A 'stunningly flawed process' on tenure
Robert Zaller
Issue date: 5/22/09 Section: Ed-Op
Now, a committee such as the PAC is not necessarily a bad idea, as long as it is properly established, fully transparent, and part of the recognized tenure process. Normally, that process involves an alternation between faculty and administrative bodies. The academic department in which the candidate resides makes an initial recommendation; the department head casts an independent vote; a decanal advisory committee, consisting of faculty in the candidate's college, receives the results and makes its own recommendation to the dean of the college. It's a convoluted process, but it has the merit of providing insulation against administrative collusion; thus, a department head and a dean who have decided for reasons of their own to squelch a candidate cannot simply override a strong positive recommendation by the candidate's own colleagues without an intermediate level of independent review.
If this works for deans, why not for provosts, too? As the process stood, deans conveyed their own recommendations directly to the provost, along with the recommendations of their college review bodies. Without any further formal input, the provost then made his own recommendation, which was normally binding. If a dean and a department head could collude to overturn a faculty recommendation, a provost and a dean could as easily do the same. A provost's advisory committee, composed of elected faculty from throughout the university, could serve as a buffer against such collusion.
Such a committee could not only work in theory. I served on one myself at a former institution. The process was open; there were no deals to be made or axes to grind. The committee did not lightly challenge previous bodies of review, whose familiarity with the candidate's qualifications was normally greater; neither was it a rubber stamp. What it did do, most importantly, was to interrogate obvious discrepancies in the record, such as administrators consistently rejecting faculty recommendations.
If this works for deans, why not for provosts, too? As the process stood, deans conveyed their own recommendations directly to the provost, along with the recommendations of their college review bodies. Without any further formal input, the provost then made his own recommendation, which was normally binding. If a dean and a department head could collude to overturn a faculty recommendation, a provost and a dean could as easily do the same. A provost's advisory committee, composed of elected faculty from throughout the university, could serve as a buffer against such collusion.
Such a committee could not only work in theory. I served on one myself at a former institution. The process was open; there were no deals to be made or axes to grind. The committee did not lightly challenge previous bodies of review, whose familiarity with the candidate's qualifications was normally greater; neither was it a rubber stamp. What it did do, most importantly, was to interrogate obvious discrepancies in the record, such as administrators consistently rejecting faculty recommendations.
Be the first to comment on this story