Why Colleges Have Tenure

And does it still mean anything?

Why do we have tenure?

I’m in my third year on our faculty committee that reviews applications for initial tenure. But only once have I heard an applicant ask why we have tenure in the first place.

Why, that is, does Bethel guarantee a long-term¹ period of employment to professors who have demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, and other activities during a probationary period?

As with so much about higher education, we tend to take tenure for granted, as if it’s far more venerable than it actually is. It turns out that the history of tenure in American colleges and universities is not all that long — and its future has never seemed more tenuous.

Yet I know of no better way to provide professors with the unique mix of freedom and stability that tenure was initially meant to secure — and not just for the benefit of professors.