Tenure Process Not Uniform Across Fields

Professors say that the problem of demonstrating that a candidate is the top figure in the field is compounded in the humanities and some social sciences because of lack of quantifiable measurements.

"The track record suggests that it's much harder to get tenure from within English than in some other Harvard departments," says Cowles Associate Professor in the Humanities Jeffrey Masten.

"Everyone acknowledges that it's much easier in some fields, e.g. physics or mathematics, to get consensus within a discipline about the `best' people," says Leo Damrosch, chair of the English department. "Literary studies in particular are subjective by their very nature, and all the ad hoc committee can do is to offer a representative evaluation."

Leaving the bulk of the decision up to an ad hoc committee in fields that lack concrete yardsticks is particularly problematic, professors say.

"The weakness of the tenure system is that it pays too much attention to the opinion of the profession, which mostly consists of letters from people who are not good enough to be at Harvard," says Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. '53, Kenan professor of government.

However, Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles insists that although it may seem more difficult to define "the best" in a certain field, the tenure process is uniform through and through.

"The tenure process is exactly the same across the humanities, social sciences and sciences. Even if different disciplines have slightly different habits--in some fields the letters are longer, in some fields the `hierarchy' of possible candidates seems more generally agreed--our processes and procedures are the same across the subjects," he says.

A uniform process, however, is difficult to establish when the committee that advises Rudenstine changes in every case.

"[The tenure process] is inconsistent across cases because a separate committee is looking at a tenure case each time," says one senior Faculty member in the government department who asked not to be named.

Some department chairs agree with administrators' claims that they strive for an absolutely fair ad hoc committee, providing all necessary information for Rudenstine to make his decision.

"During the years I've been at Harvard, I have felt that the members of ad hoc committees were chosen with great attention to fairness," Damrosch says.