Rudenstine Discusses HLS Appointments

President Neil L. Rudenstine yesterday argued against student representation on the Harvard Law School faculty appointments committee, while acknowledging that a "bottled up" tenure process may have limited the number of women and minority professors recently appointed there.

Adding his voice to a debate that has grown heated over the past weeks, Rudenstine said it is not the proper role of students to judge the scholarship of prospective professors.

Last week, students at the Law School asked Dean Robert C. Clark for representation on the committee that recommends scholars for tenure. Some faculty members expressed support for the students at an open meeting last week at the Law School.

But at a student press conference yesterday, Rudenstine said, "My general view of tenure committees is that they are faculty committees."

The president said that while students can be helpful in evaluating a candidate's teaching ability, assessing a prospective faculty member's scholarship is best left to professors.

"The hardest thing for students to evaluate is scholarship and specific fields and standing within specific fields," Rudenstine said.

Rudenstine said faculty members are more accountable for their tenure choices than students would be.

"The faculty members who make the appointment must live with that colleague," he said, adding that it takes several years of experience on an appointments committee to learn how to evaluate tenure candidates.

"I think it's a question of role, and people I guess see the role differently," Rudenstine said.

Rudenstine also praised the Law School faculty, which has been torn apart by a fierce political battle between critical legal studies scholars and their conservative opponents.

He said that he sees a limited truce emerging.

"I think there's been a fair amount of coming together recently in the faculty ranks, in the sense that they may have their differences, but that it's more important to try to figure out where the common ground lies," Rudenstine said.

Rudenstine acknowledged, however, that the political battle may have blocked appointments in the past. He said there have been very few tenureappointments at all at the Law School recently.

"The system of making appointments has been insome sense bottled up," Rudenstine said. "That mayhave hurt diversity."

Also yesterday, Rudenstine said he expects thecollege's tuition and fees to rise between six andseven percent for the next academic year

"The system of making appointments has been insome sense bottled up," Rudenstine said. "That mayhave hurt diversity."

Also yesterday, Rudenstine said he expects thecollege's tuition and fees to rise between six andseven percent for the next academic year