If you mean that once you are on the Junior Faculty track in CS, you don’t really need to worry about well-received publications, this is interesting and doesn’t line up with my models. Can you think of any examples which might help illustrate this?
To clarify, I don’t think tenure is guaranteed, more that there’s significant margin of error. I can’t find much good data on this, but this post surveys statistics gathered from a variety of different universities, and finds anywhere between 65% of candidates get tenure (Harvard) to 90% (Cal State, UBC). Informally, my impression is that top schools in CS are the higher end of this: I’d have guessed 80%. Given this, the median person in the role could divert some of their research agenda to less well-received topics and still get tenure. But I don’t think they could work on something that no one in the department or elsewhere cared about.
I’ve not noticed much tenure switch in CS but have never actually studied this, would love to see hard data here. I do think there’s a significant difference in research agendas between junior and senior professors, but it’s more a question of what was in vogue when they were in grad school and shaped their research agenda, than tenured vs non-tenured per se. I do think pre-tenure professors tend to put their students under more publication pressure though.
To clarify, I don’t think tenure is guaranteed, more that there’s significant margin of error. I can’t find much good data on this, but this post surveys statistics gathered from a variety of different universities, and finds anywhere between 65% of candidates get tenure (Harvard) to 90% (Cal State, UBC). Informally, my impression is that top schools in CS are the higher end of this: I’d have guessed 80%. Given this, the median person in the role could divert some of their research agenda to less well-received topics and still get tenure. But I don’t think they could work on something that no one in the department or elsewhere cared about.
I’ve not noticed much tenure switch in CS but have never actually studied this, would love to see hard data here. I do think there’s a significant difference in research agendas between junior and senior professors, but it’s more a question of what was in vogue when they were in grad school and shaped their research agenda, than tenured vs non-tenured per se. I do think pre-tenure professors tend to put their students under more publication pressure though.