Plot
Charlie Thurber (Luke Wilson) is a beleaguered English professor at fictitious Grey College who competes for tenure against an impressive new hire from Yale, Elaine Grasso (Gretchen Mol). Jay Hadley (David Koechner) is an anthropology professor at Grey who tries to convince Thurber to sabotage Grasso’s career - while being simultaneously obsessed with trying to prove the authenticity of Bigfoot. Thurber'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. And despite competing for the same job, Thurber and Grasso begin developing a friendship after she flounders as a classroom teacher and asks him for advice.
Meanwhile, Thurber struggles with a series of personal problems: his sister pesters him for money to pay for their father's retirement home; a smitten female student is aggressively flirtatious; and rather than admit he's single, Thurber hires a woman of questionable sanity to act as his girlfriend for a dinner with Grasso and her snobbish boyfriend.
Thurber's tenure review with college officials seems to be a disaster until the dean casts a tie-breaking vote, noting that Thurber's students gave him exemplary reviews and clearly adore him. Thurber 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.
The film concludes with Thurber inviting his ailing father to move in with him, Grasso dumping her boyfriend and hinting that she would like to pursue a relationship with Thurber, and Thurber quitting Grey College to teach at a high school so that he can remain in the classroom with students.
Read more about this topic: Tenure (film)
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