Bakersfield College hires instructors with the idea that the new instructors “can do the job,” according to BC President William Andrews.
After almost four years of continuous evaluations, 10 Bakersfield College faculty members have been granted “recognition of quality work,” also known as tenure, according to Andrews.
The tenure status will go into affect beginning in Fall 2006.
One such faculty member is A. Todd Jones, who is a professor of communication at BC.
According to Jones, faculty members have to “buy into the idea” of community college in order to understand the commitment an individual takes on as a teacher. He also added that tenure gives a sense of “job security.”
Before tenure is achieved, a faculty member has to be hired into a “probationary tenure track position.” After three years of evaluations, the college president will make nominations to the chancellor who will then take the nominations to the board of trustees who approve the nominations, according to Andrews.
After tenure is granted, faculty members are evaluated every three years.
According to Andrews, it’s not “necessary” to evaluate the faculty member every year; he also added that a faculty member under tenure could be evaluated at any time at the college president’s request.
Another faculty member who was granted tenure was Tom Moran, American Sign Language professor. Moran has also worked at San Diego Mesa College as a professor of English; at Mesa, Moran was about to gain tenure there as well but decided to come to join the BC “family,” as he put it.
Moran also said that he wasn’t sure if “tenure is a good thing.”
Moran agrees that teachers should be rewarded and should always improve as teachers and be held “accountable.” He also added that the idea that tenure will protect a faculty member from being fired is not true.
Other faculty members who were awarded tenure were Ginger LeBlanc, Ann Lidia Torres, Michael Korcok, David Koeth, David Arthur, and Mary Jo Anhalt, Ann Wiederrecht and Rebecca Juarez.