class biases in how higher education is organised, and how class exclusions are themselves con- straints on being an academic or a student in a university. Finally, the paper illustrates the impor- tance of distinguishing between the institutional autonomy of the university, the personal and pro- fessional freedoms of individual academics, and each of these from subject autonomy, namely the freedom of scholars to create and maintain new disciplinary fields, especially fields of scholarship that are critical and challenging of prevailing academic orthodoxies.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. Nikolioudakis, Athanassios C. Tsikliras, S. Somarakis, K. Stergiou
The introduction of market forces into higher education (i.e. marketization) in recent decades goes along with a sharp decline in tenured positions offered, accompanied by polemic voices against tenure. The main claim, that tenure reduces the productivity of senior faculty, has not been thoroughly tested, with existing scarce evidence being controversial. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing the number of publications of 2136 currently full professors of natural sciences, drawn from 123 universities distributed in 15 countries, during the period 1996 to 2014. Our results showed that long-term productivity of full professors increased, irrespectively of subject field, geographic area, and university rank. This suggests that tenure does not lead to motivation loss and academic deadwood. Our results have policy, academic, and ethical implications related to human resource management, academic freedom, and educational quality, and tenure polemicists should find an argument other than lowered post-tenure productivity to support their stand.
{"title":"Tenure and academic deadwood","authors":"N. Nikolioudakis, Athanassios C. Tsikliras, S. Somarakis, K. Stergiou","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00166","url":null,"abstract":"The introduction of market forces into higher education (i.e. marketization) in recent decades goes along with a sharp decline in tenured positions offered, accompanied by polemic voices against tenure. The main claim, that tenure reduces the productivity of senior faculty, has not been thoroughly tested, with existing scarce evidence being controversial. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing the number of publications of 2136 currently full professors of natural sciences, drawn from 123 universities distributed in 15 countries, during the period 1996 to 2014. Our results showed that long-term productivity of full professors increased, irrespectively of subject field, geographic area, and university rank. This suggests that tenure does not lead to motivation loss and academic deadwood. Our results have policy, academic, and ethical implications related to human resource management, academic freedom, and educational quality, and tenure polemicists should find an argument other than lowered post-tenure productivity to support their stand.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"87-93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Canada, despite its long democratic tradition, has a record of attempts to suppress inconvenient scientific findings. This has intensified since 2006, when the new conservative government of Canada began its systematic and well-documented assault on the functioning, independence and integrity of the environmental science performed in federal governmental lab- oratories, which is largely attributed to its focus on developing Canada's tar sands and Arctic off- shore oil, while denying the reality of global warming. Academic tenure, still a major feature of Canada's research universities, appears to be one of the few obstacles to this strategy of silencing environmental scientists concerned about this course of action.
{"title":"Tenure, the Canadian tar sands and 'Ethical Oil'","authors":"D. Pauly","doi":"10.3354/ESEP00155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3354/ESEP00155","url":null,"abstract":"Canada, despite its long democratic tradition, has a record of attempts to suppress inconvenient scientific findings. This has intensified since 2006, when the new conservative government of Canada began its systematic and well-documented assault on the functioning, independence and integrity of the environmental science performed in federal governmental lab- oratories, which is largely attributed to its focus on developing Canada's tar sands and Arctic off- shore oil, while denying the reality of global warming. Academic tenure, still a major feature of Canada's research universities, appears to be one of the few obstacles to this strategy of silencing environmental scientists concerned about this course of action.","PeriodicalId":40001,"journal":{"name":"Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics","volume":"15 1","pages":"55-57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"69655873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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