University of Virginia Library

Sacrificing Humanity For The Institution

By WAYNE MOXLEY

The system for promoting
professors has come under
heavy fire from several
members of the English
Department. The entire
educational process in
universities was also
attacked as being "brutal" and
"inhumane".

Raising objections to the
present systems were Assistant
English Professors Ronald
Clapper, Spencer Hall, Gary
Lindberg and Associate English
Professor and Assistant Dean
Charles Vandersee.

Much of the controversy
centers on the failure of
the English Department to
grant tenure to several
"outstanding" assistant
professors.

Assistant professors are
hired for two three-year
contracts. In their fifth year
their performance is rated by
the senior professors in the
department. If it is of good
quality they are granted
tenure.

It is not that easy, however,
because the English
Department at the University is
very much concerned with
achieving national prominence.
English Chairman Jacob
Levenson says, "one must
make major contributions to
both teaching and scholarship
to be granted tenure. High
consideration is placed on
whether the scholarship is
worthy of national
distinction."

The problem for assistant
professors is further
compounded by the fact that
departments concerned with
national recognition seldom
promote them, but rather bring
in senior professors with
established national
reputations. Mr. Lindberg said
"the working effectiveness of
the department suffers from its
concern for national
prominence."

"By this I mean not only in
its relationship with other
departments," he continued,
"but those relationships
between undergraduate and
graduate students, between
students and faculty and
between junior and senior
members of the faculty."

Mr. Clapper also indicated
that the "department is
improving its reputation at the
cost of its students and
professors." Mr. Lindberg
added, "since the English
Department is 'on the make'
it's hard for it to be fully
humane or take a good many
factors into account in the
promotional decision."

Perhaps the main criticism
of the promotional process is
its doctrine of "publish or
perish". Assistant professors
are pressured into writing
books for publication under
the assumption that this is the
best way for the department to
achieve national recognition.

Publication is therefore the
overriding criterion in the
decision to grant tenure.
Teaching ability is secondary
and in fact the philosophy is
that "anyone can be a good
teacher."

"It is a question of quality
of what one writes, but of
course its quality is subject to
the individual judgement of
people in the department.
Human judgment is a tricky
thing," Mr. Lindberg said.

CD/Saxon Holt

Lindberg: "On The Make"

"However, one gets the
feeling that nothing is quite
good enough after they keep
on kicking professors out,"
added Mr. Hall, "Look at
Alistair Duckworth. He wrote a
very good book and still got
thrown out."

Mr. Vandersee said,
"writing begins as a hobby
with most of us, but with these
pressures it eventually becomes
a horrible chore."

"Some say that 60 per cent
of what is published is crap.
Well that's a very conservative
estimate," said Mr. Hall.

Mr. Clapper agreed that
"most of what is published is
junk and wouldn't have been
published if they weren't
forced into it. You must
condemn every critic's views
and show how brilliant your
interpretation of a particular
work is."

"Out of 50 to 60 professors
in the department why do all
have to be writers?" asked Mr.
Hall. "Can't there be some
whose main concern is
teaching?"

"There is also a minor
reason why they want you to
publish. They want to see if
your mind is working and that
you're aware of the vital new
issues. But one can
demonstrate that by merely
talking to one's colleagues."

He pointed out that, "those
who publish all the time are
the ones who give lectures
from the same notes year after
year because they don't have
time to change them." "To me
this shows that it is these
writers who do not take into
account the new trends and
new vital issues. And these
happen to be the older
professors who sit around
judging others," he added.

In contrast, Mr. Levenson
argued that if one is a good
writer he is also a good teacher.
Mr. Clapper said that this very
often is not the case: "If you
are concerned with teaching
students as individuals this is
bound to cut in on the time
you spend doing research."

Many objections were also
raised as to the workload
expected of assistant
professors. "Assistant
professors are hired directly
out of graduate school", said
Mr. Lindberg. "They must
learn how to teach and if they
take teaching seriously they
devote a good deal of
emotional and intellectual
investment to it."

"They teach more courses
than senior professors do," he
noted. "They also teach
courses at a wider variety of
levels, that is, from freshman
English up to Ph.D. seminars."

"Within four and one half
years of the time they are
doing all this," he continued,
"they are expected to write a
book that will perhaps
overturn existing scholarship in
their field."

Mr. Clapper added that,
"this is a system designed to get
the most work out of assistant
professors. They hire us for six
years to do all the dirty work.
Senior professors give us the
bad committee work and most
of the courses to teach.

Mr. Vandersee agreed that
assistant professors do
not have time for anything else
in their lives except English. He
would "rather see a 10 year
span before tenure decisions
are made. This would give
assistant professors more time
to write, to get involved in the
University community, and to
start a family."

Mr. Levenson has
questioned the English
professors about the 10 year
idea. "Curiously enough the
older members seem to favor
the idea, but the younger
professors don't."

Mr. Hall asserted, "The
major problem with this idea is
that if a person is not granted
tenure after 10 years then he is
over 30 years old and his
chances on today's job market
are very slim."

The theory behind tenure is
that it allows a professor to say
what he wants without being
fired. It is to keep the
University free of political
pressures.

"Even so, the university is
still not free from politics due
to the financing problem,"
observed Mr. Hall. "Tenure
hurts as well as protects.
Tenured members are inclined
to make judgements about the
junior staff on things they have
neglected themselves."

CD/Saxon Holt

Clapper: "Dirty Work"

"Tenure has been used in
wrong ways. If many good
people keep being denied
tenure every year then one gets
the feeling that these decisions
are a little arbitrary or
capricious." Mr. Hall added.

He argued that strong
unions and collective
bargaining should take the
place of the tenure system.
Here too the professor would
be protected from being fired
for the wrong reasons such as
upholding unpopular views.

Mr. Clapper favored the
abolition of the tenure system.
"You can never get rid of
professors that get to be really
bad." He asserted that every
professor should be equal.

Mr. Clapper is most
annoyed by the principle of
competition which begins from
the time one enters graduate
school. "They are not
concerned with the individual
student," he said. "They are
looking for potential Ph.D.'s
and ignore the others. They
look at a student, size him up
and discard him if he doesn't
fit their pattern."

"Humanity is sacrificed for
the institution," he continued.
The whole educational system
is not to benefit the students,
it's to benefit the institution."

Mr. Clapper deplored the
lack of respect "for the mind
of a human being," by
academic superiors. "One's
worth as an individual is not
important, it's what he can
contribute to the institution's
national name." "The values
that got me into literature in
the first place were humane
values and these just aren't the
values of this system," he
added.

Former English Chairmen
Fredson Bowers has
emphasized that "graduate
work is what makes a
university" and that
undergraduates were a very
minor concern.

Mr. Clapper confirmed that
the entire emphasis of the
department is on its graduate
program. "All of the high
salaried professors teach the
graduate students. All of the
graduate courses are small
whereas the undergraduate
courses are large."

"I don't believe in large
lecture classes because I want
to know students as individual
minds and personalities," said
Mr. Clapper.

"When I came here I really
had to fight to decrease the
class size of certain courses to
15 and to relocate them in
seminar rooms," he said. "All
ENWR 1 classes used to be
taught by graduate instructors,
and we had to fight to change
that."

Mr. Clapper said, "In this
system undergraduates aren't
really important except to
provide financial aid to the
graduate students who teach
them."

"Contemporary and
American literature are popular
courses among undergraduates,
but we have few professors in
this area. Yet we continue to
hire professors for Medieval
and Renaissance courses which