University of Virginia Library

After The Battle

Some two months ago, the four officers
of the Graduate Economics Club made the
charge in a letter to The Cavalier Daily
that the University's economics department
was being ruined by the "coldly calculated
design" of certain members of the administration
who disliked its reputation of
conservatism. The letter was inspired by the
decision reportedly arrived at after his colleagues
Andrew Whinston and Gordon
Tullock were denied promotions by the University.
The graduate students' letter, you will
remember, led to an angry public debate-a
debate hampered by Dean Harris's understandable
reluctance as Dean of the Faculty
to return Mr. Buchanan's heated charges.

We have no desire to rekindle this quarrel,
but we do wish to comment on two questions
which seem to capture its essence.

First, has there been a conscious effort
by the administration to "purge" the
economics department of some of its more
conservative members?

Second, is the University's policy on promotion
a fair one?

We believe the answer to the first question
is a qualified no; and to the second, an
unqualified yes.

The University has long been distinguished
for its teaching of economics; the department
has ranked among the best at the University
in national comparative studies such
as that made by Allan Cartter in 1966 for
the American Council of Education. It has
had great success in drawing money into
the University and in placing its graduate
students in jobs across the country. Although
many of its members, notably its
chairman Mr. Nutter, were closely identified
with the Goldwater campaign in 1964, its
predominating philosophy of "conservative"
economics does not necessarily make it a
hotbed of John Birchers or even Goldwater
Republicanism. We understand that Mr.
Whinston, for example, was for Lyndon
Johnson in 1964.

Nevertheless, there has been a feeling
among the University's faculty-typical of
most university faculties in tending to be
politically liberal-that the economics department
has been unbalanced. We have,
on one hand, the liberals' fear of a monolithic
conservatism in the economics department-fostered
by what has been called the
"messianic zeal" of some disciples of Milton
Friedman and the "Chicago School" and by
reports that when Mr. Buchanan became
chairman in 1957, he "purged" the department
of liberals and even some conservatives
who were not of his particular school
of thought. On the other hand, we have the
conservatives' feeling of a vague hostility
directed at them from the rest of the University.
The result, as expressed in the
graduate students' letter, was a conspiracy
theory-with Dean Harris as the Devil.

Decisions on individual promotions are,
of course, surrounded by secrecy. As far
as we could learn, however, the decisions
on Mr. Whinston and Mr. Tullock were
fairly made. Mr. Whinston's was an unusual
case; he had agreed to stay after the
University had gone far in matching an
offer from Purdue, but he came back three
weeks later with a better offer from Purdue.
The committee understandably was not
about to engage in this kind of bargaining.
Mr. Tullock's is a more controversial case
and less is known of its details. It appears,
at any rate, that the committee was not as
impressed with Mr. Tullock's qualifications
as he was known for being and turned him
three times down for cause. What is important
is that this was not done by Dean
Harris alone, but by an advisory committee
of five senior professors, made up of distinguished-and
in several cases internationally
known-men in the fields of
history, physics, mathematics, American
literature and French.

It doesn't make much sense, at any rate,
for a University that is devoting millions
of dollars to achieving national academic
prominence to "purge" a department that
is among its most eminent.

The economics controversy has led to
fears in certain quarters that the University
might be forced into changing its promotion
procedures. There have been two alternative
methods suggested, one of them absurd and
the other potentially disastrous.

The first is the suggestion that the Board
of Visitors act directly on the department
chairman's recommendations. This fails on
two grounds: 1) every department chairman
would like to see as many of his department
members promoted as possible, for
reasons of morale and prestige, and 2) save
for a few members like the Rector, the Board
has no knowledge of the day-to-day operations
of the University and is completely
unqualified to act on as complicated a
matter as promotion except in the most
perfunctory fashion (as it does now).

The second suggestion is that promotions
be voted on by the faculty as a whole.
This would be chaotic at best and could
lead to the worst sort of politicking. The
system is used at the University of California,
we understand, and the disorganization
and bickering that have resulted among
the faculty members there should be a warning
against any attempt to reproduce that
system here.

The present system of having a group
of professors advise the Dean of the Faculty
seems most practicable. The advisory committee
reviews the teacher's publications,
professional honors, work with graduate
students, and general effectiveness and talks
with his chairman. Dean Harris apparently
always follows the committee's decision.
His recommendation is subject, of course,
to review by the Provost and the President.

Every department has certain of its members
turned down each year, and it is
unfortunate that members of the economics
department chose to do battle on this matter
in public, especially when such irrelevant
and basically ridiculous charges as "professional
jealousy" on Dean Harris's part
were made.

Mr. Buchanan reacted in an over-emotional
way to events that were regrettable,
from his point of view, but hardly mean
the destruction, or even the purging, of
his department. He had legitimate complaints
perhaps, but the proper place for
their airing was within the privacy of a
faculty meeting, where they could have
been discussed in a knowledgeable fashion
by the persons directly concerned, not in the
public press, where they were sensationalized
and, by Dean Harris's silence, made one-sided.

It is unfortunate that the reputation of
two men suffered somewhat as a result
of the controversy, and we hope that it is
not too late for the public mind to be set
aright about Robert J. Harris and James
M. Buchanan. They are two men of the
sort the University prides itself upon: the
one a distinguished political scientist and
noted wit, who has presided admirably over
faculty hiring and promoting during a period
of tremendous expansion for the University;
the other a distinguished political economist,
who has earned the loyalty of countless
graduate students who have worked under
him and who is largely responsible for the
creation of his prestigious department.

Despite the clash of personalities, it is a
healthy experience for the University to
have its policies challenged from time to
time. The controversy revealed an unhealthy
phenomenon about the University, however,
and we should all work to correct it.
This is the rigid belief that economics is
one field and political science or history
another, that biology is a separate world
where a philosopher or literary man, say,
should fear to tread. The ability to step
over tightly built interdisciplinary walls is a
sign of academic sophistication, and the
University should encourage it.