Uncooperative Crickets

Tenure and Journalism

Jon Stewart completely destroyed Jim Cramer on The Daily Show last night. This is what journalism should be, and it is a shame that it had to come from a fake journalism show. With all of the talk about accountability that has been going around, it seems like Stewart is one of the only people out there who seems to have the guts to call someone out. Jon Stewart is truly a patriot.

I am also proud that Stewart stole my "Arthur Ponzarelli" joke. I have finally made it.

Kentucky is thinking about doing away with tenure at its community colleges (thanks to Sympleko for the link). I think that I am breaking with the position that I "should" hold as a liberal, but I actually don't have a problem (at this moment) with doing away with tenure at the K-12 and community college level (more on colleges and university below). I haven't thought about it much, but I don't really have a good reason why people at this level should receive tenure.

Now universities are a different matter. Universities are essentially knowledge factories that influence all sorts of facets of our lives - they are not just places you go for four years to get drunk. Because they play such a key role in knowledge production, I think that university faculty should be given tenure to allow them to study whatever they want. I think that it is good that there are physicists out there trying to get things to time travel. This could lead to a cure for cancer some day (I have no idea how, though). After all, the mathematics that was en vogue in the 1600s ended up playing a vital role in the internet (prime numbers were the original basis for encryption). I believe that all of this is good (at least, if one things that progress is good). So faculty members should have tenure so that they do not feel pressure to study what the politicians/administration/populace wants them to study.

Now, this may seem completely self-serving, considering that I am a math professor. However, I teach at a liberal arts college (as opposed to a university). While I am certainly looking forward to tenure, I think that liberal arts colleges are a gray area. Certainly, knowledge is generated there, but it is not nearly to the same extent as a university. For now, I think that it is similar enough to a university that the faculty should have opportunity for tenure, but I do not think that community colleges make the cut-off.

I would love to hear people's thoughts on why tenure is actually a good idea for K-12 teachers. I am a huge fan of K-12 education, and I support teachers. However, I just don't see the need for tenure (but I want to).

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 3:38 PM