University of Virginia Library

The Losers

Much has been said in recent days about
the promotion policies of the English
Department and the consequent loss of
several fine assistant professors. If there is any
illusion that that department is a singular
example of stilted elitism in an open-minded
University, it should be laid to rest. The
"publish or perish" syndrome is alive and well
in Charlottesville, and it is not quarantined in
Wilson Hall.

Publishing, however, is not the only duty
of an academician hoping to be promoted in
the educational hierarchy. Politics (referred to
as "ass-kissing" by at least one man who
apparently wasn't very good at it) still reigns
supreme among the tools that any aspiring
scholar must skillfully employ in the quest of
the holy tenure. In fact, politics may be the
most insidious intrusion into the academic life
of the aspiring professor.

Many able individuals have shunned
financially enticing offers in industry in order
to pursue scholarly endeavors in what they
expected to be the free and open atmosphere
of universities. One must surmise that those
people found the life of a scholar somewhat
disappointing. It must be especially
disheartening for a scholar to come to the
University of Virginia under the mistaken
impression that the faculty committees on
tenure and the department chairmen actually
believe in the much inflated aspirations of
Mr. Jefferson for his "academical village."

Of course the system is nearly universal:
Publish often, publish in the right journals,
and publish a book. Know the right people,
kowtow to their philosophy and conceptions
of your discipline, and do not rock the boat.
If one does all of these with smoothness and
savvy, one's chances of promotion are
perceptibly enhanced. Certainly he will pass
by the scholar idealistically trying to be a
good teacher while neglecting his political
homework.

Thus the tenure committees which make
the decisions run a blatantly conspiratorial
cartel. Rejects are told, in effect. "If you do
not like the system at Virginia, you can go
elsewhere."

Their problem then is finding an
institution of equivalent academic standing
which has any less political a system for
advancement. They are, in effect, demoted to
traveling scholars looking for a place that will
accept them on the basis of their scholarship
and let them start all over again.

There are several inexcusable by-products
of this whole disgusting system. First, it is
self-perpetuating. Once tenured, professors
have a vested interest in protecting the
system.

Second, it is the undergraduates who
suffer. They are deprived of the attention of
some of the finest instructors the University
can offer simply because those instructors
differed in opinion or personality from their
colleagues. There is no excuse for barring
students from tenure committees.

Third, it undermines the whole concept of
a university as a community of scholars
engaged in the pursuit of truth and
knowledge. When assistant professors who
teach several undergraduate courses are
acclaimed by students as real teachers, why
should they be dropped by the wayside
because they are not bringing enough fame to
the department?

* * *

We are not attacking tenure qua tenure.
But we strongly condemn the criteria by
which assistant professors are judged for it. It
is revolting that a university which
self-righteously proclaims that it is not afraid
to follow truth will not take the lead in
determining truly legitimate means of judging
its faculty.

Times are changing, and with them there is
a change in student attitudes. No longer is
college education taken as a 'given' by
intelligent students. It is no longer acceptable
to spend $12,000 or $16,000 just to say that
one went to college.

For those who smirk and continue to
write off any student comments on the
subject of faculty promotions, we can only
offer our sympathy. We remind those cynics
that it was Mr. Jefferson who said, "I swear
upon the altar of God eternal hostility toward
any form of tyranny over the minds of
men..."

...And at his own University. What a
shame.