Report rethinks tenure

Parents and pundits have long scrutinized the way colleges admit their students. In a report last month, the Modern Language Association (MLA) suggests ways in which universities should rethink how they "admit" professors and later decide on their tenure.

The report, written by the MLA Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, recommends reducing the stress tenure committees place on publishing monographs, ensuring that departments know how to evaluate scholarship done in "new media," making tenure expectations more clear and rethinking the way outside letter-writers are used in the reviewing process.

"The creation of the task force was prompted by major changes in the way scholarship is published, as well as increased requirements for tenure that many colleagues reported at their institutions," Rosemary Feal, executive director of the MLA, said. "We wanted data that we could analyze in light of the changes in the scholarly community."

"In some disciplines, opportunities for monograph publication have really shrunk," Feal said, "particularly in fields that are foreign-language based, or fields with few scholars in them. Our report argues for the importance of assessing the opportunities for publication along with actual published work."

Many aspiring professors have difficulty finding publishers for their work, Feal said, because audiences for the kinds of books tenure committees want to see are so narrow. Libraries cannot afford to buy the books that do get published, so publishers make further cuts in the number of titles that go to press.

The MLA plans to follow through on the report by meeting with college administrators and department chairs in the coming months. In two weeks, the report's authors will present their results at the annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in New Orleans, Feal said.

"We're finding a lot of interest in the report, a lot of people saying 'it's about time,' but some saying 'this doesn't apply to my campus' or 'how could this possibly apply to my campus?' " Feal added. "Each institution has to figure out for itself, based on its structure, how to apply the report's findings."

Though Princeton has borne some criticism in recent years for its tenure practices, Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin said the University probably won't make any changes in response to the MLA report.

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"We have given some thought to our tenure processes in the last few years and are comfortable where we are, so I don't envision further changes in our near future," Dobkin said.

Feal said she wasn't surprised by the University's reaction.

"Princeton is a case in point," she said, speaking of larger universities. "As one of the most elite universities in the country, it can attract the greatest experts in their fields and get maximum productivity from them, so it might not be as willing to change its current tenure policies."

Francois Rigolot, chair of the Department of French and Italian, defended the University's policies.

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"Unlike Columbia, Harvard or Yale, assistant professorships here are really 'tenure-track,' and we have been reasonably successful in promoting assistant professors," Rigolot said. "So I can't say there has been discontent with the tenure process in our department, and I do not foresee any major changes as a result of the MLA report."