Even with the declining number of tenured professors at universities nationwide, Fairfield’s faculty still retains a high number.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, the number of tenured professors has slowly declined over the years and reached 24.1 percent in 2003, of which only 11 percent are set to follow a tenure track.
“The lore among professionals is that a lot of places have increased their hiring of non-tenure full-time and part-time instructors, proportionally,” said Timothy Law Snyder, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Here at Fairfield College of Arts and Sciences, most tenure-track faculty have received tenure, though not all.”
The University has tenured 153 faculty members, which make up 69 percent of the total undergraduate faculty, and does not include the graduate school of education and allied professions. One hundred and ten of the tenured faculty teach in the College of Arts and Sciences, making 68 percent of the total Arts and Sciences faculty tenured.
“Our tenure system is similar to that of many other places,” Snyder said, adding that Fairfield has a “general process requiring candidates to submit an application.”
After the tenure candidates undergo a review at the department level, at the decanal level and then by the Rank and Tenure Committee, which consists of seven professors chosen by the faculty. The committee then makes recommendation to University President Fr. Jeffrey von Arx.
Candidates for tenure must demonstrate teaching effectiveness on the college level as well as scholarly or creative accomplishments which have been subject to peer review, said Snyder.
Snyder said his role in the process is to “ask outside evaluators to help us understand the scholarly or creative work of the candidate. The candidates themselves select, in their entirety, the set of outside evaluators.”
The final decision regarding tenure for all professors rests on von Arx.
“A faculty member must achieve tenure by his/her seventh year or may not continue his/her appointment at Fairfield,” said Phyllis Fitzpatrick, director of management information and academic vice president.
Fitzpatrick explained that all but two faculty members at the higher ranks of the University – associate professor and professor – have tenure, and they are recent hires of the University.
“Faculty that don’t have tenure have not been here long enough to apply for tenure,” she said.
According to the faculty handbook, “the candidate for tenure shall have served a probationary period of not less than five years in the academic profession, not less then two of which years shall have been served at Fairfield.”
To continue teaching at Fairfield a faculty member must achieve tenure by their seventh year.
“They [faculty] cannot apply for the highest rank (professor) without it,” said Fitzpatrick.
“Tenure is not at all easy to get,” Snyder said. “One must typically obtain several scholarly degrees, including a terminal degree (a doctorate), and get a tenure-track job.”
Snyder said that the teachers must “succeed in minds of peers, as a teacher, scholar, and service-citizen.”
“The values at times are misunderstood and are often not completely understood,” said Snyder. “The advantages to tenure include academic freedom in protecting a prevailing opinion.”
Professors cannot be fired without reasonable cause, thus allowing them to teach in their own style.
Tenure also depends on the students evaluations from their classses.
“There is a responsibility to assess and take student evaluations seriously, and they have a responsibility to do a good job,” said David Crawford, assistant professor of sociology. “Not getting tenure at a second tier school like Fairfield is a big deal.”
” I cannot imagine people would bother going through graduate and Ph.D. work if at a certain point in time they are fired [when they can] instead work in the private sector. Intellectual freedom would not be able to challenge prejudice mainstream ideas without [tenure],” said Eric Mielants, assistant professor of sociology.
Kim Oliver, adjunct professor of sociology, agreed: “I think tenure is important in terms of academic freedom. … You don’t feel part of the University without it.”
Crawford, who is also not tenured, said that having tenure at Fairfield is very desirable.
“It is important because it [allows] professors to feel confident to not take a pay cut,” he said. “People who don’t get tenured are screwed.”
“An unbelievable amount of human progress has relied and continues to rely on the creative freedom that follows directly from our tradition of tenure,” Snyder said.
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