TALKING TURKEY

Last Tuesday's meeting of the Faculty saw the first constructive action to emerge from the biweekly storm-sessions which are rapidly becoming a Harvard institution. More than that, it saw a triumph of a principle proclaimed since the beginning of the controversy by critics of the Administration's tenure policies. The Faculty's resolution--cautious and ambiguous though its terminology may have been--constituted an official sanction of the system of frozen associate professorships.

The Administration may counter that it has in the past recognized this necessity of creating frozen associate professorships when "exceptional circumstances" warranted. It's interpretation, of course, limited "exceptional circumstances" to cases where men had been retained on the faculty so long that any sensible or humane criteria dictated their permanent appointment on the grounds of "commitment." Obviously the spirit of the Faculty resolution goes leagues beyond this concept. The Faculty was training its sights on flexibility: on the use of frozen associate professorships to corral capable men whose appointments come up at times when the ordinary quota would require that they be sent packing.

Enough machinery has now been projected to set the whole tenure business in smooth-running order. Frozen associates have been accepted in the official vocabulary. In addition, a system of loaning and borrowing professorships among departments--a substitute for the President's Fund--is being worked out. These two plans supply ample basis for a great deal of flexibility in Harvard's promotion scheme. It now remains to be seen, however, to what use the Administration will put its new weapons. The true test will be the results of the appointment negotiations which are now taking place between individual departments and the Administration.

The first reasonable use of the new-found flexibility would be the reappointment of a few of the assistant professors who were officially handed their walking papers last spring. The double-edged case for them has often been stated: that they have proven their abilities as teachers and scholars, and that they are urgently needed by their departments at the present time. In the final analysis, flexibility should exist for no other reason than to provide a solution when one or both of these two situations exist. Whether or not the Administration will admit this remains to be seen in its actions.