Why we need to get rid of tenure

It's another start to the new school year, although really doesn't feel like it for most grad students, as we've been working through the summer. But at least with the hype around back to school, one can't help but feel a litle excited to be going into campus today (although seeing the lineup for the bus may bring this excitement down rather quickly).

I still remember my first day, and my first semester, yes, I enjoyed going to classes that I was enrolled in, and also the occasional classes in which I was not. Learning was fun and it still is, and I solely believe that the access to education should be a basic human right, not some way for colleges and universities to make millions while putting students into major debt before they're even out of school.

But one particular professor still comes to mind from first year: my first year bio prof. Now he wasn't a bad prof, he taught (or read to be accurate) the slides of each lecture day in and day out. Now he got the job done, he got all the information across, but I thought university was the time for engaging lectures and intellectual development. For the most part it was, but I saw many of my fellow first years start to hate this class and stop going altogether, only to do very poorly and having to take it again the next semester. I remember thinking that I could do a better job and I didn't even have a degree! This is also one of the reasons I also aspire to teach at the university level.

Over the years, I saw a trend. A trend that may be evident to most students as well. If the prof is relatively new, the subject is taught with passion and interest, while the senior profs tend to lead very monotonous straight from the text lectures. Now, why this happens may be different, but I belive for the most part, this has to do with tenure. What is tenure? A prof can acquire a tenure position at a university with a history of continuous teaching for a certain number of years. What this means is that the tenured prof is pretty much guaranteed to have secured a position at that university for the rest of time. The new prof is trying to get tenure, so is trying very hard and trying to really engage students, while the tenured senior prof just doesn't care, cause they can't be fired (unless they do something that justifies that).

In my opinion, we need to get rid of this tenure position. It makes two big problems. First, the tenured prof no longer has motivation for teaching 'outside the box' and really engage young minds, and second, senior tenured profs remain well past their retirement ages and refuse to step down and allow new profs to begin their careers. I believe we need to change this tenure position, perhaps allow that profs can get tenure, but they will still have yearly reviews where their contracts can be terminated. And instead of tenure, we can have extended contracts, like 5 or 10 or 20 years, like in sports. At the end of your contract, the university can decide whether or not to extend the contract based on the yearly reviews. If not, the prof can continue to work as a nonteaching (research only) faculty until the contract is offered or apply somewhere else. What this also does is prevents contracts from being extended for retired profs to make room for new profs. And also might allow for the exchange of profs around different universities thereby increasing intellectual diversity among universities.
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Medical school reform

The bus is taking quite a long time to show up, so I'd thought I'd just post something taken from a brief conversation with my coworker and colleague Connor. Basically, its about the medical school system, which I personally believe needs to be seriously looked at. Now, don't get me wrong, the medical school system isn't the only system that needs to be changed. How grad school is structured and the way that researchers/young scientists are being abused and manipulated also needs to be changed but that is for another post. Also, I'd like to caution the readers to take my post here with a grain of salt, these are only my thoughts and I view the medical system through the other side as a grad student. However, I have worked with many medical students while working in lab during 1st year grad, my department contains many medical students so I've had the chance to take classes with them, and the building in which I work is where most of the medical school lectures occur. Also keep in mind that my information may not be accurate for all medical schools, but it is for the one I'm the closest to.

The medical system as it is now requires the premed student to satisfy 3 major requirements: good marks in undergrad (to the point where I've seen premed students sabotage other premed students, I hope this is only a rare occurrence), MCAT and volunteer work. But there is another factor that most students forget: the designated number of seats available to you depending on where you live, what university you went to, and what degree(s) you have completed. Speaking of which, right off the bat, I want to mention that students in a nonscience disciplines (especially Arts) should NOT be given a chance to apply to med school. This is not because I hate arts, but you CANNOT compare a student who has taken 4 years of full on science training to a student who has only taken the science courses required to gain admittance to med school. We need to streamline students into medicine and health from undergrad.

Getting back to my original point, universities will restrict seats from you if you're out of province, if the medical university doesn't acknowledge your home university's grading system, or if you've completed a PhD prior to applying to med school. What this basically means is that you're restricted to follow the idea of a predetermined entrance "model". On top of this, each medical university has their own board that decides who should get in (which needless to say can be full of bias). This system can restrict a very capable and ambitious premed student from entering a very good medical school simply because he/she doesn't live close enough.

This needs to be changed. The Canadian government already administers the MCAT, I suggest that they take over the admission system too. Basically, all your marks (which the goverment already has) along with your MCAT marks are attached to your medical school application that one government board decides your entrance into medical school. The student would also name their top 3 universities. This way, if a student in Victoria wanted only to study medicine in McGill, Univ. of Toronto and Queens, he/she would have an equal chance with a student already living and studied in Ontario. Plus, different universities have different admission requirements: some put more weight on marks over volunteer work or the MCAT while others do something different. Having one government body evaluating med admissions would also standardize the admission requirements, which would just be a bonus.

I also realize that this might be a lot of work for that committee, but consider this. Medical universities pretty much take a year just to let students know if they're admitted or not. I'm sure this committee, being responsible for only one purpose each year, could easily finish their task in the same time frame.

Anyways, just my thoughts. I may continue this topic again sometime in the future.
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