Great Work. You're Fired.

 
The Chronicle of Higher Education <http://chronicle.com/>

>From the issue dated April 1, 2005

Great Work. You're Fired.

By ALAN RAUCH

One of the problems that professors face is that the public never seems
to think we work long enough hours. What's worse, even many academic
administrators have misconceptions about how faculty members spend their
time and, as a result, often fail to give them proper credit for the
work they do. That, of course, is a serious problem for untenured
faculty members, especially those who serve in departments just starting
ambitious programs -- as many departments are, even in the face of
budget cutbacks.

Young, untenured faculty members bring energy, ambition, and well-honed
intellects to departments that are eager for change. It stands to reason
that a department developing a new master's program, for example, would
want to make use of the energy and vision of the newest professors. And
naturally it behooves the young faculty member -- who aspires to a long
career at the institution -- to participate in the building of a
critical part of his or her future.

But it is almost impossible to participate in program building and also
sustain a strong publishing record. In far too many instances, junior
faculty members who have given their all to build programs find
themselves falling short of traditional, unyielding tenure requirements.

The culprits in that situation are many. Department chairmen, deans, and
provosts are all eager to demonstrate that their new program is up to
the standard of the entire institution by driving their respective units
forward. They are also eager not to give colleagues any reason to think
that they have relaxed their tenure standards in order to move the
department ahead.

Administrators often express the desire to "protect" junior faculty
members from serving on too many standing committees because of concern
that the young professors will have too little time to publish and to
establish the other academic credentials needed for tenure. But however
well-intentioned that urge to protect faculty members may be, it skirts
the fundamental issue: Program building is substantively different from
other service. The nature of the work is distinct, and thus it must be
evaluated differently in tenure decisions.

In contrast to service, program building involves a new and exceptional
task, not an established, continuing activity. It represents a unique
contribution to the department. Of course the specific components vary,
but it often includes developing curricula and training colleagues.

The nature of program building is diverse. In the last few years, for
example, many departments have set up computer labs for composition
courses and new-media studies. The coordination of equipment, software,
and appropriate pedagogy, as well as troubleshooting and upgrading the
whole system, inevitably requires the time of a faculty member in
addition to whatever information-technology support the university
offers. Other departments have established new master's or doctor's
programs, or new scholarly journals.

Some new programs are successful, and others never reach fruition. But
whatever the outcome, the process is labor intensive and pulls faculty
members away from the other academic endeavors for which they are
usually rewarded.

Program building must be established as a new category of professorial
work, weighted appropriately with scholarship, teaching, and service.
Individual situations will vary, but as program building generally
diminishes a professor's ability to publish, it should be equated with
the publication of at least two very strong articles.

As an unfamiliar category, it needs to be presented in a straightforward
manner to untenured faculty members as they contemplate helping to build
the program. It must also be presented clearly to the administrators who
will oversee the evaluation of tenure candidates from the department.
Those administrators need to understand how much labor is needed to
create a new lab, develop a new doctoral program, or initiate a new
support program for students.

I am not calling for a standardized checklist, but rather a written
description of the program-building activities in a department, in terms
of their likely impact on certain faculty members. Such statements are
prepared all the time, but generally after the fact -- when a faculty
member is facing an imminent tenure decision. Instead department chairs
and relevant faculty members should put in writing their understanding
of what participation in program building will entail, before the
building starts. When such a statement is approved by the dean, the
professors' eventual contributions to the program can be evaluated for
both quality and quantity, just like their publications, teaching, and
other service.

The document would be essential if for no other reason than to inform
new supervisors about the program. But often even old administrators
need to be reminded -- as the years pass -- that the program they so
wanted to see in Department X could have occurred only because of the
labor of Professor Y, who is now up for tenure.

To be sure, universities that require evidence or promise of substantial
scholarship can go only so far in relaxing their tenure requirements to
make room for program building. Moreover, any faculty member ambitious
enough to want to be involved in the new program is likely to want to
make a mark in the scholarly literature as well. But surely the tenure
process, with its assessments, documents, and allowances for special
circumstances, can include one more component.

Although program building may not be glamorous, over the years it has
improved virtually every academic department and university. In far too
many cases, however, the actual builders of a new program have received
the academic equivalent of pink slips instead of gratitude. The fact
that so many new programs themselves survive is a testament to the hard
work behind them, but -- in many instances -- the success of the
programs is an embarrassment to a system where those most responsible
for creating them are often not around to enjoy the fruits of their
labors.

Alan Rauch is an associate professor of English at the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte and author of Useful Knowledge: The
Victorians, Morality, and the March of Intellect (Duke University Press,
2001).

 
Alan Altany, Professor & Director
Coulter Faculty Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC 28723 (U.S.)
Email: altany@email.wcu.edu <mailto:altany@email.wcu.edu>
Fax: 828.227.7340
CFC Web Site: http://facctr.wcu.edu <http://facctr.wcu.edu/>
SoTL at Western: http://www.wcu.edu/sotl/ <http://www.wcu.edu/sotl/>
MountainRise, SoTL eJournal: http://mountainrise.wcu.edu
<http://mountainrise.wcu.edu/>
 
 

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Received on Fri Apr 1 12:49:08 2005