English Dept. To Lose Three Junior Profs

Attrition in the English department will continue next year as three more junior faculty members have announced plans to depart.

Associate Professor Barbara Claire Freeman and Assistant Professors Shannon Jackson and Nicholas Jenkins have said they will not return to Harvard next year. In addition, Cowles Associate Professor in the Humanities Jeffrey A. Masten, who was denied tenure last December, will take up a position at Northwestern University.

Jackson will be joining the faculty at the University of California at Berkeley and Jenkins will go to Stanford University. Freeman is leaving Harvard because her contract will expire.

The Department of English and American Literature and Language has come under recent criticism for failing to grant tenure to junior faculty members.

The four departing junior faculty members this year join at least five untenured English professors who have left in the last several years, including three last year.

"As a young assistant professor, most people feel they don't have a long-term future," said Jenkins, whose new job at Stanford is tenure-track.

"People do realize that their time here is likely to be limited," he said. "The job market is tough and you have to take a good offer when it comes up."

Leo Damrosch, Bernbaum Professor of Literature and chair of the English department, said tenure considerations were largely responsible for many of the recent departures.

"It's pure and simple--Harvard is one of the few places where it's almost impossible to get tenure," he said.

The four departures combined with a number of planned academic leaves of absence will mean only a small number of junior faculty members will be teaching in the English department next year, according to Damrosch.

"It's a problem because you want to have a good blend of new people, new approaches," Jenkins said. "You're missing a generation without junior faculty."

Damrosch said his department is "absolutely" losing out with next year's departures, calling the three professors "wonderful people. He said the "diminished number" of junior faculty teaching next year may translate to fewer course offerings, but he added the drop in the number of courses offered would not be enough to be "disastrous." Masten said the Harvard English department is facing trouble.

"The evidence is pretty unambiguous: there are problems retaining and recruiting [junior faculty members]," Masten said. "Everyone knows the track record for tenure-from-within is dismal, almost non-existent," he said.

Jenkins and Masten both said junior faculty members are tending to leave sooner than they once did. Jenkins will onlyhave spent two years at Harvard.

Damrosch said the reluctance to promote juniorfaculty members to tenure-status could poseproblems in "retaining faculty members but not somuch in recruiting them."

Damrosch stressed the department has longdeclined to grant tenure to most junior facultymembers. Years ago, he said, junior facultymembers denied tenure at Harvard had a betterchance of finding a job elsewhere, a situationwhich no longer exists due to the shrinkingacademic job market.

"People have come to Harvard for the last 50years not expecting to get tenure," he said.

"There's more anxiety about tenure than thereused to be--people used to say, `After my years atHarvard, I'll land on my feet,' but now if theyhave another option, they'll take that otheroption," he said.

Jenkins said he did not harbor bad feelingstowards Harvard, but was pleased to be joiningStanford's faculty.

"I'm leaving to join a great department whichI'm very excited about," he said. "Stanford hasstrong emphasis on poetry, which is my field."

Damrosch said the department wrote strongrecommendations for Jackson, Jenkins and Masten.

Terry Castle, chair of the English departmentat Stanford, said Jenkins' appointment was"definitely a loss to Harvard."

"He's going to add a lot to our department,"she said.

Castle said, however, that the Englishdepartment at Harvard was not in any jeopardy.

"Harvard is one of the great, great Englishdepartments and will always be, despite itsunwillingness to promote from junior ranks," shesaid. "The job market is so abominable that justabout any junior person today would be delightedto take a job at Harvard.

Damrosch said the reluctance to promote juniorfaculty members to tenure-status could poseproblems in "retaining faculty members but not somuch in recruiting them."

Damrosch stressed the department has longdeclined to grant tenure to most junior facultymembers. Years ago, he said, junior facultymembers denied tenure at Harvard had a betterchance of finding a job elsewhere, a situationwhich no longer exists due to the shrinkingacademic job market.

"People have come to Harvard for the last 50years not expecting to get tenure," he said.

"There's more anxiety about tenure than thereused to be--people used to say, `After my years atHarvard, I'll land on my feet,' but now if theyhave another option, they'll take that otheroption," he said.

Jenkins said he did not harbor bad feelingstowards Harvard, but was pleased to be joiningStanford's faculty.

"I'm leaving to join a great department whichI'm very excited about," he said. "Stanford hasstrong emphasis on poetry, which is my field."

Damrosch said the department wrote strongrecommendations for Jackson, Jenkins and Masten.

Terry Castle, chair of the English departmentat Stanford, said Jenkins' appointment was"definitely a loss to Harvard."

"He's going to add a lot to our department,"she said.

Castle said, however, that the Englishdepartment at Harvard was not in any jeopardy.

"Harvard is one of the great, great Englishdepartments and will always be, despite itsunwillingness to promote from junior ranks," shesaid. "The job market is so abominable that justabout any junior person today would be delightedto take a job at Harvard.