Tenure

I'm for tenure except for the whole "difficulty to get fired" thing. I like it that it allows teachers to not be so structured and gives them a chance to say, "You know, instead of studying the structure of government in this stuffy room, let's go outside and talk about government in general." I don't know of any teachers that become lazy at my college, but I do know of teachers that become EVIL.

Everyone tries to avoid taking Latin in my college b/c the professor that teaches it has tenure. He will keep the class up to half an hour pass the time on the clock and has said, "If your grade starts slacking after midterms, you will definitely NOT get anything above a C in my class. If your grade goes up after midterms, I will raise your grade above a C regardless of first half's performance." No one has pulled off raising their grades after midterms.

There's a poltical science teacher who also has tenure who is even worse. He will purposely pick the smallest room he can find to make sure all the students sit close to him. He will give his speech, "You will not look at any clocks or watches within my class or else I will keep you even longer and dock your grade. You will all raise your hand at least once per class session or else your grade will be docked. You will read every chapter and have at least five questions from every chapter to ask in class." If he knows you didn't read the chapter, he will ask you all the questions he can and then he will say, "Oh, wait. YOU didn't read the chapter. How about if we get someone that HAS read the chapter to answer." Thank goodness I'm a Commie major.

Tenure is fine, but I really wish that there were limits with my school's tenure.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Summonmaster

Agh! It sounds like tenure has some glaringly obvious bad points! I hope I don't run into any professors that have their head bloated up with their status like that. As far as I know, none of my profs had been tenured yet. Then again, you figure that profs will make you buy their versions of the book or keep lecturing in excess of the alotted time with or without tenure.

Some do. One of my friends had a teacher was was crazy about honey bee's. She was teaching a general education course and required that all students buy a book about how honey bees shaped America (written by her). She doesn't have tenure yet, but from what I hear she's crazy enough without it.

I don't know about the policies at other colleges, but I think for my college you have to wait ten years before you qualify for tenure. There may be a few professors that use tenure to the student's advantage, but most of the professors at my college tend to use the priviledge to torture the students--especially professors that do not have a Doctorate.

The professors at my college receive lousy pay, so I'm glad that they receive more benefits for making it to tenure. However, I'm trying to ask students ahead of time about every class and every professor. I like ratemyprofessor.com (I just wish it would list whether or not someone is tenure).

There's nowhere I can't reach.