Preamble

The Cambridge Union of University Teachers is committed to the principle that the highest degree of professional competence is the only safe guide in appointment and promotion at Harvard. It believes that this principle is best served by a fixed system of tenure, and by a Departmental procedure in which the ability of every candidate is carefully evaluated and his selection democratically passed upon by members of his Department.

It is generally recognized that the present haphazard diversity of procedure frequently results in confusion, unfairness, and lowered standards. In a matter so vital to Harvard's scholarly reputation there seems to good reason why the slightest mystery or uncertainly should prevail. While no system is immune to some measure of abuse or exploitation, we believe that it is possible to establish a tenure system and a democratic procedure, based upon the principle of Departmental autonomy, which will do much to eliminate the uncertainties and inequities of the present methods.

Rules Of Tenure

The administration, having the responsibility for fixing the rules of tenure for its instructors, should formulate these rules definitely and concretely, and make them easily accessible to all members of the teaching staff and to all appointees at the time of their appointment.

The substitution of a standard three-year term will eliminate the grave uncertainly of tenure under which annual instructors now suffer, and does not involve any marked departure from present practice since most annual instructors are now reappointed at least twice.

Every reasonable opportunity should be given to instructors, during their period of tenure at Harvard, to acquire the kind of experience in lecturing and seminar work that will be of assistance to them in securing positions in other colleges and universities.

At least one year before the conclusion of his third three-year term of appointment, or upon the competition of his eighth year of service, the University should decide definitely whether or not it wishes to keep a man permanently.

"Automatic increases" are by no means always justified. In general, we prefer to have the University economize, if necessary, in the salaries of the highest paid ranks in order to enhance the security and provide a better living wage for its younger men, and to maintain in the higher ranks the sense of competition which is so keen in the lower.

Departmental Procedure in Appointment and Promotion

In order that the preceding recommendations on rules of tenure may find effective application, and that the younger men in the University may share in the determination of Departmental policy, it is of vital importance that the structure and procedure of the several Departments be democratized.

We believe that a Department has a collective responsibility and should have a correspondingly collective authority. The administrative affairs should be conducted by a member in whom the staff has the greatest confidence. Therefore, we recommend that the Departmental Chairman, a permanent member of the staff, should be elected through secret ballot, by all members of the Department, and that he should serve a three-year term.

Each Department should set up a committee on appointments and promotion, which should be elected through secret ballot by all members of the Department. . . . The specific powers and duties of the committee should be restricted to investigating and recommending men for appointment, promotion, or termination of appointment, and its jurisdiction should extend to all ranks from assistants up to permanent positions.

. . . where an entire department, not to say a faculty, of a professedly liberal institution, exhibits a homogeneity of sentiment grossly unrepresentative of the division of opinion in the community of scholarship or the community at large, a legitimate suspicion of bias is afforded. Within the social sciences in particular, the representation of those dissident opinions reflecting vital intellectual and political currents is the surest guarantee that instructors are being freely and impartially chosen. At Harvard in the past there has been a consistent over-representation of the conservative point of view, and we recommend that this be corrected.

In the evaluation of research, the inherent distinction between different fields must be kept constantly in mind. In the experimental sciences or mathematics, the possibility of making an independent contribution at an early age is far greater than in the humanities or the social sciences. There must be no application of the standards of one field to the problems of another, and publication alone cannot be accepted as the measure of achievement, nor should popular success be allowed to outweigh the judgment of professionally competent opinion. The presence in the upper ranks of the faculty of a few professors who are apparently exempt from the usual research requirements is not a very conspicuous phenomenon at Harvard, but it is demoralizing to the younger men.