Professors are hired yearly and given one-year contracts, which can then be renewed for up to five years. Most preceptors stay with the program for only three years. None are guaranteed long-term job security with Expos.
"We have a lot of difficulty recruiting and attracting candidates because the jobs we offer are not tenure track," Sommers says. "When a minority is offered a tenure track job they are likely to take it over ours."
And for that reason it is difficult to do anything about the supply of minority candidates, Lane says. Although Lane turned down two tenure track offers to work in the Expos department, she says not many candidates in her position would do the same thing.
"If you can get a tenure track position, you will probably prefer that, but people may come here who could have gotten a tenure track
position somewhere else," she says.
Harvey says the department will not hire unqualified candidates just to increase the number of minorities. "We have occasionally run across minority candidates who haven't finished their PhDs," Harvey says. "But it wouldn't be quite fair to Harvard students if we hired people who hadn't
done any teaching."
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