The editorial in today’s Baylor Lariat student newspaper mentions that university faculty positions are “notoriously shaky” jobs. I actually LOLed when I read that. The context of the article had to do with a few dozen faculty contracts at UNT Dallas that were not renewed when the university gained independent status recently.

I have not researched the UNT Dallas situation, but I would hazard a guess that the contracts in question were lecturer or tenure-track (but not full tenure) positions. If the layoffs were tenured faculty, then that would be very odd, from what I’ve seen in academia over the years.

To say that faculty positions are unstable is laughable, seeing as it is nearly impossible to fire a tenured faculty member. Becoming tenured is akin to becoming a top exec with a golden parachute: you’re in for life, for all intents and purposes.