Balanced budget projected as tenure system defended

Provost Amy Gutmann addressed the University's financial status at yesterday's meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community and announced the Priorities Committee's next project. President Tilghman also explained the University's tenure policies, saying that research rather than teaching ability wins tenure for junior faculty.

Gutmann said the University was projected to run a balanced budget next year despite a recent rise in price of natural gas, the University's main source of energy.

The University has avoided red ink by drawing down on its energy reserves, "which enable us to weather out the storm in energy prices and the actual storm," Gutmann said, in a reference to this weekend's snowfall.

Gutmann also announced PriCom's finding that "the highest priority general need for next year" is to "strengthen the administrative backbone of the University."

Senior administrators had come to PriCom with $3.64 million in requests for new budget items, Gutmann said. About half of those, or roughly $2 million, will receive funding next year.

The requests from various departments range from additional public relations and admission personnel to four new full-time employees for the maintenance of the prox card system in dormitories.

Without proper maintenance, Gutmann said, prox alarms malfunction, and "students take baseball bats and such things to their doors" in an effort to silence the siren.

She said this resulted in unnecessary damage to recently renovated dorms.

"As Danny Silverman, our chief medical officer, would say, these are unsexy requests," she said. "These are not going to make your heart beat and say, 'Oh yes, I'm so glad we're doing this exciting initiative.' But these are what enable the University to work well."

But Tilghman's comment — the first definitive indication that scholarly research is the most important component of a faculty member's tenure consideration — was her first public delineation of tenure criteria.

Junior faculty seeking tenure would be well-advised to put a higher priority on scholarly research than the quality of their teaching or service to the University community, she said.

"Their ability to conduct research and demonstrate excellence in scholarship is the most important thing we will look at," Tilghman said. "They must focus in on that, first and foremost."

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U-Councilor Weili Shaw '04, a Daily Princetonian editor, had asked whether any incentives existed for assistant professors to get involved in undergraduate life, or whether "in the end, it will all come down to research."

Tilghman said "all three of these things" — research, teaching and service — "are considered very seriously at the time of tenure," but that "having their scholarship in excellent condition at the time of tenure has to be their top priority."

As an example, Tilghman said, "We would not allow a junior faculty member to serve as a residential college master" because of the extensive time commitment that service role entails.

Some U-Councilors did not hesitate to voice their dissatisfaction with the tenure system.

"Students feel a little disenfranchised," said Brandon Parry '06. He asked Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin if he planned to give undergraduates a greater role in the process of tenuring faculty.

Dobkin defended the system as it exists now.

"Some of that is already in place, and hasn't been advertised well enough," Dobkin said. He cited student course evaluations and advertisements in the 'Prince' soliciting student feedback on junior faculty as evidence of the consideration given to student opinion in the process.

Parry also questioned whether tenured professors had sufficient incentives to keep their curricula and teaching up-to-date. Dobkin said the committee that sets faculty salaries receives regular performance reviews from senior professors' department chairs.