There is passion in his voice when Krakauer says this. To his thinking, the tenure system is flawed. It’s not fair to junior faculty (tenure review is a form of hazing, he says bluntly) or to women and minorities. Nor is it important to researchers like himself in the natural or computational sciences. They function as academic entrepreneurs raising grants and moving from university to university for a better position. (That’s the new norm, he argues.) Tenure is much more important for the humanities, which can tackle controversial issues that don’t bring in big research grants.
“I wish we could have this conversation,” Krakauer says.