Rigorous “˜tenure game’ vital to maintaining academic freedom

  Ivan Szelenyi Szelenyi is professor
emeritus at UCLA. He is currently a William Graham Sumner professor
of sociology and professor of political science at Yale
University.

I spent a great deal of my time at various universities in
various capacities presenting cases for tenure to university
administrations.

Currently, I am serving my third year at Yale as chair of the
department of sociology and have presented about a dozen tenure
cases. Prior to my time at Yale, I worked at UCLA and was chair of
the Council of Academic Personnel, the body which advises the vice
chancellor regarding tenure cases.

At first glance, nothing could be more different than the
“tenure game” at UCLA and Yale.

This is not simply the difference between a public and private
institution. Yale, with Harvard, stands as one of the only
institutions where the system of “tenure track” does
not exist.

Junior professors are hired on a 10-year contract and after
their contract is up they have to compete on the open market to get
a tenured position at Yale.

At UCLA, just like at most other universities in this country,
assistant professors are appointed for an initial seven-year period
and when their contract nears its end, they are reviewed.

If the junior faculty under review showed excellence in
research, teaching and administration, the assistant professor is
promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure.

If one looks at statistics at UCLA and Berkeley and compares
them with the record of Harvard or Yale it is apparent that in the
UC system ““ even in the highest standard research campuses
““ most young scholars take the tenure hurdle. At Harvard and
Yale, the majority of junior faculty have to find another job at
the end of their contract.

But if one takes a closer look and tries to better understand
the purpose of the tenure system it turns out the difference is a
matter of degree. The rules of the game are rather similar at all
world-class research institutions.

Granting tenure is the single most important personnel decision
a university can make. Our universities have to defend academic
freedom and high standards in research and teaching.

Let me begin with academic freedom.

  Illustration by ERICA PINTO/Daily Bruin We have tenure
because we want to make sure that the most creative, innovative
scholars can continue their research ““ which can often be
controversial ““ with the security of lifetime appointment,
not risking that they will be fired by administrators who for
political or ideological reasons do not like the work they do.

The tenure system is largely responsible for why tertiary
education and scientific research achieved unparalleled success in
the United States and why the U.S. managed to overtake the more
established universities of continental Europe.

This aim, on the other hand, can only be attained if the
standards for tenure are rigorous.

Institutions where standards for tenure are lax faculties soon
fill up with people who burn out early in life and do not conduct
much original research beyond their dissertation work.

This is a prescription for disaster.

Tenured faculty who consider their untenured colleagues for
promotion and the administrators who oversee the tenure granting
process should be ready to bite the bullet and deny tenure to
people who may be wonderful colleagues and friends, but who do not
show that the “fire is in the belly” to continue the
lifelong struggle to produce new scholarship of the highest quality
and originality.

To deny tenure is hard and painful, but occasionally it has to
be done. And in this respect, there is no difference between
Berkeley or UCLA and Harvard or Yale. Tenure should only be granted
to those who demonstrate excellence in their work.

But what is that “work?”

All university manuals ad nauseam repeat that the evaluation of
faculty will be based on these three criteria: research, teaching
and administration. But are these three components weighted
equally? If not, which receives greater weight and why? And are
there cross-university differences in this respect?

These three criteria are not weighted equally in all
institutions of education. The dividing line is not so much between
private and public as it is between teaching colleges and research
universities.

Teaching colleges ““ even the most distinguished ones
““ usually do not have very high expectations in terms of
continued research activity. So they may grant tenure to professors
who did not do much (or any) work beyond their dissertation. The
evaluation of tenure cases will rest primarily on excellence in
teaching.

Research universities in principle will never grant tenure to
assistant professors whose continued high-standard research
productivity does not seem to be certain. And in this respect
again, I believe the process is very similar at UCLA and Yale.

What about teaching?

Some assistant professors appear to be slow in research, because
they dedicate so much of their time to excellent teaching. Should
they be punished for doing their jobs and being excellent
teachers?

Though I achieved some distinction as a research scholar, I see
myself first and foremost as a teacher. I also deeply resent those
of my colleagues ““ there are a few such professors ““
who try to teach as little as possible and try to avoid
undergraduates in particular.

Nevertheless, research institutions have no choice ““ they
just cannot and should not promote anyone to tenure who does not
have an excellent, vibrant and sustained research program.
Furthermore, for the kind of teaching one expects at world-class
research universities, it is inconceivable that one can be a
top-notch teacher without being a creative researcher.

Only programs that are instruction informed and stimulated by
exciting research should be seen as truly excellent teaching at a
university like UCLA.

I spent 11 years at UCLA ““ it is an institution I dearly
love. How did UCLA handle tenure cases during all those years?

In brief, I cannot recall a single case when tenure was denied
when it should have been granted.

I have seen a few cases where tenure was granted (and a few
cases, when people were appointed to tenured positions), when it
was not deserved.

On the whole, I believe UCLA during the decade I was an active
member of the faculty did a good job in reviewing tenure cases and
when it erred, it erred by being too “soft” rather than
being too “harsh.”

We have to defend tenure ““ it is under fire from some
anti-intellectual circles in this country ““ for the sake of
academic freedom. But we will be able to do so effectively only if
we uphold the high standards of tenure both in scholarship and in
teaching.