MARCH.197O

. CHARLOTTETOWN, P. E. 1.

PAGE 5

. uuumive obstule

‘ in change

puts it in The American University: “On the dizzy heights of the academy, projects abound; few are sufficiently criticized. They are full of wind and water, much too overwritten to be seen through — a tenaline summary would destroy them.” '

What we have -—— exceptions admitted — are tenured mandarins. And once they have become members of the elect, they continue to pursue the life style which has already rewarded them with a life-time vjob. Here is another nonradical voice from the academy. Ronald Bergethon, an executive committee member of the commission for the independent colleges and universities: “The truth is that research. is a very convenient pretext for the professor who does not want a full teaching relationship to his students. Re- search can be a form of withdrawal. It is a form of professionalism in which the scholar cultivates his colleagues rather than his students. He seeks for information to enhance his standing as: a. specialist—instead of exploring with the students- their capacity for contribution.” ‘

Administration-s are indicted, as they should

. be, for some of what’s. wrong with the academy,

butt-he fundamental flaw is- that real educational

control is held by tenured faculty who

oppose changing what is comfortable for them

and who also don’t give much of a damn about teaching at all.

It is their fastnesses of power which have. to be overcome if the university is going to be basically concerned with the needs of students— and not those of mandarins. It is tenure which so far makes this power unassailable. It is tenure which prevents accountability.

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This past September, Yale president King- man Brewster focused on accountability. He did not believe, he said, that a university president should have the equivalent of tenure and he pro- posed instead that .his own leadership of the uni- versity be reappraised in 1971, at which point he will have served for seven years. “Account- ability is what we should be striving for,” he added, “and! if accountability is to be real (there has to be) some regular, understood process whereby reappraisal of ,the competence of ad‘- ministration and the~ community’s confidence in it can be undertaken without waiting for a putsch or rebellion.” '

But if the administration ought to be ac- countable for its competence, how can any less be expected of the real power in the university — the tenured faculty? ‘

, Tenure first came about as a protection for

professors so that they would not be arbitrarily

fired: for saying or teaching “unpopular” thing's"

Or arbitrarily fired for any other'reason. But

now there are'other sources of protection in this

regard. If an administration does indeed‘s'how

contempt for human and faculty rights,_ the

combined power of the association of university

professors, ' the rapidly federation of ~ college teachers, the various professional societ-

ies (now coming under the control of yOung'er,

more libertarian men), and the civil liberties. un—\ ion can make it exceedingly difficult for the

Offending university to get first-rate faculty.

Sanctionscan be imposed, and furthermore, just

the spreading of the baleful news will cut off

the supply of high calibre faculty whose. pres“, * once is necessary for the continuance of the uni-

versity’s accreditation.

,k

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But what of those regions where the yahoos in the state legislature have the power to cut

off the funds of state universities which employ

faculty of “subversive” views and intentions? Even the possible loss of accreditation may not curb thesetroglodytes. It seems to me that when the atmosphere is that inimicai to the most basic tenet of education —— freedom of expression — sanctions have to be sustained until those uni- versities sink to the common denominator of the howling legislators. If by that point the people have not been aroused to demand real universi- ties, they will have, been left with what they obviously want —- extension of the prisons they callhigh schools. And mobility now being ha- bitual to the young, students will go to college and universities in other states.

I do not think, however, .it will come to that. I have travelled in enough sohcalled “backward” states to doubt strongly whether the full force of sanctions against a state university which has been taken over by legislature will leave the cit- izenry passive. Not because of any largesscale, fierce dedication to free speech, but because par— ents everywhere want credit cards for their chil- dren which will work. And if a particular uni- versity’s degree has been thoroughly discredited because of national approbrium, the voters, will insist that the legislature act to make that degree negotiable again. If economic self—interest is threatened, even “suspicious” characters on fac- ulties have to be allowed.

Accountable only to themselves, I faculty interests are in conflict ‘with those

of most students.

But if tenure is to be abolished everywhere, what will be the criteria for accountability? Up to a. point, Paul Woodriing, writing in the Chris- tian Science Monitor, has proposed a sensible set of guidelines: “Each faculty member should be allowed to decide for himself whether he wishes to be judged on the basis of his publication, his teaching, or both. If he chooses to devote a sub- stantial portion of his time to research and! writ- ing, his teaching load should be reduced suffic- iently to enable him to plan his research care- fully and write well. When he comes up for pro motion he should: be required to give evidence, not merely that he has published a specified num- ber of papers, but that he has made a substantial contribution to the analysis, interpretation, and criticism of the work of other scholars.”

I would add] that promotion is one thing and tenure another, and that tenure should: be done away with. Let the man who is essentially in- volved in research be reappraised at certain in- tervals—maybe every seven years, as Kingman

Brewster has suggested for himself. I would also include much more diverse criteria for “substan— tial research. A social scientist, for instances, may have chosen to devote a good deal of time to community action work. Or someone involved in education may have spent several years help— ing start an elementary “free” school. Neither may want to publish the results in the usual “scholarly” fashion. There ought, therefore, to be other options: a film, a book intended for a. wider audience than scholars (which doesn’t mean, to say the least, that the empirical evi- dence of what that community action or what that school has developed into. Let the student- faculty committee in charge of promotions spend some time observing and seeing for themselves what has been taking place.

Paul Woodring goes on: “Those faculty mem— bers who choose to be judged by thei rteaching ——and in an undergraduate college their number should be substantially larger than the first group wshould, when they come up for promotion, be expected to give evidence that their teaching is of superior quality. Such evidence . . . must be based in each. case upon. a distillation of the sub- jective judgments both of students and of other faculty members who have observed the indivi- dual’s teaching. Recent graduates of the college, as well as present students, should be invited to express their judgments through anonymous questionnaires designed to distinguish the more obvious form of popularity from truce success as a teacher.”

.“By the time a faculty member is ready for promotion to full professor,” Woodring concludes, “many of his former students will be mature men and women who will have been out of college long enough to be able to look back on their college experience in perspective. They know as much as anyone will ever know about which teachers made a real difference in their lives. Their opinions should be made available to the deans, depart- ment heads, or faculty committees who make decisions about promotion.”

My own View is that only faculty-student committees should have the power to make such decisions, and again, that promotion not be ten— ured. The teaching professor too should be re— evaluated at certain intervals. If you believe that teaching is —— or should be —- one of the most vital functions in the society, a corollary convic- tion ought logically to be that teachers should remain accountable so long as they teach. Tenure and any real kind of accountability are mutually contradictory.

I noted that Woodring’s proposals are useful up to a point. They are, with the additions I suggested, at least a beginning toward the break- ing up of that centre of university power which at present .is accountable to no one but itself. I would then go further. I am convinced that, ex- cept for scholars, the concept of a full~time uni- versity professor it isself anachronistic How can those who are teachers, not scholars, keep learn- ing enough to teach if they spend all their lives within the academy? How can they learn enough about themselves, about whatever field they’re in, from poetry to political science? George Ber- nard Shaw to the contrary, teachers and doers ought to be one and the same.