WHY A NEW SYSTEM OF POST TENURE REVIEW AT ISU IS UNDESIRABLE

by Jorgen Rasmussen, Distinguished Professor Emeritus

1. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT ISU IS BURDENED BY LARGE NUMBERS OF

INCOMPETENT TENURED FACULTY. Not every tenured faculty member is an excellent teacher. Not everyone is an excellent scholar. But no evidence exists to suggest that ISU has large numbers of tenured faculty whose performance at either task is unacceptable. The Board of Regents has not even asked departmental heads or administrators to estimate the number of "deadwood" tenured faculty. Periodic accreditation reviews do not suggest a problem of incompetent faculty. Therefore, it is not sensible for the Regents to devote time to a non-existent problem.

2. THERE ALREADY IS A SYSTEM OF POST TENURE REVIEW. Each department must evaluate faculty every year for the purpose of determining salary increases. If some departments awarded salary increases automatically without regard to faculty performance -- and the Regents have no evidence to suggest that this is the case -- then those departments should be required to change behavior and make merit increases. There is no reason for a new across the board system to deal with misbehavior practiced by few, if any, departments.

3. A NEW SYSTEM WILL BE A COSTLY DIVERSION OF EFFORT. If the Regents regard the existing system of annual post tenure review as inadequate, that implies a desire for a more elaborate system. A more elaborate system, if it is not to be a mere public relations charade, will require additional expenditure of faculty effort. Effort that could have gone into improving teaching and research excellence or to serving the community, will be diverted to self assessment. And with what result? To identify one incompetent tenured faculty member every 10 years? The cost in diverted faculty time compared to any possible benefits is too great to recommend a new system.

4. A NEW SYSTEM HAS GREAT POTENTIAL DANGERS. What is to be done with any faculty identified as incompetent under a new system? Presumbably some sort of punishment, extending even to dismissal, will be applied. In recent years the role of the faculty in promotion and tenure decisions has decreased while that of the administration has increased. This suggests that the final judge in any new post-tenure review will be the administration. This additional power will provide administrators a fearsome weapon with with to threaten the only element of the faculty currently enabled by the protection of tenure to voice alternative views. Not only will the junior faculty have to think twice before jeopardizing their careers by taking positions which the administration does not favor (as is now the case), but tenured faculty as well will come under full administrative control. A new system of post tenure review is s device for creating a monolithic university in which only one opinion prevails -- that of the administrators.

Jorgen Rasmussen