I’d like to respond to the charge, mentioned in the ‘Governance’ piece in the April 26 issue of The Daily Orange, that Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s handling of changes in the university’s tenure and promotion policies amounted to a ‘fait accompli.’ This is simply inaccurate.

As a member of the University Senate Academic Affairs Committee during the four years it considered revising the tenure and promotion policy – revisions that were eventually passed nearly unanimously by the senate – I was closely involved in the whole process. That process was deeply collaborative, in which faculty and administration worked together throughout. Here, briefly, is what happened.

Some seven years ago the chancellor came to a meeting of the AAC, made up of mostly faculty representing nearly all schools and colleges on campus, and asked it to consider what it would take to change the culture of the institution in order to encourage faculty to engage in Scholarship in Action. We then spent over a year collecting and reading the scholarly literature on the subject, but mostly listening to some two dozen of our colleagues, organized into panels, describe either their public scholarship projects or their reservations about the very notion of public scholarship. One full panel was devoted to critics and skeptics.

Near the end of this process, Vice Chancellor Eric Spina began circulating a draft of a document, Provost’s Statement on Tenure, which he presented to the faculty for its input at numerous meetings across campus. He also sought input from chairs, deans, non-tenured faculty and students. Cantor, Spina and Kal Alston all made it clear that any changes in the tenure policy would be vetted through a full collaboration between faculty and administration.

Thus, for over a year, Alston and Spina worked with the AAC to revise tenure and promotion policy to make it more fair, transparent and responsive to a range of scholarly pursuits, including public scholarship. The discussions included invited faculty members, who weighed in pro and con, and dozens of others who responded to the AAC’s repeated calls via email for input.

Indeed, some of the crucial language in the policies adopted by the senate came from critics who worried about upholding academic standards of excellence. You can still access the blog that was set up to debate the issues at susenate.wordpress.com. In sum, the process was a model of collaboration, to be continued, I hope, in the coming years.

Harvey Teres
Professor of English and director of Judaic studies 

Published on April 29, 2012 at 12:00 pm