Vouching for Vaux

Bert Vaux is wasting his time appealing to students in his quest for tenure.

Three weeks ago, in a long and detailed e-mail distributed widely among students, Vaux complained that the linguistics department was not justified in its intent to deny him a tenure review. He argued that the department violated procedure by failing to notify him sooner, when he was first promoted to associate professor. He went on to make a case on the merits of his scholarship, ending with a plea for sympathetic students to come to his aid.

If any professor can rally students to his cause, it’s Vaux. As an incoming first-year, I received an invitation from Vaux for a one-on-one meeting simply because I had listed linguistics on an admissions form, along with a half-dozen other interests. His core offering, Social Analysis 34, “Knowledge of Language,” has been my favorite class so far. Considering that almost 400 students were enrolled with me last year, it’s clear that he would be missed.

But tenure has nothing to do with teaching skills, approachability or concern for undergrads, and Vaux would better serve his cause by focusing on his scholarship. He’s a well-respected linguist with a strong publishing record, and he need not make the standard appeals of the popular-but-undistinguished professor.

Despite Vaux’s achievements, however, Vaux says the linguistics department senior Faculty have decided that they don’t need a linguist of Vaux’s specialty. Vaux contends that phonology, his specialty, is essential to the development of linguistics as a whole, and that these same senior Faculty are not familiar enough with the subject to judge its importance.

But for all of Harvard’s abundance, the University is not an infinite resource, and it can’t employ a professor to pursue every branch and sub-branch of Veritas. Some pruning of the tree is unavoidable. A debate over the merits of Vaux’s field should be left to the experts, both here and at other institutions. Insofar as students are qualified to judge his candidacy—in his performance as an instructor inside and outside of the classroom—he’s preaching to the choir.

There should still be a way for Vaux to spend his career at Harvard, even if he doesn’t become a tenured full professor. Although it is not unreasonable for Harvard to preserve the designation of senior Faculty for the best and the brightest—in fields it considers most important—we should do all we can to keep teachers and researchers of his caliber in Cambridge.

The department should offer Vaux a tenured position as an associate professor, which would allow him to continue to stay on without the term limits typically imposed at the associate level. Whether or not Vaux would accept such a position is uncertain, but it’s the least Harvard can do to keep him here. I must admit, I’m not sure why Vaux would want to be a member of a department where he feels so under-appreciated.

Should he depart, I hope he finds an institution more supportive of his specialty. It will be our loss, and his gain.