bill smitherman
CONTINUOUS
More tenure arguments
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SEAN CONNERY- CLAUDIA CARDINALE
Since the events of May, 1970 there has been a lot
of discussion and argument across the country about
faculty responsibility. This has been particularly true
in Nebraska where many legislators and Regents have
gotten into the act.
Last Spring Regent Robert Prokop of Wilber
attacked tenure and called for ending the system. In a
statement he said that tenure had shielded academic
incompetency and protected faculty members who
want to avoid teaching undergraduates.
He added that tenure grants faculty members
"freedom from accountability that would be
unacceptable for any other profession."
His statement said that faculty members outside the
classroom neither deserve nor require protections
other than those guaranteed by the U.S. constitution.
He also contended that tenure is the only manner in
which a man is guaranteed a life-time job, no matter
how he performs.
But, though some of his allegations are justified,
Prokop has failed to consider the nature of the
institution with which he is dealing. This is the fault
of most who criticize tenure on similar grounds.
A university is not a retail store, dealing in set
goods and services. It is a place where ideas are
developed and concepts of society are advanced.
Many of these ideas are unpopular. Indeed, simply
presenting both sides of an issue can be unpopular.
So, a faculty member engaged in the search for ideas
and ideals must have some protection if he is to work
effectively.
Tenure has its problems. It undoubtedly does have
some abuses. But the system has merits no system of
short-term contracts can boast.
The way to remedy the ills of the system is not to
kill it, but (if you will excuse the phrase) to work
within the system.
There are some alternatives to life-time tenure
which have definite merit. University President 0. B.
Varner proposed one of these possibilities in his
opening remarks to the committee revising University
by-laws.
The President suggested a system of awarding
tenure for a set period of time. He used five years as
an example. At the end of his first tenure period the
perfomance of a faculty member would.be reviewed
by a committee of his peers, Varner suggested.
If the committee decided that the faculty member
was performing effectively then his tenure would be
extended another five years.
Varner said this system would both protect faculty
members from witch hunts and assure a continuance
of tenure as long as a faculty member demonstrated
his worth. It would also give the University the
opportunity to review performance of tenured
faculty, he said.
Varner's idea is only one of the possible
approaches, but it is imperative that some system be
developed. As the faculty committee on tenure
recently reported, "The uninhibited exploration of
ideas cannot exist in an atmosphere of intimidation
or potential reprisal against ideas that are bold,
innovative, challenging and unpopular."
There are also real reforms already in the works
that the time has come to implement For instance, a
committee of faculty and administrators has worked
out a code of procedures to insure a fair and effective
method of removing incompetent professors. The
UIML faculty senate has approved this code but the
Regents have not acted on it.
A revision of tenure involves many facets and will
take time. It must be decided how a professor will be
evaluated and by whom. Who will decide the question
of competence and what will be the criteria for the
decision?
It would be a pity if a system that still looks like it
might be effective were arbitrarily destroyed.
Jeffrey harf
Official issues
campus warning
Dr. Alex Sherriffs, for several years on California
Governor Ronald Reagan's staff as chief educational
adviser, is in a uniquely advantageous position to
comment on the changing situation in the academy.
Before moving to Sacramento, Sherriffs was both a
professor of psychology and an administrator at
Berkeley, and so has an intimate knowledge of higher
education from the inside. Now, as a public official,
he is necessarily aware of the feelings and opinions of
both political leaders and of the public at large.
When Eidridge Cleaver, for example, was
announced as teaching a course for credit at Berkeley
a few years ago, 77,000 letters hit Sherriffs desk in
Sacramento. When arsonists burned the Bank of
America branch near the Santa Barbara campus,
Sherriffs got 100,000 letters.
In a thoughtful address he gave to a conference of
educators at Berkeley, Sherriffs had valuable things to
say about the situation of the academy today, and he
also issued a warning that should be heeded.
He began by tracing the changing relationship
between the academy and the public at large. In
I960, he noted, "the American university could do
no wrong and the broadest public support was
available merely for the asking." During the ensuing
decade this relationship spectacularly soured, and by
1969 the public-and, naturally, its elected
representatives were in a state of disillusionment and
even active "hostility, having seen "in a society which
has liberty as its highest value, and on campuses
populated by the intellectual elite of that society,
human beings held hostage, buildings burned, bombs
exploded, libraries damaged. . . .On several campuses,
terroristic tactics were developed to intimidate
faculty members who did not conform to a
'Cambodia syndrome.""
The academic year just past saw a recovery of a
measure of sobriety. The point here, however, is that
"the public knows that what turned f w -w.rxis avy
from violence was not affirmative leadership and
good management, or response to the public will, but
rather a reaction of dismay against the terrible
WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 22, 1971
excesses of spring and summer 1970-Kent State,
Wisconsin, and the "reconstitution of courses" i.e..
canceling Chemistry 3 and turning it into a
symposium on "the fascit government" in
Washington.
Despite the campus calm of the last year, Sherriffs
concluded, "all of the past is still with us." And he
found disturbing and measurable evidence of this
in changing public attitudes toward things like
"academic freedom" and "tenure." Among Stanford
alumni, for example, more than two-thirds now agree
with the statement that "academic freedom may be a
good thing, but it has become an excuse for
unjustifiable behavior by some faculty members."
A solid majority of the public now holds a negative
attitude toward academic tenure, an attitude
traceable, says Sherriffs, to the fact that "tenure has
been the reason given to the public for inability to
cope with a highly visible though small number of
extravagantly irresponsible faculty members."
Public faith has also sharply declined concerning
the university's claim to be an "open forum" for the
free discussion of ideas. During the 1960s, "the open
forum policy was abandoned and replaced by a
continuing sereis of speakers all within a narrow
political spectrum on the far left. On may of the
nation's campuses, when speakers did appear
representing a liberal, moderate or conservative point
of view, they were harassed, interrupted, and often
silenced."
The academy clearly cannot sustain litself or
maintain iits privileges in a consistently hostile climate
of opinion, and, despite the calm last year, "the
public and its representatives are not likely to accept
the luck of historical accident to ensure the survival
of precious and expensive institutions. . .When public
confidence does return, it wi II be because it has been
earned."
Lucidly, thoughtfully. Dr. Sherriffs was telling
administrators and faculties as the fall term begins:
shape up or ship out.
THE DAILY MEBRASKAN
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