Fighting For a Chance at Tenure

After he was denied tenure review after being an assistant and associate professor at Harvard for seven years, Associate Professor of Linguistics Bert Vaux publicly complained over the weekend about his treatment at the hands of the University. Many of his complaints appear to be justified and are symptomatic of larger problems with the University’s internal tenure process.

Junior Faculty are valuable assets to the University and deserve the courtesy and respect of the administration. Vaux claims that Harvard’s policies require that assistant professors be informed at the time of their promotion to associate professorships if the University does not want a senior professor in the field of the junior candidate—though since associate professorships at Harvard are not tenure-track positions and circumstances can change, tenure is never guaranteed. Vaux was promoted in May of 2000 and says that until this month, he received no indication that he would not get tenure review.

In addition, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), an independent organization composed of faculty from across the country, calls for untenured faculty to be notified of tenure possibilities within six years of accepting a junior professorship. This policy is designed to avoid stringing along junior professors in the belief that they could receive tenure. Harvard also ignored this sensible policy in Vaux’s case—he should have been told at least a year ago.

Vaux’s situation is symptomatic of a larger problem in the Harvard tenure process: junior Faculty are too often passed over in favor of candidates from outside the University. In order to attract the finest junior Faculty, Harvard must show that it will fairly consider internal candidates for tenured positions to prevent scholars from seeking employment elsewhere with better long-term prospects. Academics often do impressive work as junior Faculty in their quest for tenure, and it would benefit the University to have that work done here. Enticing assistant and associate professors to come to Harvard with a greater possibility of internal tenure would also help fulfill the statements from University President Lawrence H. Summers regarding hiring Faculty with more of their careers ahead of them.

Harvard’s junior Faculty consists of some of the brightest, most innovative young academics in the country—academics who, like Vaux, already have strong connections to Harvard students. The University’s refusal to grant Vaux tenure review is even more distressing considering his standing with Harvard’s undergraduate community. Vaux teaches a very popular Core offering, Social Analysis 34: “Knowledge of Language,” and received high marks for his teaching ability, friendliness and accessibility in the this year’s CUE guide. Quality of teaching and the ability to relate to students are attributes that dramatically increase the quality of undergraduate education, and they ought to be given more weight during tenure deliberations.

The University should have told Vaux earlier whether it intended to offer him tenure review. The decision is even more unfortunate in light of his standing as a prominent teacher and scholar. Vaux deserves the opportunity to present his case for tenure.