Sociology Professor Denied Tenure

Sociology Professor Jason A. Kaufman ’93 was denied tenure last week, thwarting his department’s first attempt to nominate a junior faculty member in over a decade and threatening to leave Harvard without one of its most popular sociologists as early as next year.

The sociology department announced the decision in an e-mail to its graduate students on Tuesday, blaming interim University President Derek C. Bok for rejecting Kaufman. “Unfortunately [Bok] disagreed with the department’s recommendation and did not approve the appointment,” Department Chair Robert J. Sampson and acting Department Chair Mary C. Waters wrote.

Kaufman, the Loeb associate professor of the social sciences, was submitted for a tenure position by the sociology department in October 2005. Ordinarily the recommendation would have been reviewed within an academic year by an ad hoc committee composed of both Harvard professors outside the candidate’s department and professors from universities around the country within the same discipline. Instead the committee, presided over by Bok, met this March—postponing the decision whether to grant Kaufman tenure by nearly one year.

“Normally the tenure process takes an academic year and that mine was exceedingly long was unusually stressful for me and my family,” Kaufman said, adding that he was informed of the decision last Friday evening by Sampson, who is on leave this spring.

Kaufman said he was not told why his tenure appointment was not approved, but that he was under the impression that it was Bok’s decision to deny him tenure, with the advice of the ad hoc committee.

“Harvard is unusual in the degree to which official departmental recommendations can be overturned by the university authorities,” Kaufman said.

Last April, when Kaufman’s tenure case was still pending, then-University President Lawrence H. Summers told The Crimson that he rejected about one in 10 tenure cases submitted to his office.

Bok declined to comment on the situation, writing in an e-mailed statement that “repeating in public the reasons for not coming to a favorable conclusion would be unpleasant for the candidate and unfair to those participating in the proceeding who testified and deliberated in confidence.”

Kaufman is currently teaching Sociology 153, “Media and the American Mind,” with 48 students enrolled. He said that he may not stay at Harvard next year despite the fact that his contract lasts through the 2007-2008 academic year.

Jason W. A. Gabler, a lecturer in the sociology department who worked with Kaufman as a teaching fellow for Sociology 153, wrote in an e-mailed statement that he was disappointed with the University’s decision.

“Prof. Kaufman has been an exceptional mentor to me and to other students,” said Gabler, who was advised by Kaufman as a graduate student. “Many students have said that it’s the most memorable course they took at Harvard.”

Mary C. Brinton, Reischauer Institute professor of sociology, said the denial of tenure was disappointing, but that it is a reality of life at Harvard.

“I don’t think it means that it is getting harder to get tenure at Harvard and I don’t think it is representative of any larger trend or event,” Brinton said. “We put his name forward and we don’t do that unless we think the person has a very strong chance, but we know it is not a guaranteed thing.”

—Staff writer Alexandra Hiatt can be reached at ahiatt@fas.harvard.edu.