University of Virginia Library

Economics Debate

Far more heat than light has been
generated in the recent controversy involving
the University's economics department; such
is usually the case, we fear, in inter-departmental
feuds of this sort. What does
seem clear is that most students and many
other members of the University community
do not understand the hiring and firing
policies of the University. The conflicts of
personality, and to a lesser extent, of
ideology that inevitably arise when any group
of people have to work closely together
and the unavoidable turnover that any
department faces in its personnel have
combined in this case, as they did last
spring in the case of the English department,
to result in all sorts of charges
being bandied about.

We don't claim to understand better
what has really happened any more than
anyone else who has read Mr. Buchanan's
remarks in today's Cavalier Daily or the
earlier letters from graduate students which
made the quarrel public. We should
like to present, at any rate, one undergraduate
major's view of the affair, printed
below. It is written by Hal Lassiter, a
fourth-year Honors student and former vice-president
of the Student Council.

***************

Professor James Buchanan, internationally
recognized authority in the
field of public finance, will not be returning
to the University this fall. He and the
rest of the department of economics resent
the meticulous destruction of a strong
faculty, one with which Professor Buchanan
has enjoyed working for a number of years.

The feeling among the faculty and
students, graduate and undergraduate, of
the economics department is that one man
is responsible for this tragedy. That man
is Robert J. Harris, Dean of the Faculty
of the College of Arts and Sciences and
chairman of Promotions Committee of the
College. They accuse Dean Harris of political
prejudice; he considers the department
too right-wing. They accuse him of academic
jealousy; Gordon Tullock, who failed to
be promoted after being endorsed three
times by the department, and Professor
Buchanan jointly authored a book, "The
Calculus of Consent," which applies economic
theory and analysis to Dean Harris'
field of political science.

Whether or not politics and jealousy
were factors in failing to promote Andrew
Whinston and Mr. Tullock, Dean Harris
has been left in a ticklish position. No
one individual should have the authority
or responsibility possessed by Dean Harris.
Promotions are a key factor in maintaining
a high quality faculty, and the present
system does place the Dean of the
Faculty in a position where his
prejudice is able to influence decisions.

At the present time, Dean Harris annually
selects an ad hoc committee to recommend
promotions to the Board of Visitors.
President Shannon has no say in the selection,
and does not approve the committee
as chosen by the Dean. According to Professor
Buchanan, the economics department
has not been represented on the Promotions
Committee during his ten years at
the University.

Any individual would naturally select
committeemen who reflect his own opinions.

Dean Harris should be relieved of this
burden. Promotions recommendations
should go directly from each department
to the Board of Visitors. Each department
head is better acquainted than anyone else
with the merits and demerits of the faculty
in his department and has a strong incentive
to have able men serving under
him as full professors. This system would
avoid the absurdity of having physics professors
deciding promotions in the English
department and vice-versa.

Another alternative would be to have a
faculty-elected Board of Promotions.

The system of promotions at the University
leaves much to be desired. The
system, not Dean Harris is being attacked.
We hope that President Shannon considers
the situation to be serious enough to merit
the establishment of a committee on promotions
procedure to recommend improvements.