Department Reaffirms Tenure Nomination

The English Department last week reaffirmed its tenure nomination of a former associate professor whose bid for a permanent post bogged down after he failed to win a strong endorsment from a panel of scholars assembled from other universities.

The unusual second vote came five months after an ad hoc committee of experts convened to advise President Derek C. Bok differed with the department's initial recommendation to tenure the former associate professor, Robert N. Watson.

Bok, who has final say over tenure appointments, has not yet announced his decision. Watson left Harvard for a permanent post at UCLA before the academic year began.

In interviews during the past two days, senior members of the English Department said that they went ahead with the second vote to indicate formally their continued support for the Shakespearean scholar, but did not expect the vote to influence Bok's decision.

Administrators and department members have said that Bok has made clear privately that, lacking new evidence, he would deny the tenure bid. Because the English Department affirmed its original endorsement and did not provide the president new reasons for tenuring Watson, they said that the former associate professor's case will not get additional consideration.

"I assume this resolution means that the department does not intend to advance a new argument based on evidence not available to the previous ad hoc committee," said one ranking administrator who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The department simply reaffirmed its faith in Watson," said Gurney Professor of English Literature Jerome H. Buckley. "Having reviewed objections that some people from outside--the ad hoc committee and so forth--had to the appointment, the department decided to reaffirm its endorsement," he said.

"I don't think the department wants to reinstitute an ad hoc committee or anything," Buckley said.

The department's initial endorsement of Watson was unanimous, department members said. In the second, less formal vote, Professor of English Marjorie Garber withheld support from Watson, according to her colleagues, several of whom asked not to be identified.

English Department members have alleged that the ad hoc committee that reviewed Watson held the 33-year-old academic to standards of scholarly output and reputation unrealistic for one so young.

Bok's failure so far to make a final decision on Watson was based primarily on the strength of the ad hoc committee's objections, department members say.

"We just wanted to say that we were right and [the ad hoc committee members] were wrong," Lowell Professor of the Humanities William Alfred said of the department's vote.

Watson's case became a matter of wide discussion after Professor of English and Comparative Literature Walter J. Kaiser '54 condemned Bok's handling of the case in front of members of Literature and Arts A-40a,"Shakespeare." Kaiser was to teach the course withWatson.

Kaiser told about 500 students in the classthat Bok "has effectively repudiated" a recentlyannounced Faculty initiative to tenure moreHarvard junior professors.

Together with the tenure denial of DunwalkeAssociate Professor of American History AlanBrinkely, Watson's case has been seen as a setbackfor the plan, put forth last spring by Dean of theFaculty of Arts and Sciences A. Michael Spence.

Administrators have said it is too early tojudge the plan that aims to reduce theUniversity's reliance on established scholarslured from other schools. Bok and Spence haverefused to discuss either tenure bid.

Between 10 and 12 professors were present forthe second vote on Watson, which took place at ameeting last Thursday, Buckley said. Alfred saidother senior members of the department cast votesbefore the meeting.

Garber, who like Watson is a Shakespeareanscholar, declined to discuss the department'saction. "This is confidential information and I'mdisturbed that it has been passed on in whateverform," she said.

Department members said that they discussedwhat they believed to be the ad hoc committee'sobjections, summaries of letters from scholarsthat Spence solicited after their first vote, andrecent reviews of Watson's first book,"Shakespeare and the Hazards of Ambition."

Three of the letters were favorable to Watsonand one was not, department members said. Inaddition two "mostly negative letters" that thedepartment had requested before its first votewere considered, Kaiser said.

One of the reviews of Watson's book, whichappeared in a recent issue of the journalBibliotheque de Humanisme et Renaissance stated inpart: "If this book doesn't get [Watson] promotionto full professor at Harvard then the Big Booktheory of academic promotion is less reliable thanany of us--even those of us who reached the summitby piling little books one on top of another--haveever believed."

English Department Chairman and BernbaumProfessor of Literature Joel Porte declined toelaborate on the department vote.

Porte said he would "chastize" departmentmembers who spoke to The Crimson.

"This type of rumor-mongering by members of thedepartment, this kind of an attempt to manipulatepublic opinion constitutes a most serious breachof trust," Porte said.WALTER J. KAISER '54