Thread by @MBKplus

A lot of the discourse on tenure has (rightly) emphasized its role in allowing faculty members to engage in research without external political influence. A less discussed but crucial aspect of tenure is its role in facilitating complex research with long time horizons. 1/

By its very nature, cutting edge research involves working at the frontier of the unknown. There is no guarantee of success on any specific problem and projects often end up in very different places from their initial goals.

The process is usually highly nonlinear in the sense that tangible progress often comes in short bursts that are separated by long periods of 'being stuck' -- but the progress phase is not possible without the work that goes into the 'stuck' phase.

Annual reports on faculty activity can reasonably reflect most teaching and service activities, but it is essentially impossible to accurately capture effort that has not paid off in the sense of resulting in publications or other tangible research products.

Many of the most important problems across a range of disciplines require sustained effort over multiple years that may not be reflected in discernible progress on the scale of a year (or even multiple years). Nonetheless, this foundational research is what enables breakthroughs.

Scholarship that does not lead to, e.g., revolutionary products is also inherently valuable in that it enriches and expands the frontiers of knowledge. By offering someone a faculty position, experts in the field are indicating the perceived value of their scholarship.

The importance of facilitating projects with time horizons that do not conform to quarterly earnings cycles has grown considerably in recent years, as many entities have significantly de-emphasized long-term, foundational research in favor of short-term results.

For the sciences, medicine, and technology, this creates a dangerous situation if there is no mechanism to ensure continued basic research without immediate applications, as all major breakthroughs inevitably rely on this. Tenure is the primary mechanism to ensure broad progress.

In social sciences and the arts, tenure allows people to ask questions that may prove to be unpopular with people in power but that can provide deep insights or simply enrich our lives. And that work, again, takes years. A single book might take a decade of research.

It is crucial to realize that progress in scholarship does not take a form that can easily be summarized on an annual report. And if we don't give people the space and time to attack all kinds of questions, we will suffer in innumerable ways, both small and large. /end

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