BrianGarst.com

I’ll let this article by Naomi Schaefer Riley at the WSJ mostly speak for itself:

…[The Franklin W. Olin] is showing what’s possible when a school sheds tenure, one of the most antiquated and counterproductive employment policies in the American economy. Instituted at a time when people in most professions remained in the same job for life, tenure today is an economic anomaly. The policy protects laziness and incompetence—and rewards often obscure research rather than good teaching.

F.W. Olin was an engineer and industrialist who amassed a fortune from a variety of manufacturing enterprises in the early 20th century. In 1938, he transferred much of his wealth to a foundation that bore his name, and, for the next 50 years or so, the foundation supported higher education on more than 50 campuses across the country.

…Olin students—a significant number of whom turn down more prestigious schools like MIT, Stanford and Berkeley partly because of Olin’s significantly lower tuition—take a variety of liberal arts courses as part of their general curriculum, as well as courses at Babson College, a business school adjacent to their own. During senior year, they work with a local company as consultants for an engineering project.

Some have worked on products like a photovoltaic system to power greenhouses. Others have helped develop advanced robotic devices and medical instruments that will result in less invasive surgeries. Their school is ranked 8th in undergraduate engineering by U.S. News and World Report.

Mr. Miller says that promoting a culture of entrepreneurship has been especially important. Like entrepreneurs, “engineers are people who envision things that have never been and do whatever it takes to make them happen,” he says.

Olin’s trustees put some structures in place to keep that entrepreneurial culture strong. In addition to the lack of tenure, the entire curriculum must be re-evaluated every seven years. There are no formal departments.

…Though Olin doesn’t offer lifetime employment, the school’s vision has been appealing enough to attract an average of 140 applicants for every faculty position. In all but three cases, Olin got its top choice to fill each teaching slot.

Mark Somerville left a tenure-track position in the physics department at Vassar to teach at Olin. “It was not a hard decision to make,” he says. Mr. Somerville says he has found that the lack of tenure has changed his teaching and research interests for the better.

“When one is on the tenure track,” he says, “the clock is ticking. There is a certain day on which you will have to produce a stack of papers.” He’s no longer worried about publishing a certain amount by a particular date. Instead, he’s free to pursue research he finds interesting—something Mr. Somerville says has been “liberating.”

According to Olin’s website, one of the school’s Founding Precepts is avoiding government entanglements:

9. The College to Remain Independent

The College shall remain a privately supported institution committed to supporting itself from private, rather than government or public resources. However, government grants from programs subject to peer review and open to other institutions on a competitive basis may be sought. Grants from so-called earmarked funds will be rejected.

Once again, innovation is found where government is not. Take that, Joe Biden!

Higher Ed