The New Landscape of Tenure

The tenure decision is intentionally constructed around the very idea of career vulnerability, since the real possibility of its denial is central to the entire process. The last thing a tenure-track professor wants or needs is to do or say anything that will motivate people to oppose a positive tenure decision. The surest way to avoid this is to steer clear of both research and social media activity that might stir up opposition. Thus, obtaining tenure now requires a more careful effort than in the past to steer clear of politically controversial topics, both in research and in public statements on any topic.

Gender and Race Differences in Faculty Assessment of Tenure Clarity: The Influence of Departmental Relationships and Practices

The authors look at how the intersection of gender and race influences pretenure faculty members’ perceptions of the clarity of tenure expectations. The authors also seek to identify potential predictors (assessment of mentoring, relationships with peers, feedback on progress toward tenure, and of fairness in tenure decision making and evaluation) of perceptions of tenure clarity for four intersectionally defined groups, including historically underrepresented minority women (URMW). The authors use an intersectional perspective and the gendered and racialized organizations’ theoretical lens to interpret the results. The data set comes from the Harvard University Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education survey of tenure-track faculty job satisfaction (2011 and 2012). Bivariate results reveal no significant differences in URMW’s perceptions of tenure clarity compared with all other faculty members. However, findings show that compared with white men (WM), URMW are less satisfied with the relationships with peers and with the fairness in the evaluation of their work. Moreover, they are also less likely to agree that mentoring is effective, that tenure decisions are fair, and that messages about tenure are consistent. The multivariate results indicate that the proposed explanatory model does not explain URMW’s perceptions of clarity of tenure expectations as well as it explains white women’s and WM’s perceptions of clarity of tenure expectations.

Parental Wealth and First-time Homeownership: A Cohort Study of Family Background and Young Adults’ Housing Situation in Sweden

This paper investigates whether family background seems to have any influence on first-time homeownership. Recent studies have indicated that it has become more difficult to become established in the housing market and such situations may increase the importance of parental wealth. In this study, parental wealth is estimated as family background information on parents’ homeownership, father’s socioeconomic status and single parenting. Unique cohort data for three birth cohorts suggest that there is a significant cohort effect in young adults’ tenure decision. Furthermore, the results imply that parents’ homeownership has become a more important predictor of the transition to first-time homeownership for those young adults facing increasing problems in the housing market.

International Real Estate Review

A common puzzling phenomenon over the household survey of Taiwan is that the renters' saving rate is higher than that of the owners', while the latter has a higher average income than the former. One reason for this feature is that certain housing owners have to pay a greater amount of mortgage payment that is not included in saving. And on the other hand, the saving decision is correlated with the tenure decision, while the tenure decision is also correlated with the household's life cycle, in addition to income. And therefore, when one tries to estimate the correct saving rate, he or she has to consider the household's life cycle as well. In this study, we apply a data set of the household survey of Taiwan to investigate the correlation of life cycle, mortgage payment, and forced savings. First of all, we estimate the saving rate in a traditional way, and then estimate the saving rate after the adjustment of mortgage payment. To figure out the correct saving rate with the tenure decision, we evaluate different households' saving behaviors according to different cohorts, and consequently, we could check how life cycle plays its role in this model. And our finding is, that for every cohort, the forced savings is significant for owners with mortgage and for renters as well.

A Scandalous Misuse of Faculty—Adjuncts

While increasing attention began to be focused a decade ago on the scandalous misuse of part-time or “adjunct” faculty in colleges, their use has persistently spread. In fact, new varieties of “temporary” positions continue to be invented by college managers. “Part-time” faculty now include some who teach what amounts to a full load, but who are paid on a credit hour or per course basis, others who scramble for one or two courses each term and are paid flat rates, as well as a few whose salaries and benefits are prorated fractions of those of a full-timer. But there are now many “off-tenure” full-time appointments as well: “lecturers,” whose contracts are renewed every year or two but who may remain in their positions, without tenure, indefinitely; “nontenure-track” instructors and assistant professors, who may stay at an institution for four, six or more years but who, at the point of a tenure decision, must move on; “replacement” appointments, who fill lines for a year or two and then migrate to similar positions elsewhere. I shall use the term “adjunct faculty” or “adjuncts” to describe this quite varied group of individuals, for while the word is not precisely appropriate in all cases, its dictionary definition calls attention to the fact that such faculty, while “joined or added” to the institution, are in critical ways “not essentially a part of it.” Handwringing over the plight of adjuncts has brought no relief, and even most union contracts have so far been marginally helpful. That should be no surprise, for the exploitation of adjuncts serves a number of crucial interests of college managers and of those to whom they report. It is important to identify these interests more clearly if the abuse of this large number of our colleagues is ever to be brought under control, much less halted. For the exploitation of adjuncts is not a function of managerial nastiness, nor is it—any more than was the War on Vietnam—an unfortunate product of historical “accidents.” Rather, it is rooted in a particular conception of college management designed to serve historically distinctive social and political interests.