Abolishing or instituting tenure: Four case studies of change in faculty employment policies

The purpose of this research was to investigate the process of organizational change at four colleges that shifted their faculty employment policies. Specifically, the study examined: (1) the differences between two colleges that changed from a system of academic tenure to term contracts and two colleges that changed from contracts to tenure, and (2) the extent to which the loosely coupled systems theory of organizational change applied to the two sets of institutions.; Tenure systems are, by far, the normative faculty appointment policy in American higher education. Many writers have inextricably linked tenure and professional legitimacy, academic freedom, and effective institutional governance. Term contract institutions, on the other hand, are few, financially fragile, and, almost by definition, outside the mainstream of higher education. Despite many treatises about faculty appointment policies, researchers had not empirically addressed why or how some institutions chose to move from one employment system to the other.; This dissertation used a multiple case study research design to investigate the process of change at the four sites. Findings indicate that colleges instituted tenure through an inclusive process in which faculty, administrators, and trustees equally participated. Tenure was both a mechanism for promoting and a visible sign of achieving institutional maturity. One college that abandoned tenure did so in a top-down, hierarchical manner in which change was imposed upon the faculty by the president and the board. In the other tenure-to-contracts institution, tenure slowly eroded after years of severe financial crises. At all four colleges, the move to or away from tenure was important for the symbolic messages it conveyed. Colleges instituted tenure because it signaled that they had moved into the mainstream of higher education. One college discontinued tenure because the shift signaled that the board of trustees was attending to dire financial circumstances; the other college eliminated tenure to demonstrate iconoclastic leadership and to consolidate power.; Paradoxically, the two sets of colleges moved in opposite directions With the same policy goal: to improve faculty evaluation. Both sets of colleges hoped that their new policies would impose more rigor in faculty performance evaluation.