scholarly journals Argument for Tenure in the American Higher Education

Author(s):  
Majed s Allehaibi

The article presents the arguments concerning tenure in academic institutions. Proponents of tenure argue that it protects professors from social sanctions such as criticism by political or religious powers outside campus that may disagree with the professor’s research findings and thus might pressure the institution to fire him or her. Opponents of tenure argue that the security that comes with tenure allows professors to become incompetent and slothful. After assessing the advantages and disadvantages of tenure, this article concludes that tenure could be an incentive attracting competent faculty members and allowing them to embark on long-term, risky research projects.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eyal Eckhaus ◽  
Nitza Davidovitch

It is commonly thought that the promotion of faculty members is affected by their research performance. The current study is unique in examining how academic faculty members perceive the harm or damage to academic appointment and promotion processes, as a direct effect of student evaluations as manifested in teaching surveys. One hundred eighty two questionnaires were collected from senior faculty members at academic institutions. Most respondents were from three institutions: Ariel University, Ben Gurion University, and the Jezreel Valley College. Qualitative and statistical research tools were utilized, with the goal of forming a model reflecting the effect of the harm to academic appointment and promotion processes, as perceived by faculty members. The research findings show that the lecturers find an association that causes harm to their promotion processes as a result of student evaluations. Assuming that students' voices and their opinion of teaching are important – the question is how should these evaluations be treated within promotion and appointment processes: what and whom do they indicate? Do they constitute a reliable managerial tool with which it is possible to work as a foundation for promotion and appointment processes – or should other tools be developed, unrelated to students' opinions?


2015 ◽  
pp. 23-24
Author(s):  
Richard Skinner

International education has deep historical roots and has spurred relationships that persist for decades. In the case of the United States and the field of engineering, American dependence since the mid-1960s on other countries' students – especially Indian ones – for enrollments and graduates of engineering doctoral programs has been, is and will likely continue to be significant. But long-term trends portend a time when the appeal of American higher education may be less than has been the case.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Jacquelynne Anne Boivin

While schools are the center of attention in many regards throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, programs that prepare educators have not received nearly as much attention. How has the reliance on technology, shifts in daily norms with health precautions, and other pandemic-related changes affected how colleges and universities are preparing teachers for their careers? This article walks the reader through the pandemic, from spring 2020, when the virus first shut down the US in most ways, to the winter of 2021. The authors, two educator preparation faculty members from both public and private higher education institutions in Massachusetts, reflect on their experiences navigating the challenges and enriching insights the pandemic brought to their work. Considerations for future implications for the field of teacher-preparation are delineated to think about the long-term effects this pandemic could have on higher education and K-12 education.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Ayub Khan

This chapter discusses the emerging models of knowledge cities in many countries of the world and the potential challenges posed by them for the existing as well as the future academic institutions of higher education (universities) in those countries in particular and in the in world in general. Specifically, this chapter is dedicated to the study of various issues and themes that concern the evolving knowledge cities such as the long-term and short-term objectives behind the establishment of knowledge cities and their potential benefits (i.e., social, economic, financial, environmental, and knowledge) for their societies. The chapter concludes that the development of knowledge cities are beneficial for all stakeholders including the academic institutions of higher education that directly or indirectly associated with such programs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nitza Davidovitch ◽  
Eyal Eckhaus

Many studies have been conducted on teaching evaluations completed by students and on myths and facts concerning these evaluations performed by students at academic institutions. The current study is unique in examining the meaning of teaching evaluations as perceived by academic faculty members in Israel through direct questions, with an emphasis on faculty's recommendations for improving the evaluations to make students' comments meaningful for enhancing and advancing their teaching. The perception of evaluations is unique too. Evaluations are part of faculty's learning outputs in their courses, with the aim being for graduates of academic systems to have the ability to provide objective and fair assessments.One hundred seventy seven questionnaires were gathered from senior faculty at several academic institutions. Qualitative and statistical research tools were used in order to form a model that expresses the negative implications as seen by faculty members and alternatives for measuring the performance of faculty in academic teaching. The research findings indicate that lecturers note "professional" alternatives and see teaching evaluations as a populist rather than a professional tool. Moreover, although the lecturers gauge the damage caused to them as a result of student evaluations, where the enormous damage caused to them is disproportionate to the number of respondents, and although faculty members believe that student evaluations are untrustworthy, students' opinions on the courses are important. Their recommendation is that the evaluation should be a tool for teaching how to perform evaluations and convey criticism – and in this field not much has been done in academic institutions, if at all. Academia sees evaluations as a technical matter, a means of satisfying students by letting them express their opinions and of giving students a feeling that the system is attentive to their voice, to their views.Indeed, students' voice is important to the lecturers – their opinions of teaching are important – and that is precisely why action should be taken to render these evaluations fair. Students should understand the power of the words that express their evaluation of the lecturers. This point of view is a first of its kind, where academic faculty members support students' opinions and provide recommendations aimed at their improvement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Hunter, Jr. ◽  
◽  
Hector R. Lozada ◽  
John H. Shannon

Part I of the paper discusses the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA, its requirements, and various protections for persons who suffer from a recognized disability which impacts their ability to work under certain circumstances and conditions. The context of this study is American higher education. Part II will discuss the obligation of an employer to offer a “reasonable accommodation” of the nature sought by an employee which would permit the employee to continue teaching while otherwise meeting all of the obligations imposed on faculty members under appropriate university policies. Specifically, the research question considered in Part II relates to whether “commuting” is a covered activity under the ADA which would trigger the responsibility of providing the employee with a reasonable accommodation, allowing an employee to teach in the employee’s preferred combination of online and hybrid modalities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Hudson Vitale ◽  
Jake R. Carlson ◽  
Hannah Hadley ◽  
Lisa Johnston

Research data curation is a set of scientific communication processes and activities that support the ethical reuse of research data and uphold research integrity. Data curators act as key collaborators with researchers to enrich the scholarly value and potential impact of their data through preparing it to be shared with others and preserved for the long term. This special issues focuses on practical data curation workflows and tools that have been developed and implemented within data repositories, scholarly societies, research projects, and academic institutions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Hunter ◽  
Hector R. Lozada ◽  
John H. Shannon

Part I of the paper discusses the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA, its requirements, and various protections for persons who suffer from a recognized disability which impacts their ability to work under certain circumstances and conditions. The context of this study is American higher education. Part II will discuss the obligation of an employer to offer a “reasonable accommodation” of the nature sought by an employee which would permit the employee to continue teaching while otherwise meeting all of the obligations imposed on faculty members under appropriate university policies. Specifically, the research question considered in Part II relates to whether “commuting” is a covered activity under the ADA which would trigger the responsibility of providing the employee with a reasonable accommodation, allowing an employee to teach in the employee’s preferred combination of online and hybrid modalities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Gloghienette Orais Perez ◽  
Marilou D. Junsay

The purpose of this sequential explanatory research study is to predict the psychographics and demographics that are associated with performance among faculty in Dubai Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and thereafter to develop a regression model. Using the purposive sampling, twenty faculty members among Dubai HEIs were used to answer the validated and tried-out interview guide which results were coded, interpreted, and clustered into themes. The research findings reveal that professional qualification, commitment, job satisfaction, motivation, personal differences, and perceived fairness in management emerged as psychographics that influence faculty performance. The psychographics and the demographics were tested whether these predict faculty performance. Using stratified sampling, not lesser than one hundred forty-nine (149) faculty members were selected to answer the validated and tried questionnaire. Using MANCOVA, the figures disclose that the educational level, professional qualification, commitment, job satisfaction, motivation, and perceived fairness in management are predictors of faculty performance.  The regression model of the study is Faculty Performance = 32.076 + 12.977 Educational Level + 2.070 Professional Qualification + .967 Commitment – 10.388 Job Satisfaction + 6.926 Motivation – 1.302 Perceived Fairness in Management. The findings of this study would contribute to the identification of criteria in the hiring of faculty in Dubai HEIs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-114
Author(s):  
Zecarias Zemichael

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how the graduate assistants (GAs) are inducted into the system and ethos of the institutions of higher education (IHE) in Eritrea. The paper serves in the purpose of creating more conducive and supportive work environment in IHE facilitating the socialization of junior faculty members to the culture, standards and system of the institutions. Design/methodology/approach The research adhered a combined approach of quantitative and qualitative research methods. Data were gathered through a Likert scale questionnaire and in-depth interviews. The study was conducted in seven IHE involving 165 participants. Findings The GAs’ knowledge of job description, access to institutional information, sharing of resources, the quality of guidance and support provided, supervised teaching and feedback are discussed in detail. Results revealed that the GAs shoulder vital responsibilities but they receive poor induction at individual and institutional levels. GAs complain for lack of job description clarity and lack of transparent institutional communication at work. Holding first degree, GAs teach senior courses without any prior induction, pedagogic trainings and unsupervised. The GAs are recruited on the basis of the colleges’ long-term staff development plan, but little is done. Practical implications Despite their academic rank, the GAs represent 64 percent of the national academic staff (ADF, 2010). Creating conducive work atmosphere for the junior faculty members in the institutions is a long-term investment on institutional capacity building and quality assurance of the institutions’ performance. Social implications Induction of the newly recruited junior faculty members to the social, professional and the institutional ethos is a socialization process that would minimize the professional isolation and inefficiency of new recruits.


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