Yale's gothic architecture is not the only reminder on campus of earlier European civilization-its tenure system evokes many practices dating back to the Middle Ages, when trades were organized upon a guild system consisting of master artisans, merchants, and teachers. Eager youngsters worked as apprentices, attempting to make a masterpiece that would meet with the approval of the masters and allow them to join their community. Soon guilds granted fewer masterships, and apprentices were forced to leave and become journeymen. Traveling from town to town, journeymen awaited the death, departure, or retirement of a master so they could fill the vacancy. More often than not, towns lost many promising young journeymen who left because of the inflexibility of the system.
In present-day Yale, almost 500 years later, the situation is not significantly different. Year after year, undergraduates witness the departure of some of their favorite associate professors. Candace Waid, Susan Neiman, and probably Lee Wandel are a few of the faculty members leaving due to the uncertainty of the tenure system or to the denial of tenure. At the same time, well-known, tenured professors like Geoffrey Parker and Jonathan Lear, SM '70, have announced their intention to take positions at other universities.
Aspiring professors do not receive tenure for several main reasons. First, some professors like Neiman leave Yale before their contracts expire because they are not promised tenure or tenure consideration. Second, since there are a fixed number of tenured positions at Yale, some professors have to leave because no vacant spots become available in their fields. Finally, the University rejects some professors in favor of other candidates who are more prominent scholars in their fields.
Yale's tenure system has been described as both a stroke of genius and as an overly politicized process. All professors and administrators interviewed agree, however, that the process is very complex-and sometimes even cruel to the junior faculty.
Yale hires young teachers as assistant professors under contracts for varying lengths of time, depending on specific departments, with the possibility of extensions. When a professor's contract is about to expire-usually after he has been at the University for five or six years-his department has the choice of promoting the professor to the rank of associate professor without tenure. The term for untenured associate professors varies from four to five years. Since untenured professors can only teach at Yale for a maximum of 10 years, if their departments choose to consider them for tenure at all, the process must occur during their penultimate year at the University-in most cases, during their ninth year. If the University is not going to consider or award tenure, then the associate professor must leave upon completion of his tenth year.
If the end of an associate professor's contract coincides with the departure, death, or retirement of a senior faculty member in his field, he might be considered for tenure. However, receiving tenure at Yale is very difficult because of the severity and the competitiveness of the process. The process starts when Yale sends letters worldwide to all the major scholars in the nominee's field. In turn, these scholars recommend candidates for the position, without regard to whether or not the candidate presently teaches at Yale. Once the University has a list of names, the nominees are invited to interview for the available position. The department subsequently compiles a "short list" of nominees, and its members vote for the prospective tenure recipient.
In essence, Yale's untenured faculty must compete-sometimes with each other, and every time against an international field of scholars. Consequently, many professors nearing the end of their contract choose to leave Yale for other universities offering tenure, or at the very least, offering tenure track positions. Tenure track professors are associate professors hired with the promise that by the end of their contract, they will be considered for tenure. Usually, most professors in tenure track positions receive tenure.
"A very key issue separates Yale and Harvard from the majority of the universities in the United States. At Yale and Harvard there is no such thing as a tenure track," William Mahout, associate professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, said. "The way the Yale system works is that you are offered a spot if there is a spot. In no way is the University obligated to bring someone up for tenure."
Administrators defend the lack of a tenure track at Yale, contending that its absence encourages the most dedicated teaching, as well as the best research, by increasing competition among professors.
However, this competition exacts a price, as even administrators will concede. Richard Brodhead BR '68, GRD '72, said that a major flaw of tenure track systems is that sometimes they do not encourage professors to exploit their full potential. "The truth is that Yale keeps its professors under constant pressure. Tenure track systems are a much kinder system. This is an enormous paradox," he said.
In fairness, Yale makes this policy explicit. According to Mahout, currently in his seventh year at Yale, "The University and the department chairs make [the lack of tenure consideration] clear to incoming professors. Nobody is fooled, and nobody is left in the dark. People are certainly aware of this-there are no hidden secret clauses." Consequently, the majority of faculty members recognize the bleak prospects of a permanent career at Yale. "Most people know that the chances of getting tenure at Yale range from slim to none," Mahota said.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of the tenure process is that it forces senior faculty members to make frank judgments of a colleague's work. According to Robert Wilson, chair of the Religious Studies Department, tenure is awarded to professors based on their scholarship quality, which is comprised of the quality of their academic research and publication, the ability to teach, and the potential to contribute to the University community. According to Brodhead, Yale's tenuring process is consistent with its aim to hire the best professors. "Tenure is given to professors whose work was good, and that possess great quality."
What defines "a good professor" varies among faculty and administrators. However, a general consensus exists among the interviewees about the main criteria for tenureship. In the humanities, quality of publication is the most important factor, while in the physical sciences, it is quality of research, Brodhead said.
The famed "publish or perish" principle is indeed a part of Yale's complex system. Some professors feel that publication is important only because it is a concrete sample of a person's scholarship. "The single most important fact in the tenure process is a judgment of intellect of the person involved that manifests itself through publications, not counting numbers of pages," Robert Adams, chair of the philosophy department said.
Some Yale professors feel that teaching and the quality of teaching are not as important for getting tenure as international reputation and extensive publications. Malcolm Boshier, associate professor of physics, said, "Teaching should be more important because we are in the business of teaching undergraduates. It is clear what the rules are, but they could be a little different. Maybe the tenure process could be a lot softer and teaching should be more important."
In contrast, Thomas Carew, chair of the psychology department, said that when a candidate is evaluated for tenureship, "the senior faculty take teaching very seriously." Carew said even though undergraduates may feel that some good teachers are leaving, this "should not be taken as a signal that teaching is secondary at Yale."
Most professors agree that one of the very positive aspects of Yale's tenure system is that it maintains a constant flow of energetic young professors through the University, a revolving door policy that steadily draws in new arrivals while also constantly dismissing members. "Sometimes the coming and going is a source of hardship. But this coming and going is a good thing for a school," Brodhead said. Even some untenured faculty members agree. "As an undergraduate, it is great to have professors cycle through," former Yale associate psychology professor Richard Gerrig, BR '81, said. Gerrig now teaches as a tenured professor at SUNY-Stony Brook.
However, some undergraduates feel that the departure of faculty members in their own fields of interest can be very problematic. Vacancies in specific fields may not filled for several years, leaving undergraduates without the necessary faculty guidance. Charles Long, deputy provost, said, "There are important tradeoffs in the current tenure system." Sometimes departing junior faculty leave the department without an expert in their field. Therefore, a vacancy in a specific field might account for the disappearance of some undergraduate courses from the Yale College Program of Studies, he said.
Another negative aspect of Yale's tenure system is its potential to devolve into judgments of personality, as opposed to judgments of merit. Defending the current process, Adams said, "There can always be disagreements on judgments about quality of intellect, but when you consider more certain aspects like numbers of pages, you are left with a second-rate university." Other faculty members agreed. According to Boshier, "There is some politics [in the tenure-awarding process] but the system works in that it gets the best academics and researchers."
Brodhead said that even though the tenure process could lend itself to becoming highly politicized and even personal, "It would make me sick if I knew of a case" where tenure was denied or awarded because of a personal bias. The senior faculty at Yale is aware of the importance of a tenure decision, and they thus answer to a higher authority, Brodhead said. Lawrence Manley, chair of the Renaissance Studies department, agreed with Brodhead. "In all cases there are procedures that are supposed to hedge the possibility of a process becoming politicized," he said.
Despite the previously observed advantages, Yale's tenure system seems difficult to justify when an especially popular faculty member leaves for more concrete prospects of tenureship. Candace Waid, associate professor in the English department and a noted scholar on Southern literature, is one of the latest examples in this disturbing trend. Waid will leave Yale next year; she declined to comment about her case.
Susan Neiman, associate professor of philosophy, currently at the Hebrew University of Israel, commented,"The philosophy department at Yale is an internationally notorious anomaly." Neiman said that nothing has occurred in the philosophy department in the last six years that contradicts a statement made by former colleague Harry Frankfurt, now teaching at Princeton: "What is wrong with the philosophy department is very simple: it's under a curse."
According to Neiman, "It's long been thought that the Yale tenure procedure is in need of serious revision. Truly interesting departments in major universities, such as the philosophy department where I studied, were built by hiring, supporting and promoting creative young thinkers." Even though tenured psychology professor Thomas Carew also feels that the tenure process "could stand a lot of work," he also believes that "small changes could have a great impact in the future."
Another professor scheduled to leave is Lee Wandel, professor of Religious Studies and Renaissance Studies. According to Robert Wilson, chair of the Religious Studies department, "The search for a tenured position is not complete." Even though Wandel is not being interviewed and she is currently not on the department's short list, Wilson insisted that she had not been ruled out as a possible candidate. Nevertheless, colleagues do not believe she will stay. Manley said that he was "very distressed about the decision not to give Lee Wandel tenure." Manley said, "Wandel has been a wonderful colleague and it will be difficult to imagine the place without her."
While many professors agree that the tenure system at Yale needs significant reform, others feel that the tenure system is so finely tuned that any minor reform would produce dramatic longterm changes. The professors' respective opinions were necessarily colored by how each of them had been personally treated by the system. Surrounded by recurrent controversy, questions of tenureship leave little room for neutral territory. For this reason, faculty members seem universally hesitant to speak out on issues of promotion. Intra-departmental factions and rivalries that inevitably influence the selection of senior faculty can escape the regulating force of the Administration. In addition, specific policies for handling tenureship vary among departments, and considerable power can be concentrated in the hands of a few senior members.
Despite differing opinions of where Yale's tenure system should go, faculty, administrators, and students agree that in the meantime, Yale is losing bright, sometimes prize-winning scholars. Perhaps the harsh paradox of the system is that while Yale loses many of its finest young professors, there are always more to take their place, Brodhead said. In the long run, as journeymen and apprentices became masters centuries ago, so Yale's junior professors will find tenured positions. The question is whether they will find them here or somewhere else.
Copyright 1996, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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