THE tenure track

[Geoffrey Steven Nathan]

I don't have time to do the research myself, but it seems to me that there has been a change in the past year or so, in reporting on issues in Higher Ed (and specifically in the 'trade' publications Inside Higher Ed and Chronicle of Higher Education) of the term 'tenure-track' moving from an abstract, anarthrous usage ('Suzie is on tenure-track') to a countish noun ('None of the seven new hires is on the tenure track').
Just as an example, there's Monday's CHE article about adjuncts


http://chronicle.com/article/Ad-juncts-Are-Bet-ter/141523/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en


which actually has both.
Anyway, if someone wants to investigate this, I think it might make an interesting study. I find the articled use feels non-native-speakerish, but YMMV.


Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
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