Jimmy Carter granted tenure at Emory University after 37 years of teaching

[George II]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)Former President Jimmy Carter has become a tenured faculty member of Emory University after teaching at the Atlanta-based private university for more than three decades, the Georgia school announced on Monday.

"With this honor, he becomes the first tenured faculty member at Emory to hold a Nobel Prize and the first tenured faculty member to have been a US president," Emory University said in a statement. "The principle undergirding tenure -- which essentially means a continuous post as a professor -- is to preserve academic freedom for those who teach and pursue research in higher education."

The former one-term Democratic president and Georgia governor has had an extended public service career since the end of his presidency, and Monday's announcement said he has been a distinguished professor at Emory for the past 37 years.

Carter, 94, and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, established the Carter Center in Atlanta as well in a partnership with Emory.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/03/politics/jimmy-carter-emory-university-tenure/index.html

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I guess the question is, why so long to do this?

[ret5hd]

1. Boy, they're really stepping out on a limb, aren't they? He's only 94.

Now he might start phoning it in, just slacking off and screwing off!!!

[mpcamb]

2. A bold decisive move!

[Igel]

3. Probably because he didn't meet the formal requirements.

That's an empirical question, but it's the obvious one. Obama was offered tenure exceptionally, but it wasn't because he was a researcher. Then again, it was in a professional degree program where standards are different (I remember being amused at a post once that deduced the opposite--he was offered tenure, so he must have had a pile of worthy publications; this was, of course, an issue back in 2008, his lack of any actual paper trail that bore his name).

Faculty at one flagship state school I attended had worked in the field, as full-time adjunct and then assistant but not tenure-track professor for 20 years. Numerous monographs. Invited talks. Publications. Conference presentations. But no PhD, and her pages of publications were practical and applied, not theoretical research.

The faculty petitioned the university to award her tenure. No go. Maybe if she published something that "advanced the field"? So she wrote a fairly academic monograph. The administration: "Well, maybe, um, so, well, gee, you know, just, so then, that's a no." Then the faculty got dozens of tenured faculty around the country to write letters of support. Graduate students showed support. What made the difference was job offers, *with tenure* from day 1, at a hefty salary increase, from other schools--and her threat to leave, followed by another wave of petitions and letters as to how this would be horrible for the university. Granting the exception had to go to the board of regents, which finally approved awarding her tenure, something like 4, 5 years after the first request for a waiver of requirements was made. After all, if a school like Yale or Chicago would offer her tenure as part of a binding contract just waiting for her signature, obviously she was tenure-worthy.

Why did it take so long? Because the rules are there for a reason. In many cases, they've already been watered down. Extending them further, watering them down further, would just weaken tenure. That school had strong tenure: the only way to dispose of a tenured professor was to abolish the department that the professor was with--but if there was any dept. at the other 10 or so state schools that had programs into which the professor's research could be housed, then the prof would have automatic rights to transfer and take the funding stream with him/her. In other words, if you wanted to dispose of a tenured English or Spanish professor it was nearly impossible. If you wanted to dispose of the Indonesian cultural studies professor, it would be fairly easy.

[keithbvadu2]

4. Finally! Job security.

Finally! Job security.

[lagomorph777]

5. It's that hard to get tenure these days?

That is ridiculous. I mean seriously - you have to have a Nobel Prize, be an ex-President, and have 37 years experience? And oh by the way he's also a nuclear engineer and a Naval officer. And Habitat for Humanity mentor and pretty much a saint.

[brooklynite]

6. A former US President really needs the job protection.....