Standing Room Only

A member of Harvard's junior faculty drinks a cup of coffee and sighs. He has earned three Harvard degrees--A.B., A.M., Ph.D.--yet this year he is dividing his time between a half-time teaching position at Harvard and at a small women's college, where he receives under $4000 for preparing two lecture courses and a seminar. Last year he sent applications all over the country for jobs in his or related fields. In his specialty, perhaps three positions opened up; he did not get a job. Employment prospects for next year look equally grim, and his one viable offer is a position as researcher for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Not every junior faculty member at Harvard contemplates such bleak prospects. Yet almost every assistant professor here shares anxiety over an increasingly tight academic job market, the tug of war between teaching and research, and the driving need to publish, to gain prominence in his chosen field. The post of junior faculty member itself is something of an anomaly. Not yet established in the profession, the assistant professor stands below the senior faculty in status and in age. But he outranks the graduate student in intellectual achievement and position. As one assistant professor puts it. "Junior faculty are in an intellectual achievement and emotional vacuum here." Poised uneasily between two extremes, the junior faculty member must carve out a place of his own at Harvard.

Despite the ambiguous status of the assistant professor at Harvard, most candidates are eager to accept a position here. "Harvard is an incredibly attractive environment, offering a superior library, intellectual climate and students," one junior faculty member in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature says. Harvard junior faculty members receive a fairly light teaching load, a sabbatical to do research for a year at half salary or six months with full pay, and an opportunity to exploit the University's astounding research resources. In theory, then, most junior faculty should be able to view their years at Harvard as exciting and rewarding.

Yet many do not. While no one disputes Harvard's opportunities and while few complain of overt ill treatment, many Harvard assistant professors cite barriers to a fulfilling experience including treatment varying among departments, frustrations of the bleak tenure prospects and the struggle to research adequately and teach at the same time.

As many graduate students have found, different departments have distinct philosophies, characters and budgets. "Junior faculty in different departments are treated very differently," one assistant professor in Government says. Some receive office space, telephones, and efficient secretaries to field their calls, Some are invited to attend departmental meetings while others are discouraged, and some receive much more monetary help with research than others, he says.

Scientists have a better chance than non-scientists to obtain outside funds for their research, and so do not face the same financial or career difficulties of assistant professors in the humanities and social sciences. Within these fields, however, status differences persist. The department of Sociology invites junior faculty to all departmental meetings and asks them to serve on a number of departmental committees; the Committee on History and Literature has separate meetings for the Board of Tutors (including graduate students and junior faculty), and the meetings of the senior faculty affiliated with the concentration. Teaching assignments may also vary somewhat, often depending on the number of introductory courses a department offers. In departments with a greater need for personnel to teach basic courses, many junior faculty cannot spend as much time teaching in their specialized area of interest.

Finances vary as well, according to the funds available to departments from outside sources. Assistant professors of Government may receive up to about $1000 to aid research projects. No such discretionary funds exist in the departments of English and Romance Languages and Literatures, for example. Donald A. Stone, chairman of the department of Romance Languages and Literature, says, "The most I have been able to do for my junior faculty is to get them travel money when they present papers at national academic conferences." English junior faculty may apply to the National Endowment for the Humanities to get money for their research, but the grants are fairly competitive, David D. Perkins, chairman of the Department of English, says.

Much more disturbing to most junior faculty than the irritations of differential treatment, however, is the fact that most have absolutely no chance of receiving a tenure position at Harvard. The percentage of junior faculty Harvard has tenured over the last century gauges as well as any figures the flooding of the academic market with well-trained scholars. Bruce Collier, special assistant to Dean Rosovsky, outlines the facts: In the early part of the century, Harvard granted tenure to over 50 per cent of its junior faculty. In the early 60s, about 20 per cent of the in-house faculty received tenure. Over the past five years, less than 6 per cent.

In some departments the figure is even lower.

Part of the explanation for Harvard's low promotion rate lies in the University's tenure philosophy. Harvard views itself as the greatest research university, and therefore grants tenured positions only to professors considered the outstanding scholars in their field. "It's a star system--the point is to scour the world for the best," one assistant professor says. David H. Donald, Warren Professor of American History, agrees and sketches a vision of Harvard as the undisputed leader of scholarship. "This is, or ought to be, the great university in the country--if we had the best people in the field in the world."

Grandiose, perhaps, but Harvard's tenure proceedings reflect that hope. An ad hoc committee, composed of President Bok, Dean Rosovsky, and a group of prominent scholars unaffiliated with Harvard, decide on the tenure appointments, ensuring the recipient of a tenured post will be widely known in his or her field. However, some people are beginning to doubt that Harvard can continue to attract the best scholars.

One of the stumbling blocks, surprisingly enough in this well-endowed university, is money. Harvard professors' salaries are by no means the highest in the country. "This place isn't the inevitable talent market it used to be--other universities are much richer and can pay more than Harvard. The City University of New York has one endowed chair of $100,000--Harvard would never offer that much," an assistant professor says. "We just can't compete financially," agrees Donald.

Others believe the harshness of the tenure system itself drives talent away. Peter A. Dale, assistant professor of English, argues that the near-certainty of tenure denial at Harvard, given the scarce job market around the country for academics, will begin to dissuade the most talented young scholars from choosing to come to Harvard if they have the choice in a tenure track position at another university. "If one had a viable offer elsewhere, it would be foolish to come here," Dale says, adding, "Other universities of lesser stature can lure the best professors away, because they can say what no responsible person at Harvard can say--'we could hire you.'" Other professors disagree with Dale's prophesy, believing that Harvard's prestige and research facilities will continue to draw the finest talent, but all agree the dim tenure future will force candidates to make a much tougher evaluation of the risks and benefits of accepting an assistant professorship at Harvard.

Others express concern that the star system skews the age distribution of senior faculty and overlooks young, potentially brilliant scholars. "The procedures prescribed by Harvard for making tenure appointments worry me for this reason--they may be somewhat slanted against younger people. In my field of English, the younger a person is, the less likely he is heard of outside the university. There might be the greatest Wunderkind in the world and we might know that but outside people won't Perkins says.

Beyond criticism of the structure of the tenure process, some junior and senior faculty question the criteria for granting tenure. These faculty believe the "publish or perish" syndrome erodes the morale of assistant professors and may affect the quality of the research itself. Even if a junior faculty member has a shelf full of his own books, reputation may not follow immediately. "In recent years, it has become apparent to all junior faculty that it doesn't matter how much they publish, the choice lies outside of department hands--it's simply impossible to publish enough by age 35 to be one of the top ten in the field," Dale says.

He argues that this realization frustrates junior faculty and causes some senior faculty to engage in what he calls "ostrich-ism"--faculty who do not want to recognize the extent of the problem. Another junior faculty member agrees, "Many senior faculty feel guilty because they can't place people as easily as they used to. So if they can't, they avoid the issue." David Gordon Mitten, Loeb Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, points to another fallacy in the publications game. "Research has been so overemphasized here that much of it is half-baked and not of primary quality because there exists so much stress on quantity," he says.

But the true victim of the publications race, many argue, is the undergraduate. Junior faculty cannot afford to devote too much time to teaching, because every hour spent teaching is an hour lost to research. And despite pronouncements that tenure appointments will take teaching into account, junior faculty know any effort they put into teaching must be for its intrinsic rewards, for it will not sway tenure decisions. "Administrators just pay teaching lip-service--publications count ten times as much, and it effects undergraduate education. Harvard students are neglected students, talented, interesting people who often have never talked to a member of the Harvard faculty, and that's a very bad situation," one junior faculty member in Germanic Languages and Literatures says.

Mitten adds, "Anything that will lead people to become more involved in teaching is a good thing. Mechanisms are needed whereby excellence in teaching is considered in tenure appointments." Donald also notes the isolation of many undergraduates from faculty contact. "I worry about the invisible students in this community," he says, and points to universities such as Princeton, Johns Hopkins or Yale that retain research stature while placing more emphasis on undergraduate teaching.

Donald suggests one solution, admittedly an idealistic proposal. Why not spend a portion of the University endowment to hire many more junior faculty, with no guarantee of tenure, to staff an increased number of seminars and small courses? Because Donald favors the star system of tenure, he does advocate offering tenure to many of these junior faculty but rather urges the intellectual and social integration of the assistant professor in to the life of the Harvard community. "Junior faculty ought to be treated very well and made socially and intellectually a part of the community. The prestige of Harvard will give him a leg up on jobs elsewhere, and one shouldn't forget it's possible to be exceedingly happy at universities west of the Hudson River," Donald says.

Mitten suggests the possibility of setting up different tenure tracks, one for teaching and one for research. Perkins also favors altering the tenure process slightly to allow department chairmen to vote on the ad hoc committee instead of furnishing the committee with a written position paper and appearing for testimony. In this way, the chairmen would be able to prompt consideration of some of the younger talent.

Whatever the answer, most faculty agree potential assistant professors must receive a very clear description of the limits of the appointment. Peter W. Stanley, assistant professor of History, says, "The tenure problem would be easier if it is clear what the 'options are--if it is a dead end street, the rewards for coming here must be built into the system." Perkins also emphasizes the necessity of honesty about the potential frustrations of the post. "No university that's any good at all is going to promise tenure to a beginning assistant professor, but they should tell him or her frankly whether the post could lead to tenure," he says. Prospective junior faculty should understand that Harvard's biggest neglect of the undergraduate may frustrate any teaching efforts and that Harvard's tenure policy offers junior faculty scant hope of attaining senior rank.

While a clearer job description may help to forestall illusions on the part of Harvard's junior faculty, honesty about the University's limitations does not solve the more fundamental problems of the job market, the publication mania and the resulting laissez-faire attitude toward undergraduate education. Although few would advocate that the University turn away from its search for the best and the brightest, some believe Harvard's educational reputation demands a reassessment of these anomalies. At least one junior faculty member, however, doubts Harvard's willingness to face this challenge. He says, "To change the situation, you need a coordinated, articulate and thoughtful student demand, and agreement at the very top decision-making levels of the University that reforms need to be made. I am not optimistic."