Tenure: the backbone of academia
Fans of mystery stories are used to nefarious activities happening under the cover of darkness.
The LSU community sees its administrators acting similarly under the cover of summer in self-serving ways that damage the University. In Summer 2002, there was the outrageous salary raise to the LSU Chancellor that had U.S. academia laughing at us.
Now, in Summer 2003, the Chancellor has unilaterally enacted a Policy Statement that violates the basic tenets of faculty tenure. Worse, he exempted administrators from the new policy so that they keep indefinite tenure without accountability.
The need for tenure at U.S. universities is poorly understood by many. It is not about indefinite job security. If it were, the system would be indefensible.
The real justification is in tenure’s intimate tie with free inquiry and academic freedom. Society grants tenure to some professionals (judges are another example) so that they can act in the face of pressures without fearing personal repercussions. Universities generate, assimilate, and disseminate knowledge. These activities have a particular potential to upset the status quo. A teacher/scholar has to be free to criticize and advocate changes in accepted theories, beliefs, and programs. Within the profession, research and scholarship are subject to fads, fashion, and changes in emphasis.
Administrative considerations of efficiency in money or time may suggest what to study. But, for a healthy knowledge enterprise, one should be able to work even in areas out of favor with colleagues, so long as faculty peers consider the work professionally done.
Tenure as an institution is necessary to nurture this habit of critical inquiry and sustain such a campus culture.
Tenure follows a tradition that grew out of professional guilds, that only others in the guild decide on who belongs in it. Just as guilds required long apprenticeships, faculty tenure is granted only after a long probationary period and after judgment by professional peers.
Getting tenure is, therefore, somewhat like certification by medical boards or bar associations. And there is further self-policing by the profession, with tenure removable for incompetence, neglect or abuse of duties.
Reviews are necessary, and faculty are subject to regular reviews within the university while outside professional peers pass judgment at times of getting promotions, grants, and publications. But reviews and sanctions have to be primarily (even if the Board of Supervisors has final legal authority) in the hands of faculty peers.
The administration’s unilateral move in the summer violates the precedent of having the Faculty Senate, which had devoted already many months to codifying the review procedure, come to conclusion.
Further bad faith can be seen in what the administration diluted from the Senate version, namely, involvement of the faculty and the Senate. In principle, the entire procedure of reviews can now be in the hands of the administrators. References to academic freedom, tenets of tenure, and faculty governance were dropped. In an absurd anomaly, administrators who have professorial rank and tenure have been exempted from reviews to retain that tenure.
The announced policy will do enormous harm to faculty morale at LSU and to the university’s prestige and standing on the national scene. Violations of basic principles of tenure that all major universities subscribe to will not attract good faculty.
We may have the highest paid Chancellor and his band of administrators with indefinite job security and no accountability running a sinking Flagship.
A.R.P. Rau
professor
physics / astronomy
Diversity is not just black and white
I am writing in response to Mr. Jason Dore’s column that supposedly pertained to diversity.
It saddens me that his view of diversity is so black and white. Look around campus when you’re walking to class. We are all individuals and we’re not all black and white.
It is so simplistic of Mr. Doré to say we all feel forced to fit into social stereotypes.
I agree that we all put social constraints on ourselves, but race is only one tiny part of this problem. I wonder how the other racial groups feel about almost being completely ignored when we are supposedly discussing diversity.
How will we ever change things if we don’t stop talking about the same issues that blacks and whites have with each other.
I would like to point out to Mr. Doré that his column was not diversified, it was a typical view of a white conservative that could be found in many other publications.
He should take a long look at his closeminded views on diversity before preaching to others about making change.
I’m sick of people like Mr. Doré retelling the same stories. The fact of the matter is until we are willing to take active steps to make change things are going to remain the same.
People like Mr. Doré need to shut up or take action. It’s that simple.
Mallory Alise Mitchell
sophomore
psychology