Tenure at SWBTS????

While reading through this recent Baptist Press article on the recent meeting of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's Board of Trustees, I came across this nugget:

Trustees approved the tenure of Ian Jones, assistant dean in the school of educational ministries' division of psychology and counseling and director of the Baptist Marriage and Family Counseling Center. This represents the first tenure approved since Patterson became president in 2003.

While I've only briefly mentioned a tenure situation at SWBTS before, this news is stunning. No tenure at all granted in five years? Either no one has come up for tenure, many people have been denied tenure, or (most likely) there was a high turnover rate right when Patterson was elected president and only now have people put in enough time to qualify for tenure.

But it still seems a little lean.

Finally!!!!!

I received the news last Wednesday. It will now be a lot harder to get rid of me in the future.

The system vice-chancellor approved my tenure and promotion request and it will go before the board of trustees later in the month. In recorded memory, they have never reversed a recommendation from the system vice-chancellor. Fortunately I learned early enough in the day that I still had time to go around and given an obscene gesture to each of the upper level administrators.

I have several feelings in response. I feel very thankful for the acknowledgment that I’ve been doing quality work. I also feel a strong sense of responsibility as well. I am pleased that I am now in a position to begin to work to influence many others both inside and outside the academy.

And I understand how odd the isntitutiuon of tenure is. On Saturday I had an interesting conversation with a buddy of mine who has a refurbishing business that goes in after tornadoes, floods, etc. and rebuilds homes and businesses. He had no idea what tenure is. After I briefly explained it to him, he thought for a moment and said “I have jobs lined up for the next six months. That is my tenure."

For those in the academic, tenure is the pinnacle of the profession. In fact, the achievement of tenure is more sought and more significant than the only promotion left (to full professor). But in some sense this represents the end of a road that began for me as a graduate student. One of the odd things about tenure is that its achievement so often is accompanied by feelings of ennui. (See here for example). I suffer no such mixed emotions.

But it is a time for change. I recall as a graduate student doing the math (4 years for M.A., 4 years –turned into 5- for Ph.D. and 6 for tenure track) and setting a goal to get tenure by age forty. So now its time for new goals!! What a difference (exactly) one year makes.

Number One: Check

Sadness at Southwestern

DD asked for my thoughts on the recent actions at SWBTS.

I am a graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I also worked in the library there and my first child was born about six miles from campus. Some of my deepest and abiding friendships were also birthed there. In our four years there, Kadie and I built a foundation for our marriage that has weathered the stresses and challenges of the subsequent eleven years.

So it is with a heavy heart that I read Wade Burleson’s blog last week detailing the refusal of the Trustees to grant President to submit for tenure, Dr. Sheri Klouda, whose sterling resume far surpasses my own. (See the Dallas Morning News’ article here.)

I would add that Southwestern hasn’t been too kind to Old Testament profs in recent years. In addition to Dr. Klouda, Dr. Scott Langston was another casualty. He wasn't fired, but left voluntarily because of the direction that SWBTS was headed.

Just this last year Dr. Timothy Pierce suddenly disappeared from faculty status under unknown circumstances. I met Dr. Pierce at a conference a few years ago and thought that he was a good man, one who we as Southern Baptists would be proud to have represent us. I note on his faculty web site that he has three kids.

Three thoughts:

1) I was discussing this situation with a friend and commented that it would never be the doctrinal stance of the SBC seminaries that would prevent me from working at any of them, it would be the capricious polity of the organization. Without a willingness to follow stated policy, I would have no desire to work there. In fact, I am less convinced that SWBTS has violated federal labor law, as Wade Burleson thinks, but I do believe that SWBTS will have significant issues with their two accrediting agencies, the Association of Theological Schools and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools if they did not follow stated policy. These agencies don’t particularly care what your policies are, but they do want you to follow them. If SWBTS refused tenure to Klouda because she is a woman and their written policy doesn't SPECIFY that being a woman is a non-tenureable "offense," then they could be in trouble with their accrediting agencies.

2) Like Dr. Klouda, I too have recently been denied tenure that I felt was unjustified. But unlike her, I was not unjustly denied tenure by an institution that claimed to be Christian.

3) These events remind me of the providence of God. I actually interviewed on two different occasions for two Old Testament positions at Southwestern in the 1990’s. I was deeply disappointed that I did not get the Old Testament job either time I applied.

4) (Added on 1/22) I am operating under the assumption that Wade Burleson's information is correct. I have seen no evidence to contradict my assumption.

But now I am thankful again for unanswered prayers. Keep Dr. Klouda and her family in yours.

They'll Publish Anything These Days.....

This book looks particularly boring. I suppose, if one wanted to, that one could purchase a copy here.

I feel like Steve Martin in The Jerk except I would say “The ISBN numbers are here!! The ISBN numbers are here!!!!”

Tenure Thoughts (Service)

Service is simply the non-teaching, non-research work that the faculty member performs in support of the mission of the university or your field. It usually takes the form of committee work. It can include working on any aspect of university life. For example:

--Hiring committees (composes job advertisements, gets their approval form Human Resources, and searches for new faculty.

--Courses and Curriculum (approves modifications to current courses or new ones. It also works on new program offerings).

--SACS (our accrediting agency) compliance committee

Etc.

Service records those activities that no one really wants to do but need to get done in order for the university to run (semi)efficiently. The strange thing is, (actually, and this is mind boggling) I have encountered some people who LOVE committee meetings. They sit and linger, they hope that it continues on and on. There is rarely an agenda and when there is, people add to it willy-nilly and suck up the available amount of time.

I don’t get it.

The only thing more boring than these meetings would be a post about the meetings!!

Tenure Thoughts (II)

I think that research is critical to the academic enterprise. It is also the most quantifiable of the three divisions. Research includes articles, book reviews, books, presentations, and other scholarly activity. But the specific requirements for research is perhaps the most specific to the university. For example, many SBC institutions would (quite naturally) include contributions to the Biblical Illustrator (the journal that assists Sunday School teachers) as scholarly, but not many other schools. There is also a clear division between the Evangelical Theological Society and the American Academy of Religion or Society of Biblical Literature. ETS would not be considered an appropriate level of scholarship at many state institutions and even some denominational schools. (I haven’t attended a meeting there, but I do know some fine academics engaged in that society).

But essentially the tenure committee looks for the fact that the professor continues to be engaged in critical scholarship. This would be the equivalent of continuing education credits offered in many professional organizations. The average school requires two or three articles (over six years), four or five professional presentations and numerous book reviews. Some upper level schools require two books (assuming one is the dissertation, and at least a contract on a second). Obviously these are gross overgeneralizations.

At my institution, we probably require a little less than average in this area. A few articles and a few presentations would qualify for tenure, although recently we have had several candidates for tenure who had a book contract in hand.

As for me and my house, I am a bit light in the article department (1 plus a few encyclopedia entries) but I do have a dozen or so presentations at regional and national meetings as well as several book reviews. What cinches it for me (I hope)is that I do have a book coming out next spring by a university press. It is a book on the Psalms (of course). That should complete my research case for tenure.

Tenure Thoughts

There are some technical requirements for tenure. Generally the faculty member must possess a terminal degree. In addition, the faculty member must have served a particular length of time (usually six years) at the rank of assistant professor, although this can be negotiated. There are also some specific requirements that will vary from institution to institution.

But at most universities, including my own, the requirements for tenure fall into three broad areas: teaching, research, and service. There is also an unwritten category generally called collegiality.

In my school, teaching is an absolute prerequisite for tenure. You can be weak in one or more of the other areas and still get tenure. But if you are weak in the classroom, it is very, very difficult. At research institutions, other areas are paramount, but at many smaller Liberal Arts institutions, teaching is the main mission of the university.

Teaching is, however, notoriously difficult to measure. Basically we attempt to measure teaching by student surveys and by peer evaluations. Student surveys are very flawed mechanisms (for example they presuppose that students know good teaching when they see it!). But they do show at least the student perception of the teacher. Peer evaluations occur when a senior level faculty member observes a junior faculty member actually teach a class. These evaluations are less helpful as they are very artificial. The whole classroom dynamic changes when there is an observer present.

Oh and there is also http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/. The teaching profession really hates that website.

On Tenure

Since I have been consumed with this lately, I thought I would blog about my approaching request for tenure. Tenure is a right, granted to professors to teach in an environment where they needn’t fear retribution for the content of their teaching. Academic freedom is the catch phrase that is used to justify this practice. Tenure gives the faculty member protection from job-related repercussions of the content of their teaching, and (theoretically) can not be taken away.

Essentially it boils down to the idea that faculty (or certain administrators) cannot be fired for what they teach or who they cross in the day to day responsibilities of their employment. Tenured faculty can only be terminated for grossly abusing their responsibilities as professors (not showing up for work, or continued practice of detrimental dealings with students) or due to extreme financial hardship on the university (which happened to some tenured faculty in Louisiana after Katrina). It has also been declared in the case of at least one Baptist college.

Although there is much discussion on both sides, I (unsurprisingly) think that it is an important (if severely flawed) instrument. It frees faculty to express thoughts and opinions that can goad institutions or the larger society in important directions. I also think that it is this reason that it is virtually nonexistent at institutions connected to the Southern Baptist Convention. Although Art has recently discussed the concept of academic freedom at SBC seminaries, but the reality is that it has been diminishing for years at SBC insitutions.

In my case, working at a state insisution provides me more freedom than my colleague at many Baptist colleges and more than at all seminaries.

But how do you ensure that tenure is not awarded improperly or to the undeserving? Some thoughts tomorrow…

Request: Denied!

Well, that was unpleasant.

Sorry for going dark for so long.

Last Tuesday our Dean stopped by my office and delivered a punch to the gut. Well, metaphorically anyway. He very apologetically, and also very painfully informed me that my tenure request had been denied.

Well then.

The surprise surpassed the anger. I have been told for years that my tenure was essentially a formality and that my work in the three areas of research, service and teaching were all above the level of the typical faculty member going up for tenure.

When I assembled my tenure file last fall, the department, dean and campus administration approved it in rapid succession. From here it went to the State system and was to be rubber stamped before it reached our system board for approval. This was the level where it was rejected.

Apparently there is a new sheriff in town and my file had one sticking point: it was early. Usually faculty go up for tenure in their sixth year, but due to some fuzzy math, this is technically my fifth year. But I was assured that it was not an issue. Those assurances were wrong. Give it a try next year. Next year it will be a done deal.

I don’t want to get blogged down in my professional failures, but I can’t let this event pass by unmentioned. I will not spend much time discussing this here at Coffeespoons. My prayer is that this will be a momentary setback and not a tectonic shifting of my calling and our lives.

Obviously God works through failures like this. I pray that we will see how God redeems this for his purposes. I am reminded that after all, God is in the Redemption business!