The Changing Role of Tenure at the American Research University

Although American research universities have long hired faculty members both on the tenure track and on fixed-term contracts, the nature of the workforce has changed rapidly in recent years. Today fixed-term faculty members have become the majority or will soon become the majority at almost all research universities. This has resulted in a two-tiered system of employment in which tenure-track faculty members have taken on the role of frontline manager and entrepreneur, whereas fixed-term faculty members have become members of a permanent, highly skilled workforce with limited upward mobility. There are several things universities can do to adjust to this transition, including training tenure-track faculty members in basic principles of management, offering defined career tracks to fixed-term faculty members, and changing the nature of graduate education to reflect this workforce reality.