Yale seeks to change tenure policy

After gauging widespread discontent with its 35-year-old tenure program, Yale University is finally bringing its promotion policies in line with those of its peer institutions - including Penn's.

The new policy would, among other things, create a tenure-track system through which faculty will be hired under the assumption that they can receive tenure if they have the necessary qualifications.

Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences will discuss the proposal later this semester, and the changes are expected to be implemented in July, Yale officials announced earlier this month.

At Penn, however, if you're hired as an assistant professor, you've got a "pretty good shot" of earning tenure, assuming you have the necessary credentials, said School of Arts and Sciences Dean Rebecca Bushnell.

Over the last decade, 50 percent of Penn assistant professors, on average, were tenured.

"The mindset [at Penn] is that we hire really smart young people right at the beginning as assistant professors, and we want to keep them," said History Department Chairman Jonathan Steinberg.

Yale currently only grants tenure - a professional distinction that provides job security via financial and academic benefits - when an already tenured professor retires or leaves the university, according to a report by Yale's FAS Tenure and Appointments Policy Committee.

The lack of any guarantee, Yale officials say, inspired New Haven faculty, under the instruction of Provost Andrew Hamilton, to appoint a faculty- and administration-based committee to review the policy in 2005.

In the past, when a tenured position would open up at Yale, eligible assistant professors were considered along with scholars from around the world, thereby decreasing their chances of receiving the appointment.

"We have an obligation to the junior faculty to not put them up against the possibility that there's one person out there who's a little better than them if they've already established themselves as leaders and important scholars," Yale full-time physics professor and committee member Douglas Stone said.

Other proposed changes in Yale's policy include shortening the time between initial faculty appointment and final tenure decision; assigning tenured mentors to all assistant faculty; and diversifying the tenured faculty by hiring more women and minorities.

Still, Yale is quick to emphasize that the process won't be any easier - just fairer.

"We would hope that the standard would still be extremely high," said Stone, adding that anyone who receives tenure should be good enough to stand out among a roster of international academics.

At Penn, professors remember when changes were made to the University's own policy, and many are sympathizing with their Ivy League peers.

Yale's "previous system was not good . because it created a two-class system of faculty and it meant that they were able to recruit superb people as assistant professors, but then they wouldn't keep them," Bushnell said. "I think that was a terrible waste."

Full-time Penn English professor Nina Auerbach added that Yale "thinks you're privileged to be there for a handful of years and you shouldn't want tenure, and that is demoralizing."

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