Commitment

FACULTY MEMBERS HERE tend to be sensitive about the conditions the University puts on their employment, and rightly so. Most correctly perceive their tenured positions as trusts, and few seem to abuse their privileged posts by undertaking overly demanding outside commitments.

But the recent proliferation of tempting consulting offers--and, in some cases, of management posts in outside companies--makes the specter of divided loyalties and energies on the parts of professors increasingly likely. The Faculty Council is to be commended for acting last week to dissuade professors from succumbing to the temptation of lucrative work elsewhere. The stiff new codes governing outside work recently approved by the council leave no doubt that a professor's overriding commitment should be to the University. In requiring professors to disclose all "potentially serious" conflicts to a new committee, the council will doubtless inspire many professors to report their outside involvements and seek the new committee's advice. That alone would represent a commendable change; under existing guidelines that only "encourage" consultation with University officials, virtually no professors have disclosed their extracurricular activities.

But the proposed new guidelines represent a change for the better in a far more important sense. Harvard, for the first time, would stress more than traditional financial conflicts of interest. The new codes would explicity require disclosure of any activity that could impose considerable demands on a professor's University time or energy.

That, as any undergraduate who has ever had to scramble for a professor's scarce time on campus will tell you, is a considerable victory. So is the fact that, for the first time, the University has put on paper the "one-day-a-week" limit governing outside commitments that has operated as University common law for years.

The council deliberately left disclosure of outside commitments up to the individual. That move reflects confidence that Faculty members will comply with the new regulations; we share that faith. The council also stressed that information professors report would be kept confidential; this, too, rightly shows respect for privacy. And in refusing to empower the new "Extramural Activities Committee" to do more than suggest that overburdened professors cut back on their second jobs, the council displayed proper confidence that moral suasion--not edicts--will persuade professors to keep their loyalties here. We urge all Faculty members to abide by the new codes--and to let their actions show clearly that their allegiances remain with Harvard.