Non-ladder faculty on average receive higher Q scores—student-based feedback—than tenured faculty at Harvard. According to the 2009 report, non-ladder faculty received an average score of 4.40, comparable with other junior faculty, but substantially higher than the 4.09 average for full professors.

“Tenure is something that carries significant risks to the institution that grants it,” Campbell says. “Suppose you grant someone tenure and their teaching performance falls off. Then the University has no recourse—no ability to get better teaching.”

And for all the stability that tenure offers, some professors are nonetheless grateful for the opportunity to teach undergraduates free from the pressures of a tenure-track position.

“Not getting tenure at Harvard was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Bamberg says. He added that instead of conducting research, he spends his free time designing novel courses to enhance the undergraduate curriculum.

“I presumably free up other people to do world-class research,” he said.

—Staff writer Radhika Jain can be reached at radhikajain@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Matthew T. Lowe can be reached at mlowe@college.harvard.edu

—Staff writer Kevin J. Wu can be reached at kwu@college.harvard.edu.