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Post-tenure review article missing essential facts
To the editor, Last Thursday American Association of University Professors branch at the UA-held forum devoted, in part, to post-tenure review. Friday's Wildcat featured a front-page report. Anyone in the university community who read the article almost certainly came away with a misleading impression of post-tenure review in the College of Humanities. The first speaker at the AAUUP program spoke of "a dark cloud," of "a chilling effect," of tenure being "eviscerated." I see no cloud. I feel no chill. I know of no colleague who has been intimidated or silenced by the advent of post-tenure review. I know of no colleague whose teaching or scholarship has altered due to post-tenure review. Indeed, if I had thought that any colleague would be adversely affected by post-tenure review, I would never have worked so long or so hard to help write the documents that guide our reviews. Your readers need to be reminded of a few essential facts. First, the documents guiding post-tenure review in COH were written by an elected committee in the college, and they were overwhelmingly approved by a vote of the faculty; the margin in favor was nearly ten to one. Second, the documents contain provisions to safeguard the rights of faculty. Those safeguards take the form of orderly procedures, criteria developed by each department or program, a basic framework for evaluation, a process of appeal, and an annual audit by a collegewide committee. Third, the documents are not carved in stone. They are subject to revision. During the past month the Dean's Academic Advisory Committee has been at work to refine the guidelines. Fourth, the faculty has been subject to annual review since I arrived on this campus. Post-tenure review is, in effect, the annual review for tenured faculty. For most of us, the advent of post-tenure review represents the continuation of a process that has been in place for decades. Fifth, post-tenure review was mandated by the Regents of the state of Arizona. The colleague quoted in Friday's Wildcat said that he was one of six people in the college who had voted against post-tenure review. In fact, the faculty was never asked to vote on whether post-tenure review was desirable. Once the Regents mandated such review, it was a done deal.What my colleague did, in fact, was to vote to conduct the annual review under provisions of the University Handbook for Appointed Personnel rather than under the provisions written by his colleagues in the College of Humanities. Sixth, post-tenure review is not about dark clouds and chilly temperatures. It is about accountability. Virtually everyone in our society is accountable for his or her work. A responsible professoriate is an accountable professoriate. Professors have a great responsibility to the people of Arizona, for we train the next generation of teachers, we serve the larger community, and we help to educate the citizenry of our democracy. Post-tenure review is intended to maintain the highest standards of performance in the academic community. Friday's Wildcat article contained none of these essential facts.
Frederick Kiefer |
