Harvard Loses Another Star

"I WON'T BE HERE FOREVER."

When Mark A. Peterson came to Cambridge in 1985 to become an assistant professor in the Government Department, John Jackson, a professor at the University of Michigan, advised the young scholar to write these words on a sheet of paper and tape it to his desk.

Jackson, who had spent seven years as a junior professor at Harvard before being denied tenure and accepting a position at Michigan, knew as well as anyone that Peterson's chances of promotion to a full professorship here were slight. Not because he wasn't a rising scholar in his field. Not because he couldn't teach. Not because his talent didn't match that of the luminaries in Harvard's Government Department.

The reason for Jackson's warning to Peterson was as simple--and as troubling--as this: Harvard very rarely tenures its own. And when it does, the University rewards only accomplished scholarship. It takes no account of teaching skills or the candidate's other contributions to the Harvard community--no matter how significant they may be.

The criticism that Harvard's tenure policy emphasizes research too strongly over teaching is hardly new. It's impossible to count the number of great teachers and scholars who--after having their tenure bids rejected--left Harvard and were quickly snatched up by other universities.

Of course, Harvard cannot and should not grant tenure to great teachers who are only moderately successful scholars. Indeed, as a world-class research university, Harvard must consider scholarship very heavily when weighing tenure decisions. But it should not exclude other relevant factors--teaching and involvement with students--when deciding who stays and who goes. By putting these issues completely aside, Harvard turns its back on students--particularly undergraduates.

MARK A. PETERSON, the Henry laborer Jayne Associate Professor of Government, is a great teacher. In his course on the American presidency, Peterson has been rewarded with superb CUE Guide ratings from his students--as high as 4.6 on a five-point scale.

Peterson's lectures are lucid and insightfull. He is delightfully conversational and--unlike many Harvard professors--encourages student participation during lectures. His desire to get to know the students in his courses is best evinced by his frequent admonition to come to my office hours! He loves interacting with students and takes a genuine interest in what they have to say, whether it's an insight into the presidential race or an observation about life at Harvard.

And Peterson's commitment to undergraduates at Harvard has gone far beyond shooting the bull in his third-floor Littauer office and holding seminars in his Belmont home. From February 1987 to June 1990--a remarkably long tenure--he was the Head Tutor of the Government Department. In those three and a half years, the number of government concentrators increased 45 percent--the biggest boom the department has seen in decades. Peterson oversaw it all, and took an active role in restructuring the department.

In addition to his large personal investment in the department and his students, Peterson has established himself as a serious scholar of American government with his book Legislating Together: The White House and Capitol Hill From Eisenhower to Reagan, published in 1990. The book--which advances a new theory of presidential-congressional interactions--introduces a "tandem institutions" approach to understanding the two branches of Government. Using both statistical analyses and scores of in-depth interviews as evidence for his theory, Peterson forcefully rejects the popular "presidency-centered perspective" that views the president as the only real force in legislation and demonstrates how Congress and the president work together to make policy in the legislative arena.

Peterson is also author or co-author of numerous articles and papers on American government. His graduate work at Michigan earned him the 1986 E. E. Schattschneider Award of the American Political Science Association for the best dissertation in American government. And Peterson has begun a new study of the origins and politics of American national health care policy.

SO WHY was Peterson denied tenure? He seems a compelling candidate: an ideal mix of teaching and research, of concern for undergraduates and respect for scholarship. But there are several possible explanations for why his tenure bid was rejected.

First, although Peterson is surely a rising star in his field, he hasn't yet become a star. He's only in his thirties. He has written only one book. And although Peterson has established himself as an important scholar with great potential, he has not firmly established himself as one of the world's leading American political scientists.

He therefore may not satisfy Harvard's famous standard of tenuring only "the best in the world." The problem is that Harvard's conception of "best" means only "biggest name," and "most famous scholar"--not "best teacher" or "most dedicated professor." Good teaching paired with promising scholarship is just not good enough.

Harvard, it seems, likes to attract young scholars, give them an opportunity to shine in a junior faculty position with the temptation of tenure and then drop them--even the best of them--on the threshold. By the time a junior professor comes up for tenure, he or she is usually just starting to excel and develop a base of scholarship. Translation: no tenure. It's a frustrating policy, both for teachers and for students, but as Peterson told me, shrugging, "It's part of life at Harvard."

In the end, Harvard undoubtedly misses out on a lot of stars, because it hands the rising academics--like Mark Peterson--over to other colleges. Peterson is already interviewing for tenured positions at other universities. And although demand for professors across the country is at a lull during the recession, Peterson is a very attractive candidate. He'll get a good offer soon.

A SECOND possible reason for the Government Department's denial of tenure to Peterson can be found within the department itself. Many of the influential government professors--most notably Kenneth A. Shepsle and Morris P. Fiorina--subscribe to the "rational choice" theory of politics. This perspective, which holds that political choice can be explained by looking only to individual rational preferences, has a growing membership list within the senior faculty of Harvard's Government Department.

It's no secret that the department is home to a sort of Rational Choice Church: you're either a rationalist or you're not. You either accept the narrow rational-actor paradigm as the comprehensive framework for explaining everything about politics--as many tenured American government professors at Harvard happen to--or you see the model as useful but not the final word--as Mark Peterson and most other political scientists do.

Although its model of politics is far from Universally accepted outside Cambridge. Harvard's Rational Choice Church doesn't seem to like those who stray from its dogma. It's impossible to determine how much power the orthodox rationalists have over tenure decisions. But Peterson's tenure bid, it is safe to say, was not helped by his view of politics--a view that happens to be heretical in some of Littauer's plusher offices.

WHATEVER the reason for Mark Peterson's tenure denial, the bottom line is this: Harvard is losing a great teacher, scholar, and human being. Mark Peterson is leaving, perhaps not until after next year, a community to which he has made countless contributions over the past seven years. Students at another university--one that appreciates promising scholarship and values good teaching--will benefit from Harvard's mistake.