By Rael Salley

Protecting Professors or Creating Old Farts?

One morning my professor came to class brandishing a digital printout. The abstracted image looked like a map in a rainbow of colors. “You happen to be looking at the first living painting,” he declared. The printout was actually documentation of living microorganisms that had been dyed different colors. As humorous as it seemed to me then, it was a great new idea. It so happened that this particular professor had been teaching at the same institution for over twenty-five years, much to the chagrin (or so he said) of many of the younger, hipper professors.

More than once he told me of his colleagues trying unsuccessfully to have him fired — they thought his artistic career was over, and perhaps it was. As far as I know, he had not exhibited new artwork for years, but was infamous for showing up at students’ parties to hang out with them. Try as they might (or as he would might have me believe), the reason it was so difficult to get this professor fired was that he held tenure with the institution. In an educational institution, having tenure makes it extremely difficult to lose your job unless you quit or expire.

This fall semester a number of professors at SAIC are up for tenure review. This long-standing tradition in institutions of higher education does come with some risks. There is the possibility of ending up with an instructor who may lose interest in teaching at the school, begin to dislike the students, quit his or her own professional practice after burning out, and show up to class bored and lazy. According to the SAIC’s Graduate Studies mission statement, cross-disciplinary study provides “invaluable insight into the commonalities and connections between seemingly different modes of thinking and doing. This approach gives the student the maximum advantage in their later work as artists and cultural workers”(Bulletin p.13). Are students really able to accomplish these things if the professor is an “old fart?” It is easily understood why a professor would enjoy tenure — job security. But given the risks, it raises the question from an institutional standpoint — why the practice of bestowing tenure?

This question was put to Sally Alatalo, Undergraduate Chair and Associate Professor of Print Media, Carol Becker, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Susanne Doremus, Graduate Division Chair and Professor of Painting and Drawing. First, they explained that not all of the teaching positions in the school are tenured. The school maintains different levels of professorship. There are part-time faculty, Instructors, Assistant Professors, Adjunct Assistant Professors, Adjunct Professors, and Professors. They estimated that about twenty-five percent of the faculty are tenured faculty.

There is a five-to-seven-year process towards achieving tenure, depending upon when the faculty member was hired. Administrative bodies, including the relevant department and chairs, the appropriate division chair(s), the Faculty Senate review the performance of all faculty at SAIC, and if the faculty member is on a “tenure track,” he or she is reviewed at least three times. In the first year there is no review. The administration allows the freshman professor to get used to the school and the students. Thereafter, the professor begins to be reviewed by a committee of the Faculty Senate. A number of categories are assessed: student evaluations, the professional life of the faculty outside of the school, and the individual’s level of community citizenship to the school. This committee recommends or discourages the issuance of a labor contract for the faculty member. Under the current system of review, in the fourth and sixth years there are standard reviews, while the seventh year is more vigorous. There are separate evaluation letters written from the professor’s department or program, the faculty senate, and the division chairs. Those letters are reviewed by the dean of faculty, then SAIC’s president. The last stop is to the Board of Governors.

Why bother with such an elaborate process? Carol Becker explains that “an institution needs a core of committed people so there is a continuity of thought.” These people are invested in the institution and are truly committed to building and improving the school. Another advantage for tenured faculty is that these professors do have job security. This allows them the freedom to evolve in their own professional practice without the concern that if they produce unpopular work they will lose their jobs. Alatalo, Doremus, and Becker stressed the idea that this freedom of expression is essential to “creating bodies of knowledge” and the tenure system at SAIC continues the strong intellectual tradition of freedom without fear of reprisal.

Candida Alvarez, Assistant Professor in the Painting and Drawing department, is up for tenure review this year. When asked how she understood the significance and challenges of tenure, she responded that the tenured professor sometimes unwittingly acquires “mythic auras” because of his or her relationship to the school. Because tenured faculty members vary, it is impossible to characterize them. “But one thing is for sure,” says Alvarez. “Getting the studio work done is always the challenge ... Not everyone can do that, so that faculty can get quite irritable and difficult. The challenge is always keeping a balanced mindset, and creating the time to give yourself what you need constantly.”

Not every institution has tenured professors. Carol Becker explains that in the non-tenure system there is “a trend of using people up and then spitting them out.” Those institutions either had trouble retaining people who were committed to the school, or they had people who would just get rehired for many years, but still had to worry about keeping their jobs — which could hurt their professional practice. Alatalo, Becker and Doremus agreed that there should be a balance in order to keep the school strong. There have to be new people coming in and out periodically. Permanent faculty members are needed to keep coherence within the school, but new faculty to keep things fresh. Alatalo and Doremus jointly explain that a staffing balance between long-time faculty and new teachers is really what can benefit students, as long as the teachers are “generous, willing to share not only technique ideas, but also personal experiences.”

There are professors who get in, stay in, and burn out. Alvarez says that making the work “gives you something to draw from and pass on in the classroom. It is the well. If that dries up, then it is all over.” Becker informs us that an institution does not want blasé people, and for those who need to be replaced, there are ways of getting people to leave, but that is a rarity. There is post-tenure review, and there are incentives for quality performance such as pay increases and scheduling flexibility. The significance of maintaining a tenured position differs for each professor. If approved, Alvarez’s tenure will make her the first tenured Puerto Rican in the history of SAIC’s painting department, which “carries a lot of weight” for her. Alvarez explains that receiving tenure is both an “honor and a privilege, especially in a school like the SAIC, where there is so much brilliance.”

My beleaguered professor who is author of the “first living painting” may be behind on the contemporary scene — clever as it may be, a living painting may or may not be great art. But this same professor had the freedom to experiment. He also brought forty plus years of art- making experience to the classroom, along with a dedication to his students and to his vocation. I will never forget his lessons, not only because of the things he taught, but because he once traveled two hours to attend one of my exhibitions. The tenure process may be tedious for both the faculty and the institution, but it would seem the benefits outweigh the drawbacks because at its best, the tenure process can produce not only committed educators, but also innovative artists.