Corporation Votes Salary Increase; Flexibility in Appointments Stressed

The University's present method of choosing and promoting its faculty--virtually unchanged since 1938--has no basic faults, but it must be administered with flexibility, according to the report of President Pusey's special Committee on Appointments, Promotions, and Retirements.

Dean Bundy, chairman of the committee, in describing the report at yesterday's faculty meeting, said the committee was aware of recent criticism of the formula adopted by former President Conant on the advice of the famous "Committee of Eight." This plan established a fixed number of permanent positions on the faculty, distributed among the various departments by a rigid formula based on the situation in 1938.

Bundy noted that criticism has centered on the overstaffing of certain fields which may not be as important now as in 1938, and the understaffing of fields of new importance.

Overstaffing Not Found

"We find no major fields overstaffed," Bundy declared. "There are always new fields with claims on new chairs; however, the best solution is not necessarily to reduce the number in one field in order to increase the number in another field."

The report notes that when a vacancy in a specific subject within a department appears, it may be best to leave the post unfilled. It would be unwise, for instance, to replace a first-rate professor with a second-rate man merely to prevent a vacancy in that particular area of study.

President Needs Flexibility

"It is not eminent subjects, but eminent men which make a great university," Bundy said. Thus the President must be left a large degree of flexibility when special cases and severe gaps arise within departments.

The report examines each level of appointment. It recommends that teaching fellows and instructors be studied separately, and expresses concern that the rank of assistant professor be "kept strong and important"--leading, in a high percentage of cases, to a permanent position.

It warns against falling into the easy pattern of automatically raising associate professors to full professors when a vacancy occurs, instead of examining the whole field of available scholars throughout the nation.