The University of Wisconsin's Board of Regents is poised to adopt faculty tenure changes more profound than they appear in the proposal being considered. As junior faculty, I would like to present my view of what is being lost — it is the control faculty have had over what we are experts in: knowledge and education.

Our previous tenure policy was famously innovative. Now it will be copied after that of lesser institutions.

Perhaps there is a lack of understanding of what a university is and does.

I have been a publishing physicist for over 20 years, so my example comes from this experience. I have seen over and over how basic science is decades ahead of its applications. My current research is involved with understanding oxygen dynamics in tumors and how to measure it in real time for better radiation therapy treatments. It will not see the clinic for many years, but physicians are already eager to do something about varying oxygen as they treat. I am moving into a subfield called biophysics to solve the problem of dynamic oxygen in tumors and using information from famous old yeast experiments.