Tenure, RIP: What the Vanishing Status Means for the Future of Education

Great article from "The Chronicle of Higher Education" about the rise of part-time college instructors over the more traditional tenure track.

"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, dropping below one-third. 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.""

http://chronicle.com/article/Tenure-RIP/66114/?key=QTglLlM9bCROYyNteiBLeidVO3B6KRgrbyBCZn0aYlhR