By Sydney Matthews | Staff Writer

One of the most important roles of a university is to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to modern trends and ideas. The theories and techniques students learn during their time at Baylor should prepare them to enter the workplace and make an immediate contribution. That requires our curriculum to keep pace with the rapid change taking place in business, medicine and other industries.

If this is something Baylor values, maybe it’s time to reevaluate some of the policies currently in place in order to increase our speed and relevancy. One of those being the Baylor tenure policy.

According to the tenure and promotional policy information site, “tenure is granted after a thorough review, the culmination of which is Baylor’s formal acknowledgment of a faculty member’s excellence and the likelihood that excellence will continue over the remainder of the faculty member’s career.”

Tenure is given as a reward to faculty that have proven excellence and loyalty to Baylor. As a policy, that’s fine, but is it currently set up to incentivize professors to stay on the cutting edge of current trends, technology, practical theories and innovation? Perhaps it’s time to reevaluate the policy and add additional reviews, incentives and requirements for all tenured faculty in order to retain their tenure status.

This has been a conversation throughout the country, especially when it comes to public institutions. According to The Dallas Morning News, senators in Texas are considering abolishing the tenure policy for public universities. In Texas alone, about 7,668 faculty members were on track to receive tenure in 2021. This has caused a lot of backlash from professors who have been working towards this award for many years.

I believe all professors, tenured or otherwise, should be incentivized to keep their curriculum modern and current. Our goal should be to not only keep up with technological advances and modern industry trends, but to lead the charge in developing new theories and techniques that will become the new standard. The only way to ensure that happens is if every professor is incentivized to do so.

To be clear, I am not saying to abolish the tenure policy. Rather, I am asking whether more can be done to better prepare Baylor students for the fast-paced world in which they will be entering.

As a student, I want my education at Baylor to reflect the industry that I am going into in the next two years. And I want to make sure that all of my professors are constantly getting feedback by the department and outside professionals to make sure that they are keeping up with their industries.

I have had amazing experiences with my professors at Baylor, but there have been sometimes where I felt like I was learning from textbooks with outdated principles and practices. Although rethinking tenure cannot fully change that, it would help to ensure that our curriculum stays ahead of industry trends.