To the editors:
Recent articles in The Crimson have focused on the failures of the Harvard University tenure process and, in particular, the unfairness of low te rates for junior faculty.
As a non-tenured faculty member who will almost certainly not get tenure, I think the system is perfect. Because Harvard is a great institution it can hire the best professors in the world, not the best professors who happen to be at Harvard. Why would Harvard students want something different?
Harvard has great tenured professors and can compete with any institution at the tenured level (witness last week's hire from the another great school, the University of Chicago).
Perhaps the system is for great senior professors but poor junior faculty? I submit, without quantitative data, but based on extensive personal data, that Harvard is unsurpassed as a choice for assistant professors.
Harvard has the best faculty in the world. This is the result of, not in spite of, a great promotion system. TERENCE C. BURNHAM March 9, 1998
The writer is a visiting assistant professor at the Kennedy School of Government.
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