BC professors maintain tenure despite national trend

A petition to grant tenure to Boston College's Ralf Gawlick, a professor in the music department, is just one of the many recent attempts by BC's students to voice their opinions about the growing tenure crisis facing colleges nationwide.

The much-loved professor has developed a sort of cult following, and when students learned he was hoping to attain a full-time tenure-track position, they banded together to help convince the administration that Gawlick was more than deserving. The petition, which started back in 2005, is still circulating and will continue to do so until his approaching appointment with the administration, thanks to a recent revamping of the cause through Facebook.

Gawlick is not the only professor students have actively helped gain the many benefits of a tenure-track teaching position. A similar petition was sent out last spring for a professor in the computer science department, said Ashley Gullo, A&S '08. The creators of the petition eventually got to meet with University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J.,

on the issue, but Gullo said nothing has come from the meeting as of yet.

The problem of tenured positions is not, however, the major issue for many students, as BC is in fact one of the few schools that has yet to be targeted for hiring too many part-time and non-tenured faculty. The main concern for these students is their lack of an apparent voice in the decision-making process.

"There needs to be more student input," said Michael Cannella, A&S '08. "The administration isn't sitting in these professors' classrooms everyday."

In a recent report by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), concern was raised over the dwindling number of tenure and tenure-track positions being made available for professors. Experts have criticized a change in university hiring standards that has resulted in the hiring of more part-time, non-tenured instructors to cut down on the school's employee costs.

BC is one of a few schools that appear to be heading in the opposite direction.

"We are very fortunate here that we don't have such financial troubles," said Dr. Patricia De Leeuw, vice provost for faculties. "At BC, we're just not going to follow this national trend."

Most departments in BC's College of Arts and Sciences have reflected an increase in the number of tenure and tenure track positions over the past few years. The other undergraduate schools, however, are not following this supposed upward trend.

According to BC's official Fact Book, the percentage of tenured faculty in Carroll School of Management, Connell School of Nursing, and Lynch School of Education all dropped slightly from the 2005-2006 academic year to 2006-2007.

As part of BC's newly unveiled Master Plan, the issue of tenure and tenure-track job availability is one that the administration plans to tackle. BC is planning on adding tenured faculty across all schools and departments, said De Leeuw said.

Another component of the initiative is to convert many of the part-time teaching positions to full-time, non-tenured, so that those professors can attain a certain level of commitment and job security from the schools, without BC drowning in the expenses of a 100 percent tenured faculty.

In another past study released by the AAUP, BC was one of the only Boston-area schools not criticized for hiring too many part-timers and non-tenured faculty. Harvard, Tufts, Boston University, and Northeastern University were all above the national average in regard to the number of non-tenured staff they hired. Elfriede Fursich, the assistant chair of the communication department at BC, explained this is a problem specific to the Boston area because there are so many schools in the region, and it is easy for part-time professors to bounce between schools.

"Part-timers lose out on job security and have a weaker relationship with the University, losing out on a certain level of commitment [from the school]."

While many professors will argue tenured faculty reap more benefits, are better teachers for the students, and a greater asset to the school, there are benefits to having part-timers on the staff, as well.

"A school like BC would not survive without many of the non-tenure-track positions we have," Fursich said.

"Our part-timers are really needed, especially in the professional schools," De Leeuw said.

Cannella, a political science and biology double major, also agrees that part-time professors are essential to the school and provide a different perspective for students.

"The part-time professors I've had have been some of the best," said Cannella. "Many work in the fields they teach, and that educates students in a more practical way."

Craig Brown, a part-time computer science professor, is an example of how real world knowledge can add to the classroom experience, having worked in the private sector for the majority of his life.

"Having spent most of my working life in private industry, teaching gives me the chance to pass along my years of industry experiences to future generations. That's quite an honor and responsibility," said Brown in an e-mail.

Part-time professors can also become a benefit to students because of their ability to dedicate their workload at BC solely on teaching, whereas tenure and tenure-track positions have research and publication requirements that take up their available time.

"As a part-time lecturer with no tenure aspirations, my sole goal is to make the learning experience of my students as meaningful and rewarding as possible," Brown said.

The debate as to whether tenure is genuinely needed, as it is essentially the only professional career in today's market that provides such job security, continues to be discussed at colleges all over the country.

BC, however, seems set to continue with the tenure tradition, and fortunately can afford to do so, keeping the University, for the moment, free from the current tenure dilemma infecting America's universities.