FACULTY OUTLOOK: Tenure process leaves good teachers out in the cold
Faculty tenure, like academic freedom, is a double-edged sword. It can benefit and it can abuse. Those who are fortunate enough to get it after the six-year probationary period experience a kind of exaltation, having survived one of the most stressful and trying periods of their lives. The ones who fail in their quest face the damning effects of quashed professional hopes and very likely the only effective means of earning a living. All too often those in authority and others assuming power go about their task, granting and denying favors like demigods, with little thought to fair judgment or to the consequences of their actions.
Some years ago, I served as an ombudsperson (an onlooker to ensure the rights of the individual and the university) and as a committee member in tenure proceedings for a department in the College of HASS where two of its finest teachers, both talented and creative researchers with promising careers ahead of them, were either denied tenure or else left of their own accord. Both individuals suffered humiliation and defeat from insensitive, (in one instance, manipulative) administrators and committee colleagues too weak to blow the whistle. And I count myself among the latter for not intervening at the time. Denial of tenure for the one, so I am told, led to an extended period of unemployment and divorce. The other colleague found a position on the East Coast. Utah State University, its students and faculty proved to be the real losers. How I wish I had been a responsible advocate for the institution as for those two individuals. But the die has been cast. It’s history now. l’ll do everything I can to keep it from happening again.
Within the past week, several untenured faculty members in different HASS departments received negative reviews from the college. One of the candidates for tenure and promotion had been strongly recommended by all five members of the department committee and by five of six external reviewers from prestigious universities across the country. All three members of the Dean’s Advisory Committee and two associate deans (none of whom have any expertise in the candidate’s field) recommended against tenure by a vote of 5-0. Another candidate who had met the tenure committee’s expectations throughout the long probationary period received similar treatment from the Dean’s Advisory Committee and associate deans, with a losing score of 5-0. The guilty verdict in both cases: not enough scholarly production.
Apparently, for these two candidates, it wasn’t enough that they fulfilled the requirements in all three areas of faculty performance normally taken into account – teaching, research and service. I challenge any fair-minded academic to review their record and come up with the same conclusions as the HASS Dean’s Advisory Committee and associate deans who offered the standard lame excuse of too few articles. In fact, both professors had plenty of articles and much more to offer. One would hope that students are the main reason for us being here. To be sure, both candidates are innovative, inspiring teachers. Unfortunately, teaching no longer counts for much at Utah State University. Unlike many others on campus, these two professors have shared their talents extensively outside the classroom and office. But service doesn’t count for much, if anything, either.
I have always been under the impression that it is in the interest of the university for those in authority to encourage and cultivate the gifts and talents of faculty members to benefit all. It follows that not to reward their efforts at making meaningful contributions outside the ivory tower is a grave mistake. Who besides graduate students and some interested faculty read those journals, anyway? Isn’t it the faculty’s most fundamental task to educate and enrich lives, ultimately to take all this teaching, research and service to where it can benefit society? Instead, we find ourselves increasingly forced back into the ivory tower and into a pattern of thinking where common sense and human considerations routinely succumb to arbitrary, inflexible rules that have little to do with the institution’s actual mission. This only serves to alienate those in the system and raises questions about the university’s ability to take care of its own. One shouldn’t wonder at the poor morale among faculty and the growing disillusionment among students who see less and less of their professors.
The unfortunate recipients of these negative tenure votes were vulnerable not by virtue of their record but because of certain colleagues who feign collegiality then slavishly yield to the administrative chain of command. It seems the College of HASS no longer has any need for tenure/promotion committees and external reviews. I hope, nevertheless, that the president’s office will resolve this unhappy breakdown in the tenure process. Left unresolved, I see only mounting problems ahead.
By Lynn Eliason, Languages and Philosphy