Give Junior Faculty a Fair Chance

Associate Professor Jason A. Kaufman ’93, a popular teacher and well known scholar, is held in such high esteem by his colleagues that in 2005 he became the first junior faculty member to be nominated for tenure by the Sociology Department in more than a decade. It turns out that that’s not enough at Harvard, which rejected his application last month. Another star, Associate Professor of Japanese History Mikael S. Adolphson, recently met the same fate. These two are only the latest in a long string of highly qualified junior faculty members who were unable to meet the inordinately exacting standards of Harvard’s tenure review process.

Harvard is famous for sending away even the most promising junior faculty to make their names elsewhere, and then occasionally bringing them back after they’ve won their Pulitzer Prizes or Fields Medals. While the tenure process is shrouded in mystery and data is hard to come by, it is generally accepted that Harvard presents formidable institutional obstacles for any junior faculty member hoping to become a full tenured professor, in addition to being one of the only universities in the nation that does not offer tenured associate professorships.

Harvard tends to be relatively unconcerned with in-house promotion since it knows that it can attract older, already established names. This is compounded by the tenure system, which gives tremendous power to experts from outside of Harvard who serve on ad hoc committees, write letters comparing potential appointees, and who know more about citation counts than a professor’s reputation within a department. Furthermore, once a candidate passes the first round of vetting, there are secondary and even tertiary stages in the process that give effective veto power to so many parties that getting tenure becomes all but a crapshoot for even the most accomplished scholars.

Harvard’s antipathy towards awarding tenure to junior faculty, especially internal junior faculty, is flawed. While Harvard’s professors should be the cream of the crop, its tenure process should be more geared to finding rising stars who will do their best work at Harvard, instead of those who have peaked before they arrive. In addition to being outstanding researchers, these young junior faculty members are in many cases Harvard’s most popular, approachable, and dedicated teachers, which is why undergraduates and graduate students alike are so upset when top candidates are denied tenure. Harvard’s reluctance to tenure junior professors sends these top notch teachers away and deters young, enterprising academics from coming to Harvard. In addition to facing meager tenure prospects, Harvard junior faculty tend to be underpaid compared to nationwide averages, particularly in the social and physical sciences.

While some of Harvard’s antipathy towards junior professors stems from systemic flaws, most of Harvard’s problems arise from a misguided institutional attitude towards junior faculty. Other schools also use committees of outside experts in the tenure process but do not have Harvard’s notorious reputation. Harvard’s upper echelon of professors and administrators must make a conscious effort to put a greater weight on teaching ability and to consciously reach out to junior faculty.

There is also the simple problem of space. There are a limited number of tenured professorships, many of which are held by aging faculty who remain in place indefinitely. Harvard might consider a solution in place at a variety of other schools—a mandatory retirement age, after which professors would become emeritus professors. Such a measure would not only free up slots for junior professors, but would also dilute the influence of old guard professors who cling to the notion that junior professors must leave Harvard before securing tenure.

While former University President Lawrence H. Summers claimed that tenure reform was a high priority so that Harvard could get a younger, more dynamic faculty, it is unclear whether the system is working any differently. Harvard needs to make it a priority to give junior faculty members a fair chance at getting tenure instead of making tenure an unattainable dream for most of its junior faculty.