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my department voted against my tenure case earlier this week

Since this was posted 2016-10-22, I'm gonna assume the department did this smack in the middle of the semester.

Academic job markets get started around this time of year, depending on the discipline and affected by the dates of their big conferences, for jobs to begin in fall of the following year. So by giving him the decision now, he has enough advance notice to prepare his CV and apply for jobs.

I guess you're right. I took a class once where the prof was denied tenure about half way through. He was completely deflated and it affected his teaching considerably. He'd expected he'd get tenure.

This is in line with the tenure cases that I have seen (across US) -- the department votes tend to be in early Fall, and the case makes its way through the rest of the univ over the next 5-6 months.

My school had one in the spring recently. I know because they solicited opinions of the candidate's recent students on his abilities as a teacher. In that case, it was still a mid-semester deal.

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