Program closure requires more than counting majors: a defensible review weighs enrollment trends, avoidable costs, academic interdependence, governance, and institutional mission.
Universities face legitimate and growing institutional responsibilities. Meeting those obligations calls for skilled professional staff and efficient systems, not automatically more layers of administration.
Tenure protects more than employment: it supports the independence needed for teaching, scholarship, and honest participation in university governance.
In recent years, several universities have reported that administrative salaries now account for a larger share of their budgets than faculty salaries. This reversal of priorities is not an accounting oddity. It is a reflection of how deeply higher education has shifted from an academic to a managerial culture. The university, once organized around teaching and scholarship, now exists primarily to sustain its own administrative machinery. For PUIs, which exist to provide personalized, teaching-focused education, this trend is especially disheartening. When managerial costs begin to outweigh faculty investment in such settings, the institution loses its defining character as a place where students learn directly from engaged teachers rather than through layers of administrative programs.
The principle of tenure has long been central to higher education. It is designed not to guarantee lifelong employment but to protect academic freedom — the right of faculty to teach, research, and publish without fear of reprisal, even when their work challenges dominant views. Yet in recent years, tenure has been tested not by the production of controversial scholarship but by faculty engaging in overt political activism on campus. A growing number of cases show that tenure cannot, and should not, serve as a shield for political stances or protest activity undertaken outside one’s area of academic expertise.
In a recent post, we discussed how tenure and academic freedom should not serve as shields for faculty espousing political opinions outside their academic expertise while on campus or in their professional capacity. The principle of tenure was never meant to justify partisan activism under the guise of scholarship. But the same conviction that guides this view, the belief that academic freedom must be grounded in fairness, also demands that we defend the right of faculty to express personal opinions in non-professional contexts.
In a recent piece, we examined the structural bias PUIs face in grant-seeking, where review panels are dominated by faculty from research-intensive universities. A similar pattern is visible in academic publishing, particularly in high-impact factor journals. While not explicitly designed to exclude PUIs, the system invariably tilts against them.
There was a time when U.S. universities, especially predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs), existed primarily for one purpose: teaching students. Faculty were the central figures in this mission. Their intellectual autonomy, mentorship, and scholarship shaped the university’s identity. The last decade, however, a very different picture is emerging; US universities are becoming increasingly “top heavy”, run like corporate entities where the central role of faculty is being eroded by the expanding influence of administrators.
If you're a graduate student or postdoc considering a teaching-focused academic career, there's a good chance you've heard of Primarily Undergraduate Institutions, or PUIs. These institutions play a critical yet often under-discussed role in the American higher education system. In this first part of a two-part article series, we break down what PUIs are, why they matter, and how you can launch a successful faculty career at one.
PUI Connect
