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Comment by mjburgess | Hacker News Reader

> Last month, the board published a draft policy that included a clause stating that a tenured professor could be removed for reasons “other than for cause,” which generated concern leading up to the approval of its final policy.

> While that language is no longer in the approved policy,

The controversial element was removed and the policy is now: you can be fired if you fail two annual reviews, make no progress against an improvement plan, and your performance may now also be judged on the performance of your students.

Seems entirely reasonable. Accoutability cannot function with extreme 'tenure principles'/

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So this process has worked for over a century producing one of the best academic systems in the world, but is no longer viable in 2021 because it is no longer possible to function with accountability?

I don't think tenure is the main cause of this, but I don't believe that the university system is in very good shape. It appears quite broken (massively increased costs and decreasing evidence of efficacy).

About 40+ years ago it was unquestionable that going to a university was the right choice for the vast majority. Now, it is far from clear.

Before the internet you needed a fully stocked library with excellent organization and archive retrieval, top quality professors who could (because of technology) teach at-most an auditorium full of people, and the ability to meet in person with other people knowledgable of the subject which previously required a centralized meeting place (the university).

All of this is now provided with superior quality by the internet. Now the only advantage of a university is signaling where you got accepted, networking with similar people for future jobs, becoming socialized by a culture of university-types, and showing you have the discipline to jump through 4 years of fairly arbitrary hoops. There is value to this, but is it worth $200k+?

Additionally, the cost of education is so high that students are customers now. Expelling too many students is simply infeasible given the enormous debt issued by universities for their massive capital expansions (buildings, gyms, stadiums), and huge bureaucracies. Students are dictating the terms of who and what is being taught, and schools must cater to it or risk reducing their flow of new applicants, which is the death-knell of so many smaller liberal arts schools in recent years. Tenure threatens the ability to shape the school to match customer expectations.

> All of this is now provided with superior quality by the internet. Now the only advantage of a university is signaling where you got accepted, networking with similar people for future jobs, becoming socialized by a culture of university-types, and showing you have the discipline to jump through 4 years of fairly arbitrary hoops. There is value to this, but is it worth $200k+?

You are leaving out some of the main benefits of going to a university. Specifically, that you have people to guide you through the process of learning; to point out the things that are important to learn, to be able to talk to them about the topics, etc. The internet has a lot of useful information, but there are things you don't get from it. Just like you don't master the English language by owning a dictionary.

> Now the only advantage of a university is signaling where you got accepted, networking with similar people for future jobs, becoming socialized by a culture of university-types, and showing you have the discipline to jump through 4 years of fairly arbitrary hoops. There is value to this, but is it worth $200k+?

Yes this is absolutely worth 200k if you do it at the right school. Getting the signals and network is the only way to get a white collar job.

> It appears quite broken (massively increased costs and decreasing evidence of efficacy).

Of course, it’s not like those skyrocketing costs are going to the professors. So it’s kind of strange to point at costs as a reason to strip power from the one group that’s probably not responsible for said costs.

Personally I’d argue that if anyone inside colleges bears blame for the poor state of the college system, it’s the administrators. But of course they’re the ones that benefit from this change.

(Naturally there are parties outside colleges responsible for the change in costs too, these things are complicated).

I agree with that part, but it isn't the professors causing this issue. Adjusted for inflation, professors make what they did in 1979. Blame administration, IT, and health care costs. But mostly administration.

But is that cause/effect?

Counter-argument: the system has worked _in spite of_ the tenure system that hinders accountability.

That’s just a fig leaf for the real reason. Both the administrators of colleges and certain political groups have been waging a political fight against tenure for at least my entire life, probably longer. It seems like they’re pretty close to winning and professors are pretty close to losing.

I mean, that sounds like the normal CYA process to fire someone in the states. I've seen it used to fire all sorts of people who didn't deserve it on trumped up reviews and plan points.

>>>and your performance may now also be judged on the performance of your students.

What is stopping them from passing all students then thereby degrading the whole quality of education? Accountability is good but if other states don't implement this, GA is at a disadvantage as professors would prefer other states now. Among all disadvantages I can think of this rule, this is the most immediate.

That last sentence seems like the key. Tenured professors basically have not been held accountable, and they don't want to start being held accountable now.

Accountable to whom? To unelected bureocrats in administration?

To anyone. Also, the Board of Regents is elected.

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