Tussling with 'the tenure swindle'
To the Editors:
Dan Austin's editorial on academic tenure shows that he has a good deal to learn about the subject. I have worked a bit in the area, in connection with the American Association of University Professors, and I would like to point out a few of Austin's mistaken notions.
Austin says the present system of tenure is as old as Galileo's telescope. Not so. The system was devised by the AAUP after its foundation in 1915, and extended with the collaboration of the American Association of Colleges into the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The present terms are twenty-seven years old, and a further revision is on the way.
Know little of employer
Austin says that if a university fires a teacher for unfair reasons, its reputation among teachers will become harmful, and frustrate its efforts to attract highly competent men. This is true only to a slight degree. Teachers are employed in a nation-wide market of talent, and ordinarily know very little of the institution that offers them a position. They are often aware of conditions only within their own disciplines, and as a group have
only a rudimentary loyalty to the profession as a whole. The dismissal of a teacher seldom receives publicity, and if it does, any suggestion of unfair treatment can be met by the administration with a firm refusal to discuss the unfortunate affair.
On the other hand, when a teacher's dismissal seems unwarranted, his colleagues are seriously perturbed. I can recall such a case at KU, and the waves of fear and anger that spread through the faculty until the administration thought to put its case before the local chapter of the AAUP. But that was twenty years ago. The best way for an institution to attract the best men and to retain them is for it to state publicly that it accepts the AAUP and AAC's 1940 Statement of Principles. We should be glad to know that KU does just that, in accordance with a formal Minute of the Board of Regents.
Freedom at KU?
Austin says that in this day and in this state academic freedom is just about as radical as social security, and that therefore teachers do not need the protection of a system of tenure. A high degree of academic freedom exists at KU, true, and we should all take care
to uphold our good fortune. But there are all kinds of schools, even in Kansas. I wonder if Austin is aware that not long ago at one Kansas school a faculty member was dismissed after he had written a letter to the student newspaper in order to protest the penalty for alleged misconduct which had been placed on a student by the administration? There were contributing circumstances, of course. The faculty member wore a beard, and he had once appeared on the campus in Bermuda shorts. Where such points can enter a discussion of dismissal one cannot suppose that matters of intellectual conviction may be freely canvassed.
In the American academic scene as a whole, of about two thousand institutions, it is undeniably true that a standard of academic freedom must be affirmed and as far as possible enforced. At the national headquarters of AAUP ten experienced men work around the year to handle the flood of complaints of unfair dismissals. In the recent past several such cases have involved members of the Big Ten. Academic freedom cannot be taken for granted in America. The fight can't be won and ended; it has to be fought every year. That's what the record shows.
AAUP maintains competence
Austin says, in admirably vigorous diction, that the tenure system shields incompetent teachers. This is not necessarily so. The AAUP at least desires to raise and to maintain the level of competence in the profession. Even full professors with tenure are subject to dismissal with AAUP approval provided that their cases have been handled with due process.
This means, in brief, that a teacher should receive a written statement of the charges of incompetence or non-performance against him, and should be afforded a hearing before his colleagues during which he may face his accusers. The hearing may be and normally should be private. But though a university administration may be aware of this possible line of action, it usually employs some indirect and muffled process,
or prefers to do nothing. Such cases are troublesome, and an administration should seek to avoid them by making certain of a teacher's competence before granting him tenure. It is only fair to say that the importance of tenure, and of ascertaining competence before the bestowal of tenure, has been grasped by many administrators only in the last decade.
I will add that, if students were to make carefully prepared and validated protests about incompetent teaching through their accepted organizations, administrators would be encouraged to more decisive actions. However, the area is difficult and delicate because it involves the danger of adverse publicity. Though many students will need to think a long time before they agree, it is true that a student organization which submits a protest about incompetent teaching must usually choose between publicity and success.
Yours very truly,
W. D. Paden
Professor of English
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Ph.D. Exam. 1:30 p.m. William
Gatrock, Medicinal Medicine 522
Hillman, Medical Technology 522
SUA Coffee Forum, 3:39 p.m. Dr.
Room 401, Kansas Union. U. Forum
Room, Kansas Union.
Grad Physics Colloq. 4-30 p.m.
Grad Physics Colloq. 4-30 p.m.
Student Peace Union Open Meeting,
Student Peace Union Open Meeting,
Student Peace Union Open Meeting, 7:30 p.m. Kansas Union.
Archaeology Illustrated Lecture,
7:30 p.m. Prof. Edith Porida, Colum-
lum Cylinder Seals from Thebes.
Cylinder Hall, Museum of Art, Open
To Public.
Basketball. 7.35 p.m. Oklahoma State at Stillwater.
Faculty Recital, 8 p.m. John Kozar,
pianist. Swarthout Recital Hall.
TOMORROW
Luncheon, 12 noon. Guest. Dr.
Jaroslav Pelikan, Host, Kansas School
at 12 p.m. Call School of Religion for lunch reservations. Union.
Business Wives, 7.30 p.m. 1007 Mass.
Humanities Lecture, 8.00 a.m. Dr.
Joshvay Pelikhan, Yale U - The
Involvement of the Reformation. University Theatre.
Experimental Theatre, 8:20 p.m.
"Oh What A Lovely War."
2
Daily Kansan editorial page Monday, February 20, 1967
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FEIFFER