Harvard Has To Stop Pushing Out Its Best Teachers

Why should our best teaching talent be allowed to walk?

For many faculty, the choice is not their own — depending on the position, Harvard prevents non-tenure track faculty from staying beyond two, three, or eight years. We have reservations about abolishing these time caps outright, as the newly recognized non-tenure-track faculty union is now seeking to do. But a policy so inflexible that it slams the door on some of Harvard’s most talented instructors does students a grave disservice.

Non-tenure track faculty — often hired for instructional roles and always with the understanding that they will never be granted a permanent position — are immensely valuable to the undergraduate experience.

Students interact meaningfully and frequently with non-tenure track faculty — in many cases, about as much as tenured professors. Many of us have had some of our best learning experiences with lecturers, tutors, or preceptors. Former associate Mathematics lecturer Dusty E. Grundmeier, for example, became something of a campus darling for his above-and-beyond efforts to get to know his students as people and help them learn.

Because many of us have been lucky to have non-tenure-track faculty like Dusty — and because we believe in the importance of unions to ensuring the rights of workers — we enthusiastically supported their efforts to unionize last year as Harvard Academic Workers-United Auto Workers.

Now, as HAW-UAW bargains for its first contract, we hear its points about time caps. They are something of a strange policy. But we’re inclined to heed the words of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences committee that reviewed it in 2009 and recommended against change, finding that the churn of the existing system “brings in fresh ideas, new talent, and the most recent pedagogical techniques.”

While we’re hesitant to call for Harvard to abolish time caps altogether, one thing is obvious: The very best of the non-tenure-track faculty must be able to stay. Not a small fraction of undergraduates would say that their single best teaching experience has been with a non-tenure-track faculty member. If Harvard is really committed to undergraduate learning, it must find a way to keep those instructors who are a cut above the rest.

Departments should be able to nominate exceptional non-tenure-track faculty to be reviewed for a long-term or indefinite contract. Such an approach would work best in the case of faculty in eight-year positions, who have the opportunity to demonstrate excellence over a significant period of time. In truly exceptional circumstances, however, faculty on shorter-term contracts could receive consideration.

It should go without saying that Harvard should be committed to the professional development of non-tenure track faculty. Still, our proposed amendment offers an additional carrot — it makes good business sense to cultivate top talent if you can keep them for the long term.

When the best and brightest of the best and brightest come to Harvard, we shouldn’t let them walk away on a technicality. By revising the rigid time cap policy to allow room for exceptional cases, we can both honor the dedication of our non-tenure-track faculty and enrich the undergraduate educational experience.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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