Planning Tenure

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Peter Lange's announcement that he will leave Harvard because he was not offered tenure should remind us of the problems recurrent in the tenure system. Discrimination, whether on the basis of race, sex, or political opinions, intra-departmental politics and just plain short-sightedness have robbed us all of many of the highest quality educators, especially in recent years.

In addition to Lange's articulate, thoughtful and open classroom style, his noted research work makes it clearly to Harvard's advantage, and to ours, to retain him as long as he wants to remain.

A first step toward preventing such a loss in the future would be open discourse among the University, faculty and students. Questions must be posed an answered to find out exactly why a Theda Skocpol, or a Molly Nolan, etc., was denied tenure. Otherwise our academic resources are limited for reasons that are kept from us.

After this initial step, perhaps a policy of more planning around open chairs and tenure considerations could be investigated, planning characterized by more flexibility than is suggested by the loss of Lange. The decisions that are being made each year in private departmental meetings will profoundly affect the quality of the University for decades to come. How many more Benny Wares, Skocpols, Langes, etc. must we lose before we know how these decisions are being made, and before we can alter the process? Philip Emmanuele '82