Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

The long game of tenure

Nature Biotechnology volume 41, pages 1373–1374 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

In 2009, the American Association of University Professors underscored the importance of academic freedom in the light of Garcetti v. Ceballos1 and stated that “The principal purpose of tenure is to safeguard academic freedom, which is necessary for all who teach and conduct research in higher education.” Nevertheless, the institution of tenure is coming under fire in many states across the United States. This trend is troubling as we firmly believe tenure is necessary for the success and well-being of the academic enterprise. We detail below two distinct yet complementary stories that highlight the value of tenure. Specifically, we describe how tenure enables faculty to speak openly about institutional matters and enables faculty to focus on long-term research.

Tenure safeguards academic freedom, which typically applies to scholars acting in an academic capacity — as teachers or researchers expressing strictly scholarly viewpoints. As the following story shows, scholars also have expertise in academic institutional matters, and academic freedom protects their ability to speak up on such matters.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. American Association of University Professors. Protecting an independent faculty voice: academic freedom after Garcetti v. Ceballos. https://www.aaup.org/report/protecting-independent-faculty-voice-academic-freedom-after-garcetti-v-ceballos (2009).

  2. Vardi, M. The whole may be less than the sum of the parts: about the proposed Rice-BCM Merger – 2009. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU_6Vb_60OE (2009).

  3. Cohen, J. Politicians, scientists spar over alleged NIH cover-up using COVID-19 origin paper. Science https://www.science.org/content/article/politicians-scientists-spar-over-alleged-nih-cover-up-using-covid-19-origin-paper (11 July 2023)).

  4. Vardi, M. Universities should support the public good. The Rice Thresher https://www.ricethresher.org/article/2022/09/universities-should-support-the-public-good (27 September 2022).

  5. McGee, K. & Barragán, J. Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in lecture. The Texas Tribune https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/25/texas-a-m-professor-opioids-dan-patrick (25 July 2023).

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to sincerely thank Luay Nakhleh, Fritz Sedlazeck and Sonia Villapol for their helpful feedback.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Todd J. Treangen & Moshe Y. Vardi

  2. Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Todd J. Treangen

Authors
  1. Todd J. Treangen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Moshe Y. Vardi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M.Y.V. and T.J.T. jointly contributed to the conceptualization, writing, edits and revisions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Todd J. Treangen.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Treangen, T.J., Vardi, M.Y. The long game of tenure. Nat Biotechnol 41, 1373–1374 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01929-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-023-01929-y

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing