[baddspellar]

As long as "Percent faculty with terminal degree in their field" is an evaluation criterion for ranking school quality (I took those exact words from the US News and World Report rankings criteria), there is little chance that non-PhD holders will be able to become tenured faculty at research universities going forward. Let's not fool ourselves. Schools work towards higher rankings, as they are rewarded for doing so.

[goodcanadian]

Sure, but when only 4% of PhDs ever get a faculty position, there is a huge pool of underemployed PhDs to choose from. Why would an institution ever consider someone without regardless of rankings?