Peter F. Drucker on Economic Threats

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Professor as Featherbedder

WITH OUT MAJOR CHANGES IN POLICY, college and university professors are likely to become an endangered species in the decades ahead—and unionization and political lobbying are unlikely to help any more than they have helped to protect the anthracite coal mines or the railroads.

In their own self-interest, faculty members need radically new policy in three areas. They need an effective substitute for a self-defeating tenure policy. They need systematic personnel development to enable them to benefit from future opportunities. And they need organized placement of the middle-aged, average professor ...