What is Academic Freedom and Tenure, and Why Do They Matter (e.g., for teaching about religion!)?

Episode Outline:
0:00 What is tenure, and why are people attacking it?
1:12 Bart and Megan catch up on grading, travel, and future chaos
4:10 Cliff Notes version: what tenure actually means
5:51 How professors earn tenure: research, teaching, and service
8:50 What happens if someone is denied tenure?
11:47 Does tenure mean professors can say anything they want?
15:06 Are universities just liberal indoctrination machines?
18:30 What academic freedom is supposed to protect
22:39 What would happen if tenure disappeared?
26:16 Why this matters at private schools too, not just state universities
29:58 How eliminating tenure could damage research and higher education
33:26 Why publication freedom matters as much as classroom freedom
36:18 Do professors actually try to deconvert or indoctrinate students?
40:36 Bart Reflects on Life: moving from Christian schools to secular universities
48:36 Preview: textual changes in Luke and why they matter

Episode Description
Should the administrators of universities, their alumni, or their boards of trustees have any say in what teachers teach -- for example, in classes about religion? Should they be able to control the classroom in any way? What about the argument that university professors are brainwashing their students to follow their liberal agenda, while hiding behind “academic freedom”? Does the U.S. system of tenure allow professors to say whatever they want, safe in the knowledge that they can never be fired? What IS tenure anyway, and why does it matter? These are some of the key issues we'll be addressing in this discussion of academic freedom and tenure.

Also watch these episodes:
Is the Gospel of John a Forgery?
Is the Gospel of John a Forgery?

John's Rewritten Gospel: What Did Scribes Change?
John's Rewritten Gospel: What Did Scribes Change?

Why is the Book of Revelation in the Bible?
Why is the Book of Revelation in the Bible?

In this episode, Megan asks Bart:

-What exactly is tenure?

-What do you have to do to be considered worthy of tenure? How long does it take?

-Are people often denied tenure?

-Once you have tenure then it makes it a lot harder to fire you, does this give you the freedom to say whatever you want within the classroom?

-Does having tenure allow you to “brainwash” students, or indoctrinate them into your own ideology?

-What IS academic freedom?

-Why is academic freedom important to professors, and does it also impact students?

-How would higher education be impacted if tenure were abolished?

-Is this a problem in private institutions as well as state?

-How does tenure factor into academic freedom in publication?