Loren Lippincott
While I was at Delta Air Lines, every nine months every pilot would return to Atlanta for two days of intense simulator training. For six hours each day in a full-motion simulator with 180-degree 3D visuals, every airport we could fly into, any conceivable mishap, emergency or scenario a pilot might encounter could be created by the trainer. During those grueling hours in the sim, trainers could recreate horrible weather, turbulence, engine stalls, fire, rapid decompression, hijackings, you name it! Those exercises were something each of us knew we needed in case we ever faced one of those actual events in the air. Most of our flying was routine but we needed to be ready for the inevitable. Our performance in the sim was graded and the union couldn’t protect you if you did poorly. Getting a passing grade and keeping your job was based on performance.
In the marketplace, employers know it is not what you expect of your employees that fosters performance but what you inspect. Such is not the case everywhere. In the education marketplace, college professors can receive tenure after achieving certain benchmarks such as earning additional degrees, doing research or so many years of service. Once professors are tenured, they are virtually guaranteed a job until they elect to retire. Tenure keeps them from losing their jobs due to disagreements with administrators and protects their right to express their “scholarly” opinions. In the past, this served a purpose, however, today tenure not only provides job security, but tenure practices sometimes determine who gets a job. Among large universities, 45.6 percent report having diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in tenure standards. (American Association of University Professors, 2022) Whereas in years past, unions and tenure guarded a professor’s academic freedoms, today laws are in place to provide protection against discrimination of many types. Meanwhile, many college professors allow no “wiggle room” for students who disagree with their espoused dogmas. The student must agree with the professor and regurgitate the professor’s ideology, to have any hope of passing the class. Today’s college classrooms protect the professors but not the independent thinking student!
Studies have shown that 81 percent of administrators know of professors who are performing poorly, yet 86 percent do not fire them due to the cost. Less than 2 percent of tenured professors ever lose their jobs. The cost to fire a teacher in some states exceeds $300,000, but the inability to fire a professor who underperforms is unconscionable!
A 2017 EdNext poll of 4,200 Americans found that 49 percent opposed teacher tenure while 3 percent supported it. Although 61 percent of teachers support tenure and 31 percent oppose it, surprisingly the majority of teachers support getting rid of poorly performing peers. The EdNext poll showed 86 percent of education professors favor making it easier to terminate unmotivated or incompetent teachers, even if they are tenured. Meanwhile, tenured professors often get easier classes and fewer working hours, which means a waste of experience and talent. I have been told of professors bragging about working only 15 hours a week yet getting paid a full salary! Talk about an opportunity to save money! The University of Nebraska has a budget of over $3 billion annually. Over $700 million of that comes from your state tax dollars, and another $700 million comes from your federal taxes.
Unlike the private sector, where poorly performing employees can be fired, college professors lack serious accountability!
At budget time the university comes first to our Appropriations Committee, and then to the entire legislative body to ask for funding. Last year, their 2-1/2 percent increase passed our nine-member committee 5-4. I voted against it!
Yes, “woke” ideology is being pushed on the University of Nebraska campus. To see for yourself, go to SeeingRedNebraska.com where you’ll find examples of the product of professor tenure on display. The ideologies you’ll find there are hostile to our hometown Nebraska values and yet we are expected to tolerate and even financially support them.
Terminating tenure for college professors is one way to clean house and eject those who are performing poorly, or worse, behaving badly.
Loren Lippincott represents Legislative District 34 in the Nebraska State Senate. Read his column in the Nance County Journal.