Of Oregon’s current faculty members, 60 percent are ineligible for tenure. That sort of lopsidedness is not uncommon in higher education, but it sets Oregon apart from its fellow members of the Association of American Universities, a prestigious cohort of research institutions.
Oregon’s 2013 benchmarking analysis, which rated the university against several members of the association and other prominent universities, acknowledged that Oregon’s 35-to-1 ratio of students to tenured and tenure-track faculty members was the highest of any of its 33 self-selected peers.