<p>"COLUMBUS, Ohio - The leader of the country's largest university thinks it's time to re-examine how professors are awarded tenure, a type of job-for-life protection virtually unknown outside academia.</p>
<p>Ohio State University President Gordon Gee says the traditional formula that rewards publishing in scholarly journals over excellence in teaching and other contributions is outdated and too often favors the quantity of a professor's output over quality.</p>
<p>"Someone should gain recognition at the university for writing the great American novel or for discovering the cure for cancer," he told The Associated Press. "In a very complex world, you can no longer expect everyone to be great at everything...."</p>
<p>Tenure review, which took its current form in the 1940s, typically emphasizes publications over teaching and sometimes weighs whether a professor brings in research grants. Besides job protection, tenure also figures into salaries. A full professor with tenure at Ohio State earns about $126,000 annually.</p>
<p>University</a> president re-examines tenure - Education- msnbc.com</p>
<p>“A full professor with tenure at Ohio State earns about $126,000 annually.”</p>
<p>Wow, thats it? I guess I thought it would be more for a tenured prof, but I guess private colleges might pay more. It seems at those prices, after spending at least 11 years outside of high school getting a degree you’d really have to love teaching/doing research in order to think that was worth it.
Of course if you remove tenure security from the whole thing you might get people who care even less about teaching and students, I mean with that salary it seems to be the main attraction is the job security (at least for those who can get it, tenure track positions are few and far between these days). Its a sticky situation, but going through all you have to go through to get a PhD you’d think the payoff would be bigger.</p>
<p>As a tenured professor I can tell you, it varies quite a huge amount by school, by field and discipline. In my field, we start around 125k out of grad school. Same with tenure spots- my field still hires and tenures a lot which is not the case in many other areas.</p>
<p>But I think people go into the profession not for the money but for the quality of work life and the accompanying life style. Not many other jobs would give me the flexibility to study what I want to study, when and how I want to study it (at least after tenure). And one can choose to focus on research or teaching or be a consultant or write a book or focus on the media or go into administration…it is nice to be able to create a career that matches your strengths and interests which may vary over time. The lifestyle too is great. I could be home everyday afterschool for my kids (making it up late at night or on weekends, as needed). I can work from home a lot. I don’t have to clock vacations. Of course not all academic jobs are that flexible (some schools have stricter norms or heavier teaching loads). Don’t get me wrong, I work a ton of hours but its all over the place- weekends, nights. But its because I choose to, which makes a giant difference. </p>
<p>I love my job and feel extremely fortunate…though I’m not sure I would want my kids to go through all the trouble of grad school and the tenure process to get to this point. Hard to say.</p>