FOCUS: Tracking Tenure

The School of Arts and Science's tenure system has been the subject of a lot of recent debate. Students and faculty members were stunned when English Professor Gregg Camfield was denied tenure last month. Several weeks before that, Geology Professor George Boyajian was also refused a permanent position at the University by the School of Arts and Sciences Personnel Committee, despite his immense popularity among students. And in February, the SAS committee denied full professor status to Associate English Professor Vicki Mahaffey, who is also the Graduate Chair of the English department. In protest of this decision, more than 40 members of the University community joined together in a demonstration in front of Van Pelt Library. According to statistics provided by SAS Associate Dean Frank Warner, between the years 1980 and 1987, only 9 percent of 174 junior faculty members were turned down by the SAS Personnel Committee. Boyajian was voted down by the SAS committee despite unanimous support from his department, puzzling many observers of the tenure system. But College of Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Rescorla -- who has served on the Personnel Committee in the past -- said the rejection was not necessarily a mistake. "Unanimous support of the department is just one piece of information," he said. "And that's a very, very important piece of information. But you are there on the Personnel Committee to make your own judgement too. [Their input is] extremely important because they are the pros." There is a certain science to the seemingly mysterious tenure system. Assistant faculty are appointed on a seven-year track. They are reviewed in their third year for renewal, and again in their sixth year for tenure and promotion to associate professor. The tenured members of the professor's department constitute the first voting group that decides on the fate of these assistant professors. If this vote is positive, the candidate's dossier moves on the appropriate school's Personnel Committee, which is comprised of distinguished members of the faculty. Professors serve on this committee in three- or four-year shifts, in overlapping two-year terms. Rescorla said this is done in attempt to preserve continuity. If they approve the candidate, the case is transmitted to the dean, who reviews the dossier and takes it to the final step -- the Provost's Staff Conference -- which includes the provost, members of the provost's office and appropriate deans. While the dean has the right to challenge a negative vote by the Personnel Committee, SAS Dean Rosemary Stevens said she believes deans should have a "hands-off role in the stage of personnel determination." "My philosophy is not to override decisions of this committee," she said. "I think that they do a very good job and this is where the responsibility rests in the faculty for making judgements." If an assistant professor is denied tenure in his sixth year, his department has the opportunity to renominate him as a candidate for tenure in his seventh year. Otherwise, the seventh year is considered his last, after which the professor must leave the University. Of the 101 assistant professors appointed in the years 1980 to 1987 who were not granted tenure in their sixth year, 46 percent were promoted in their seventh year. According to Warner's statistics, 101 of the 174 assistant professors made it to their sixth or seventh year. Of these, 46 percent were promoted to a tenured position. Warner said there is "a lot of fuzz in the 'resigned' data." "It is impossible to know if someone left because of a more attractive offer elsewhere or because of anticipation of being turned down by the department," he said. Three criteria are considered in the evaluation of a candidate's dossier-- research, scholarship and service. Stevens said the University has made teaching "more important in tenure decisions at all levels." "An individual granted tenure has to have excellence in research and a base of a fine teaching record," she said. And Provost Stanley Chodorow said teaching "counts a good deal in the decisions." "We send back files that do not contain enough information or do not access the teaching performance of faculty," he said. Chodorow added that the quality of acceptable teaching can vary. "There is a range of acceptable performance in teaching, just as there is in passing grades in courses," he said. "We do not give tenure to bad teachers, but we also do not only give tenure to barnburner teachers." But while more attention is currently being paid to scholarship than in the past, Rescorla said he does not feel this should reduce the importance of research. "We are not going to a system -- nor do I think we should -- where teaching is the main criteria for tenure," he said. "I think institutions that have done this have gone downhill." Stevens said she views teaching and research as inseparable. "I see teaching and research as a whole," she said. "One is not a substitute for the other. I don't buy an argument that either you are a good teacher or a researcher. We have numerous professors at Penn who are wonderful at both." But Undergraduate Mathematics Chairperson Dennis DeTurck said research is the primary consideration at the University. "I don't think it's ever going to change and I think it's right," he said. DeTurck added that he knows teaching is considered too because he has been asked to give input on specific cases. He suggested that there be an explicit presence on behalf of teaching on the voting committees. "There is empirical evidence that we have people who care, but it might be a good idea to have a specific person looking out for it." Rescorla said he thinks the current system is good because it provides a good level of checks and balances. "You are going to make mistakes in any system," he said. "Our system is set up to avoid taking people who are not excellent. This sometimes means giving up someone who is." Rescorla added that he does not think a mistake was made in the decision to deny Camfield tenure. "It makes all of us sad when you have a superb teacher like Camfield and he doesn't make it," he said. "But you have to make sure he is an excellent scholar too." But many students have criticized the tenure system for not taking their opinions seriously in the decision. They feel their evaluations of a professor's teaching ability should carry more weight. And Camfield said he understands where they are coming from. "The student reaction to the SAS Personnel Committee's decisions on Mahaffey, Boyajian and me shows that students do not believe that student interests were really taken into account in the process," he said. "Student interests may very well have been taken into account, but since the result seems to suggest otherwise, the students are naturally skeptical; I don't blame them." Camfield added that the solution to this problem is to eliminate the secrecy of the process. "Call someone a witch in private [and] you don't have any responsibility for that denunciation," he said. "If you have to take responsibility in public for what you say, it's more likely to be substantive and based on good ideas. "If the system were open, if the medieval system of secrecy were surrendered to the democratic principle that any decision worth making can be made in the light of public scrutiny, then tenure decisions -- however painful -- would be accepted," he added. Camfield added that another flaw with the current system is that it is biased towards the negative, which he says discourages risk taking. "The way the system works, any negative component of your case can be enough to sink you," he said. He said this will lead to candidates going out of their way not to offend. "And if you are going to do intellectual work of any value, you have to be willing to challenge people," Camfield said. "If you are going to say something new it's going to step on the toes of some people who don't want to hear it." He added, though, that he is optimistic that University Judith Rodin and Chodorow will address these concerns and encourage change in the system. "The actions of the new president and provost show that they understand the value of open dialogue, that they recognize the need of the informed consent of those they govern here," he said. "They show remarkable openness as they formulate their plans for the university, so I am optimistic that they will seriously consider making democratic reforms in the tenure system." But Boyajian said he does not support the traditional tenure system, referring to it as an "imperfect system." "I think it's wrong that you perform for six years and you have a job for life," he said. "That's flawed. I think you should perform everyday." His suggestion for an alternative is to have 10-year tenure appointments for professors. "In that way you have no chance of being fired for a decade and a decade is a reasonable amount of time to pursue research that might not have immediate," Boyajian said. He added that the current process causes professors to burn out too easily. "The time you have to put in is ludicrous," he said. "Essentially, the amount of production they require warrants giving up a significant portion of your life. "I've heard more bitter junior faculty members or recently appointed associate professors than anyone else," Boyajian added. "Ultimately, dissatisfied employees is not something you want as employees." He also agreed with Camfield that secrecy is one of the downfalls of the current system. "Not knowing is a very difficult thing that also contributes to low morale among junior faculty," he said. Chodorow said the committees have to make certain predictions when they make their decision. "In the long run, good teachers are invariably engaged scholars or scientists, and therefore one of the ways we can judge the long-term promise of good teachers is by an educated guess based on the principle that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior," he said. "The tenure decision is about the future, not the past. The faculty to whom we give tenure will be here long enough to teach your children. It's a serious decision."