[Editorial] Guaranteed Tenure of Professors

China’s Peking University made drastic changes to its professor appointment system in 2003 as part of its belated effort to join other universities around the world that had undergone massive reforms. It made professors renew their contracts every three years, and those with tenure would still be shown the door with lagging performance in teaching and research. These reform measures reflected the harsh reality that universities cannot reach the global level without having a world class faculty. As a result of such endeavors, China ranked 28th among 55 nations in a university competitiveness ranking by the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland. In contrast, Korea with rare university reforms came in 40th.

In this regard, the latest breeze of university reforms, which came somewhat belatedly, is a positive sign. In a rare and bold move by Korean standards, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, better known as KAIST, excluded six professors from contract renewal and five from tenure evaluation. Such a hardcore measure is hard to see in Korea. Many professors in Korea University and Seoul National University are also likely to be in trouble because the schools said they would apply stricter rules to contract renewal in two to three years.

More and more universities have taken interest in publicly posting the results of course evaluation by students. SNU Business School began to allow access to the results since last year, and excluded three professors who came in at the bottom three. The trend is not confined to graduate schools. Dongguk University revealed the results of student evaluation on 1,049 professors conducted on undergraduate courses last semester. The results were posted with professors’ real names.

Although Korea has just begun to strengthen the criteria for getting tenure, some universities in advanced nations have even abolished the tenure system altogether. Therefore, Korean universities should take bold and firm action regarding professor appointment system reforms. The changes must start with national universities trapped in a state of bureaucratic inertia and paternalism, both of which are the negative side effects of the direct school presidential election system. The number of “polifessors,” who are busy watching for an opportunity in politics instead of teaching and researching, will diminish if universities strictly evaluate professors.

Korean universities’ competitiveness (40th) lags far behind its national competitiveness (29th) in the IMD ranking, a result which goes against the global trend of building knowledge-based economy. It has been a long time since critics pointed out uncompetitive universities hamper the national development. Education Minister Kim Do-yeon said in his inaugural speech, “Universities must reform their culture from within to enhance competitiveness.” He must prove that his action is stronger than his words. Not only professors’ guaranteed tenure, but also universities without competitiveness should be abolished from this nation.