Trying tenure: competing in academic employment and work practices

Author(s):

Anne Herbert

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 03 C, Academic Work and Professional Development

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-25

14:00-15:30

Room:

M.B. SALI 16, Päärakennus / Main Building

Chair:

Linda Evans

Contribution

One of the tactics to compete with other universities, in Europe and internationally, chosen by Aalto University (AU) in Finland is to introduce a tenure track system (TTS) of academic employment. According to the official discourse, the TTS will attract the top faculty from around the world which will create a virtuous circle of making AU more attractive to potential students and staff. The system, being very selective, creates competition between academic staff, and thus individuals can be expected to adopt their own tactics to compete.

Commencing operations on 1.1.2010, AU was formed by merging three universities. AU aims to be innovative and internationally-recognized. While such aims are remarkably common, AU aims to be unique. The formation of AU is an experiment in Finnish higher education and thus an important subject for close study. The official rationale for the creation of AU is manufactured at the national policy level and in official university communications, internal and external. The national policies are driven by Finland’s competitive desires to remain highly ranked among nations for educational outcomes, research and innovation. It is too early to say how internationally recognized AU will be for innovation or uniqueness, but so far it can claim distinction by being the first Finnish university to introduce a TTS of academic employment.

Differentiation is an important element of university strategy, and career advancement opportunity is one dimension of this (Reichert 2009). The degree of autonomy that individual universities are allowed in employing and promoting faculty varies considerably throughout Europe (Estermann & Nokkala 2009). In Finland since 1.1.2010 universities directly employ their own academic staff and, as employers can determine terms of employment and development opportunities. This is a significant change in the face of strong traditions of civil service employment conditions and periodic research posts. This change is linked to the separation of the Universities from the State, and to an aspiration to make universities more competitive and attractive as employers in recruiting Finnish and foreign personnel. AU not only aspires to increase mobility in the Finnish academic labour market, but also to change the culture of teaching and research using the TTS as a tool to reward the values and practices it seeks.

The TTS cannot be implemented however without the participation of academic staff. On commencement, AU had 300 professors and roughly 2000 other staff on academic appointments. The professors have been automatically transferred to ‘tenure’ and in practice will be the administrators of the TTS. The other existing academic staff need to experiment with their own strategies to compete for tenure and succeed on the tenure track. The TTS expects this of them, and the competitive forces will impose it. What is not yet certain, is how they will do it and how they will explain what they are doing. How will understandings of academic work and what is important in it change with the introduction of this new system of employment?

Method

Local differences between organizational and disciplinary settings can generate distinct interpretations and responses by academics to institutional changes (Deem, 2001). Detailed local analysis can illuminate dynamics of influences (Trowler 1998; Clark 2004), for it is certain that there are multiple and multidirectional interacting influences (Reichert 2009). The data analyzed for this paper is generated from two rounds of interviews in a longitudinal interview-based critical interpretive study using discourse analysis. The interviewees are 18 academic staff at AU who have agreed to repeated interviews over a 3-4 year period. One round of interviews was conducted prior to the formation of Aalto University and another in spring 2010. The interviewees are talking about their understandings of the implementation of the TTS and their own work. Major themes emerging from the interviews are analyzed and compared with major themes in the official Aalto documentation regarding the introduction of the new employment system.

Expected Outcomes

Here the interest is to identify connections between the university, as an organization, introducing the TTS as a strategic tool and academics strategizing with respect to its introduction and their own academic careers. While the introduction of the TTS was discussed for two years prior to its introduction, now the time has come when the academic staff will be able to successfully maneuver themselves into the TTS or not. The system itself is new in Finland and at AU, so some adjustments can be expected to the official way the system is supposed to operate. One semester may be too soon to see changes to the official TTS, but individual academics are expected to compete for places in the system in spring 2010, so individuals will have choices to make about what they do based on their understandings of the TTS. The first round of interviews revealed that some interviewees believed they could afford to ignore the TTS until it was actually introduced. The second round is expected to reveal changed understandings and choices. Demographic and disciplinary patterns will be considered. These findings will be of relevance to other universities considering a TTS and academics considering jobs at AU.

References

Beach, D. (2008) The Changing Relations between Education Professionals, the State and Citizen Consumers in Europe: rethinking restructuring as capitalization. European Educational Research Journal, 7(2) , 195-297 Clark, B.R. (1998), Creating Entrepreneurial Universities. Organizational Pathways of Transformation, Pergamon Press, Oxford. Clark, B.R. (2004), Sustaining Change in Universities. Continuities in Case Studies and Concepts, Open University Press/SRHE, Maidenhead. Deem, R. (2001) Globalisation, new managerialism, academic capitalism and entrepreneurialism in universities: Is the local dimension still important? Comparative Education, 37(1), 7–20. Estermann, T. & Nokkala, T. (2009) University Autonomy in Europe 1; an exploratory study. Brussels: European University Association Ministry of Education, Finland (2009) Strategy for the Internationalisation of Higher Education Institutions in Finland 2009-2015. Accessed 15 December 2009 at www.minedu.fi/OPM/Julkaisut/2009/Korkeakoulujen_kansainvalistymisstrategia_2009_2015.html?lang=en Reichert, S. (2009) Institutional Diveristy in European Higher Education:Tensions and challenges for policy makers and institutional leaders. Brussels: European University Association Taylor, J. (2006), “‘Big is Beautiful’. Organisational Change in Universities in the United Kingdom: New Models of Institutional Management and the Changing Role of Academic Staff”, Higher Education in Europe, 31, 251-273. Trowler, P.R. Academics responding to change. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, 1998. Varantola, K. (2008) The role of universities in the national context. Case Finland. Presentation to EUA Spring conference. Willis, P. (1999) Labor Power, Culture, and the Cultural Commodity, in M. Castells, R. Flecha, P. Freire, H. Giroux, D. Macedo & P. Willis, Critical Education in the New Information Age. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

Author Information

Anne Herbert

Aalto University

School of Economics

Aalto

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