Tenure

At a Pennsylvania college, Charlie Thurber (Luke Wilson) is a good teacher without publications. He teaches at Grey College (a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania) and has been an assistant professor for 12 years. Tenure means a job for life. His tenure review is in 3 months, and this may be his last chance. Charlie tries to get an article in print. His colleague Jay (David Koechner) is also his best friend, was recently rejected for tenure at his hearing and received only 1 vote out of 12. Jay Hadley (David Koechner) is an anthropology professor at Grey and is simultaneously obsessed with trying to prove the authenticity of Bigfoot. Jay is depressed that he is already 42 years old and has no career prospects and nobody believes that evidence that he has collected on the existence of Bigfoot. Charlie's articles are rejected by a series of academic journals, and he worries about becoming a victim of the "publish or perish" pressures of professorship. Charlie's dad William (Bob Gunton) was a tenured professor at Princeton & now lives in a community center nearby & has sex with all the widows in there with him. Charlie's sister Margarette/Maggie is putting pressure on him to share more of the costs (she expects $1000 per month from Charlie) & contribute more (to visiting their father at the center) when he gets tenure. Maggie tells Charlie that William has been calling PBS, just so he has somebody to talk to. Out of the blue, the dean Leaky (William Bogert) announces that a new assistant professor Elaine (Gretchen Mol) will join them, a scholarly young woman from Yale. Elaine is another assistant professor on the tenure track in the English Department. Till now, Charlie was running for tenure unopposed, but now he has direct competition. Elaine graduated from Yale and had been teaching there for 3 years. Charlie rejected a proposal from a student Stan (Nathan Pham) to be the faculty advisor for the poetry club, but with the new competition from Elaine, he jumps at the opportunity to enhance his resume. Turns out Stan's vision was to have an erotic poetry club which puts Charlie in an awkward position. Jay urges Charlie to declare war on the new colleague. His dad practically declares victory for Elaine. William defeats Charlie at a game of Scrabble, even though he is supposed to be suffering from Alzheimer's. William says that Charlie would have to up his game considerably to be able to beat the Yale professor for tenure. Charlie calls a lady named Beth on PBS & tries to make friends. Beth gives Charlie her number. Beth finds it weird when later Charlie calls at 2 am in mornings. One of the girls at school, Robin (Hillary Pingle), makes a pass at Charlie as she has a huge crush on him, but Charlie runs away from her as he knows that an affair with a student is the fastest way to get fired. Robin joins the erotic poetry club with Stan, to get closer to Charlie. Robin reads a poem in which she declares her intentions to be a teacher's pet. Charlie & Jay try to make Elaine look bad in front of the dean like by pointing out that she sat on the opposite team bench in a inter college basketball match, by giving her a flat tire so that she is late for a faculty meeting next morning and making her look guilty of stealing someone else's coke from the fridge. Charlie and Elaine begin developing a friendship after she flounders as a classroom teacher and asks him for advice. Charlie helps Elaine get traction with her class & then stops Jay from making illegal naked surveillance tapes of her (Jay was taping Elaine from her backyard through a window in her bedroom). Meanwhile he has no luck publishing his article & receives a reminder for the Dean & HoD Professor Slocumb. Elaine trusts Charlie & tells him that she was about to be fired from Yale & that's why she joined here. She says that she knows the material inside out, but whenever she gets in front of a class, she freezes up and fails to engage with the students. Charlie tells Elaine not to over-prepare for class and to be herself. Charlie then meets Jay and tells him to back off Elaine as she is a nice person. Jay takes Charlie to a seminar on Herb-Erect, a new company that is launching their product in the market and is offering a chance for Individual Business Owners to be their distributors. Charlie walks out of the seminar mid-way. Elaine gets published in the August journal (which is the most prestigious journal for academic publications and considered to be the "cream of the crop") & it increases the pressure on Charlie. Jay tells Elaine that Charlie is gay & she invites him & his partner for dinner when her boyfriend is in town. Charlie tells her he is straight & has a girlfriend. Elaine asks him to bring his girlfriend instead. Charlie begs the PBS girl Beth (Rosemarie DeWitt) to go with him & even pays her 250$. Elaine's boyfriend is a douche-bag who can't stop yapping about Yale. Jay is having sex with Charlie's sister Maggie (Sasha Alexander). Charlie's article finally gets published, but in a weekly that is closing down. Charlie gets a parting gift from his class in his last class. The next day he shows up for the tenure meeting & the only thing going for him is his student evaluation forms. His students love him. Charlie is offered probational tenure, with the caveat that his classroom teaching will be severely reduced so that he can devote more time to publishing in respectable academic outlets. Charlie invites his ailing father to move in with him, Elaine dumps her boyfriend and hinting that she would like to pursue a relationship with Charlie. Charlie quits Grey College to teach at a high school so that he can remain in the classroom with students.