Is tenure dead?

The Chronicle of Higher Education has posted a story this month about the soon-to-be released Department of Education report that "documents the death of tenure":

Over just three decades, the proportion of college instructors who are tenured or on the tenure track plummeted: from 57 percent in 1975 to 31 percent in 2007. The new report is expected to show that that proportion fell even further in 2009. If you add graduate teaching assistants to the mix, those with some kind of tenure status represent a mere quarter of all instructors.

The idea that tenure, a defining feature of U.S. higher education throughout the 20th century, has shrunk so drastically is shocking. But, says Stanley N. Katz, director of Princeton University's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, "we may be approaching a situation in which there will not be good, tenure-track jobs for the great majority of good people."

If, as Lewis Turco says in his Book of Literary Terms, we are in the post-modern period populated by "academic poets," then this could be a significant thing for contemporary poetry.

Over at the New York Times site, they've posited the question "What if College Tenure Dies?" to five academics--their responses run the gamut from "Job Hogs" to "Protect Professors," with one writer making a point particularly salient for writers:

As at-will employees, adjunct faculty members can face dismissal or nonrenewal when students, parents, community members, administrators, or politicians are offended at what they say. If you can be fired tomorrow, you do not really have academic freedom. Self-censorship often results. Without economic security and due process, academic freedom cannot be protected. Poor faculty working conditions create poor student learning conditions . . .

Read more here.