Tenure as a 30-year contract

I have blogged a few times about tenure and the increasing number of years we hold on to faculty jobs. This is an issue about which we can be in denial for as long as we want--the downside is that external forces are then going to shape the discussion and the eventual decision as well.

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, who is the chairman of the higher-education practice at Korn/Ferry International and a president emeritus and university professor of public service at George Washington University, adds his views in an essay in the Chronicle. He opens with:

Something is wrong with tenure, and we need to make it right. Abolishing it altogether is not politically or culturally feasible, or even likely. Any such attempt would set the many academic constituencies against all the rest simultaneously and, like the famous circular firing squad, leave everyone at least grievously injured and possibly some higher-education institutions dead.
But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't at least consider changing some of the ways that tenure works.

Yes, I would love to discuss this with colleagues, if it were not the fact that I will "not be given the same level of consideration" because I am not one of them. In fact, I was told to "then please shut up." I suppose I should be happy that there was a 'please' added to the directive that I should shut up. ha ha ha. So much for the view from the outside that being tenured gives us real First Amendment rights :-)