Tenure in the Stars

When Professor of Astronomy Alyssa Goodman received tenure, she laughingly claimed it was a "clerical error." It is easy to understand why--the Astronomy Department has tenured only three of its junior faculty members in the last 25 years. Twenty other junior faculty members have left the department to take tenured positions at prestigious universities like Princeton and MIT. One has become an Exxon executive; another has an institute named after him.

In another case, one of the most prestigious members of the astronomy department's faculty, Margaret J. Geller, has not even been tenured, even though she was elected to the national Academy of Science (one of only two women at Harvard with this honor), won a MacArthur "genius grant," serves as the director of the telescope data center under the direction of the Smithsonian and has been offered the title of Mallinckrodt chair (not including tenure), a distinguished title usually only bestowed upon tenured professors.

This hesitancy to tenure clearly stellar candidates has served to cast doubt upon the department's tenure practices. While Harvard has traditionally tenured a much lower percentage of its junior faculty than other Ivy League schools, the Astronomy Department has shocked an oversight committee because of the quality of junior faculty it has let go.

The report released by the committee last fall highlighted what many people see wrong with the tenure process: that it is too subjective and highly based on personal politics--in short, that it is a confusing and arcane method which does not always select the best candidates for tenure. The very fact that Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles characterized the dispute over Geller's tenure as "a personal issue" shows how biased the process truly is.

While the Astronomy Department is clearly divided over the issue of Geller's tenure, the chair of the visiting committee said that even in less contentious tenure debates the tenure process was inconsistent and compromised the department's ability to hire the best faculty. Clearly Harvard must do better in its tenure process.

It must allow tenure choices to be open to scrutiny so that they are not unduly influenced by personality conflicts instead of being based on quality of work and teaching ability. While tenure is important in order to guarantee academic freedom and job security to professors, it should not become just another "club" to which members are denied access at random.

But Goodman's appointment has been seen as an indication that the Astronomy Department may be changing its practices, perhaps because of the visiting committee's report. If this is true, it shows that oversight and scrutiny in the tenure process are vital factors in making sure departments tenure fairly and on merit.

The Astronomy Department is just one of the many departments who have seen tenure disputes escalate into all-out wars in recent years. Diligent oversight committees may serve as a catalyst for change. Such as catalyst is necessary if students are to benefit from having the best senior faculty Harvard can hire.