There's Far More Than Tenure on the Butcher Block: A Larger Context for the Recent Crisis at the University of Minnesota

Threats to tenure are not isolated challenges, but result from broad systematic change that have extensive implications for academe. Social system factors such as changed public attitudes, increased competition for public funds and increased competition for students are generating budget reductions which in turn affect views about how universities should be managed. Increasingly, higher education is seen as a business, and academic programs are evaluated in ‘bottom-line’ budgetary terms. These trends, in turn, may have many important consequences for the academic world, from grade inflation to reduced academic freedom. Examining such forces and trends should help place the tenure debate in a larger context so as to better understand why it is occurring and what might be needed to protect tenure.