UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT RE-EXAMINES TENURE *** Jai Maharaj posts
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
University President re-examines tenure
Thursday, February 4, 2010
It is time that tenures of bogus academics like Prof. Witzel
(Harvard) and Prof. Doniger (Chicago), falsely calling themselves
Sanskritists and experts on Hindu history, should be cut and the
furniture they occupy withdrawn. They are vivid examples of spewing
hate against Hindus and their traditions. (cf. the recent Hindu rage
against Doniger's bogus history of Hindus and Kazanas' open letter to
Witzel establishing the latter's dishonesty).
What do such academics contribute to the advancement of knowledge and
to enthuse the young minds of researchers who are supposed to be
guided by them? They are simply a blot on the academes and such
academics' tenure should be reviewed with a sense of urgency before
USA-India relations sour.
Kudos to Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee for thinking
on the right lines. He should be supported in his efforts to clean up
the academic debris. Will all the Universities of America follow
Gordon Gee's lead?
S. Kalyanaraman
University president re-examines tenure
Emphasis on research, publishing in job-for-life protection called
outdated
The Associated Press
updated 7:57 p.m. ET Feb. 4, 2010
http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/ap/taking%20on%20tenure--2017404623.hmedium.jpg
Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee thinks it's time to re-
examine tenure, a type of job-for-life protection virtually unknown
outside academia.
Columbus, Ohio - The leader of the country's largest university
thinks it's time to re-examine how professors are awarded tenure, a
type of job-for-life protection virtually unknown outside academia.
Ohio State University President Gordon Gee says the traditional
formula that rewards publishing in scholarly journals over excellence
in teaching and other contributions is outdated and too often favors
the quantity of a professor's output over quality.
"Someone should gain recognition at the university for writing the
great American novel or for discovering the cure for cancer," he told
The Associated Press. "In a very complex world, you can no longer
expect everyone to be great at everything."
Plenty of people have raised the issue over the years, but Gee is one
of the few American college presidents with the reputation and
political prowess -- not to mention the golden touch at fundraising --
who might be able to begin the transformation.
Still, some professors are already skeptical.
"The idea of awarding tenure based on teaching makes me anxious,"
said Jennifer Higginbotham, an English professor at Ohio State who's
up for tenure in three years. By then, she will need to publish a
book she's writing about conceptions of girlhood in the Middle Ages
to have any chance at the promotion.
Good teachers �dime a dozen�
"There's a feeling, I think, that good teachers are a dime a dozen,"
said Higginbotham, 32. "I'm not sure what you'd have to do to
distinguish yourself enough as a teacher to get tenure."
Tenure, which makes firing and other discipline difficult if not
impossible, can seem ridiculously generous to outsiders. But the job
protection gives professors the freedom to express ideas and conduct
studies without fear of reprisal.
Tenure review, which took its current form in the 1940s, typically
emphasizes publications over teaching and sometimes weighs whether a
professor brings in research grants. Besides job protection, tenure
also figures into salaries. A full professor with tenure at Ohio
State earns about $126,000 annually.
The late Ernest Boyer, a former chancellor of New York's state
university system, raised some of same issues in his groundbreaking
1990 book, "Reconsidering Scholarship."
A few universities have taken steps towards Boyer's model, including
Portland State University and Western Carolina University.
At California State University at Monterey Bay, professors are graded
on their teaching, research, service to the community and service to
the university. Their teaching must be rated at least "commendable" �
the second highest rating.
"We're asking faculty to look at their teaching really as an area of
scholarship, just like they would their research," said Marsha Moroh,
dean of the school's college of science, media arts and technology.
No specifics
Gee is not yet giving specific examples of how a reformed tenure
system would work. In order to make sweeping changes, he would need
cooperation from faculty and administrators across the university
system.
Taking on tenure will be the third big academic undertaking for Gee,
who was hired away from Vanderbilt University in 2007 for his second
stint at Ohio State after a term in the 1990s. Time magazine last
year named him the country's best college president.
The 65-year-old is seemingly omnipresent on campus, striding from
event to event in his trademark bow tie and horn-rimmed glasses at a
pace that exhausts younger aides. He's up daily at 4:30 a.m. to
exercise and stays busy into the evenings, popping into student
parties or attending athletic events.
Gee earlier reorganized Ohio State's arts-and-sciences division and
switched the school from a calendar based on quarters to one arranged
by semester. Both changes ruffled plenty of feathers.
He raised a record $1.2 billion at Vanderbilt and is aiming for a
record $2.5 billion at Ohio State.
Then there's the little matter of keeping tabs on one of the nation's
biggest athletic departments and its outsized football program at a
school with a total statewide enrollment of more than 63,000.
Right time for changes
Gee said a new approach to tenure is needed to ensure the university
stays relevant to students and the outside world. The recession has
helped highlight the importance of higher education to the economy,
he said, so now is the right time to make big changes.
"The universities of the 21st century are going to be the smokestacks
of the century," Gee said, referring to the heavy industry that once
dominated the American economy. "The notion of the large, massive
public university that can exist in isolated splendor is dead."
One challenge is the complexity of big universities, which have
numerous divisions accustomed to doing things their own way. Ohio
State has more than 100 academic units capable of granting tenure.
"In effect, there are a hundred different sets of criteria for
granting promotion or evaluating an individual faculty member's
case," said Tim Gerber, a longtime music professor and chairman of
the university's faculty council.
The pressure to get tenure is also greater as universities rely more
on part-time faculty and non-tenure track professors. While the
number of tenure track positions grew by 7 percent between 1975 and
2007, the number of non-tenure track jobs more than tripled,
according to the American Association of University Professors.
More impact on students
"There are many ways faculty members spend their time that may have
been very important five years ago but may not be as important now,"
said Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on
Education. "Maybe we need to free them up so their time can be
directed in ways that have an impact on students."
Gee is the country's highest-paid public university president with an
annual income of more than $1.5 million, including salary, retirement
and deferred compensation.
His office is crammed with Ohio State memorabilia that includes a
Gordon Gee bobblehead toy, but the first thing that grabs a visitor's
attention is the framed poster of John Belushi from the 1978 college
party film "Animal House."
The next poster to grab the eye is a quotation: "If you don't like
change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35247268/ns/us_news-education/
End of forwarded message from S. Kalyanaraman
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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