ABSTRACT
Universities and colleges face mounting pressure to increase faculty productivity and accountability and to reduce costs. Organizational restructuring, and shifting faculty employment trends, there is much speculation in the higher education literature about the future direction of faculty appointment policies. Advocates of tenure are quick to highlight their envisioned negative consequences of removing tenure: institutions will be unable to recruit and retain qualified faculty, autocratic administrators will exclude faculty from decision-making, and academic freedom will be violated. Most commentators have targeted their criticisms at traditional academic tenure, suggesting that it will have to be altered to accommodate changes in the broader society. Downsizing, outsourcing, and underemployment are common in economy, with significant restructuring having occurred in health care, business, and government. Since tenure is the common policy of faculty employment, the loosely coupled model of change applies to the process of change to tenure. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
