This post is the second of three adapted from Steven M. Cahn’s forthcoming book Professors as Teachers. In this work he suggests how departments and colleges can do more to emphasize the importance of success in the classroom. The material is used by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.
What are the appropriate criteria for awarding tenure? Traditionally, three aspects of a faculty member’s record are considered: scholarship, service, and teaching.
As to scholarship, it is widely recognized as an arduous undertaking. It requires not only engaging in research but publishing the results in scholarly articles and books. Even reading papers at professional conferences, while commendable, is insufficient because a scholar’s original thinking needs to be available for scrutiny by experts, and the easiest way for them to have access is for material to be published. Scholarly writing need not be elegant (it rarely is), but it is required to be precise. Scholars cannot merely approximate the views they are trying to express; what they say needs to be formulated exactly.
Work counts most heavily if it is subject to peer review. University presses typically require that manuscripts be approved by at least two outside experts, and scholarly journals depend on evaluations by at least a couple of scholars, typically using “blind review,” in which the evaluator does not know the identity of the author.
An article in a popular magazine is not equivalent to one accepted in a refereed journal. The local newspaper may request a professor’s thoughts on events of the day, but no other scholars have examined the ideas to determine if they merit publication. A professor may even publish a best-selling book, but given that it has not been peer-reviewed, it will be given far less weight than if it had been published by a relatively minor university press that relies on the judgments of experts.
As for the criterion of service, it typically involves participation in departmental committees, such as those overseeing the curriculum, student awards, library holdings, and so on. Other activities might be serving on a faculty-wide committees dealing with curricular and degree requirements, helping the admissions office by evaluating applications, lecturing to a campus group, or representing the school at a national conference. In any case, each member of a department is expected to assume a fair share of the day-to-day tasks that are an inescapable part of academic life.
Service, however, is not afforded the importance given to research, a disparity apparent in the methods by which each is evaluated. In the case of research, an elaborate review is undertaken, including faculty members reading the candidate’s research as well as sending it out for judgments by experts in the field. In the case of service, the activities are merely listed on an individual’s record; adequate quantity is noted, whereas quality is rarely of concern.
Teaching is the third criterion in a tenure decision, and here we arrive at the crux of the problem. Teaching should be judged with the same care as research but too often is treated more like service.
If teaching were taken more seriously, evaluating it would involve input from departmental colleagues who would visit the professor’s classes and assess syllabi, examinations, and test papers to evaluate teaching performance. Indeed, an outsider or two, experienced in evaluating teachers, might be asked to attend a couple of classes and write reviews.
Instead, courses an individual has taught are merely listed and supplemented by packets of student evaluations. The issue is not whether the professor excelled in the classroom but whether the performance was so subpar that it causes concern. No wonder quality of teaching is undervalued.
To see how tenure decisions should be made, consider two hypothetical cases. In the next post in this series we’ll look at two actual ones. Taken together, they clarify the importance of appropriate balancing of criteria.
Imagine that Adam comes to Eastern College to begin a professorial career. During his first two years, he gains experience teaching standard departmental offerings while struggling with and finally finishing his dissertation, which he and his advisor had optimistically estimated he would complete before his arrival. In his third and fourth years he devotes himself to planning several new courses and participating in an exciting multidisciplinary program. While reasonably successful as a teacher, he publishes two articles derived from his dissertation. In his fifth and sixth years he continues to enjoy rapport with students while publishing a couple of book reviews and another article, this one based on a seminar paper written in graduate school. He has also begun work on what he hopes will be a book-length manuscript, but the project is still at an early stage.
In his sixth year, in accordance with the principles of the American Association of University Professors, a decision needs to be made on Adam’s tenure. He is liked by his students, has various publications, and is at work on a major scholarly project. He is a cooperative colleague and has participated enthusiastically in multidisciplinary activities. Should he be awarded tenure?
In my judgment, doing so involves excessive risk, for Adam’s most productive years may lie behind him. He has not demonstrated the capacity for sustained, creative effort, and a careful examination of his bibliography raises serious doubts whether he has produced any significant scholarship since his dissertation. His good rapport with students may be based more on a beginner’s enthusiasm and spirit of camaraderie, possibly short-lived, rather than on fundamental pedagogic skills and enduring qualities of mind that would sustain his teaching in later years. Peer review, if used, may even have raised some doubts in this direction. His contributions to the life of the school may decline when the novelty of such activity wanes, and in time he may not remain familiar with the frontiers of his own field. If he is awarded tenure, then fulfills our worst fears, those who suffer most will be the generations of students forced to endure his premature academic senility.
Admittedly, were he retained he might in the long run prove a significant asset to the college. That outcome, though, is only a possibility, not a probability. For the sake of future students as well as in the interest of each academic discipline, every effort should be made to appoint and retain only those individuals who, compared to all other available candidates, are most likely to achieve excellence. Adhering to such a rigorous standard is the surest way to avoid the succession of egregious and irremediable errors that are the inevitable consequences of laxity.
Adam’s supporters, however, can be depended on to argue that the evaluations of his record have placed too much emphasis on the criterion of publication. After all, they may remind us, one great teacher wrote nothing: Socrates. Those who appeal to his case tend to overlook that the Athenian gadfly spent his life in public debate, befuddling the cleverest minds of his time, and forcing them to rethink their fundamental commitments. Few would doubt the scholarly qualifications of any professor who has done the same. But as Socrates himself pointed out, impressing students and friends is no guarantee of one’s acumen.
Adam’s supporters will claim that despite his thin publication record, he has proven himself a good teacher. But is he merely competent, or is he so outstanding that we have strong reason to suppose that replacing him in the classroom would significantly reduce the quality of instruction? Unless the latter were the case, an individual should be appointed in his stead who would at least match him as a teacher while surpassing him as a scholar. After all, why would a college award tenure to a present member of the faculty if other persons more capable stand ready to serve?
In the face of this challenge, Adam’s supporters are apt to retreat to the view that, while his credentials are admittedly borderline, we ought nevertheless give him the benefit of the doubt, taking into account the extra hours he has spent with students, the favors he has done for colleagues, and, above all, the disturbance and distress a rejection would cause him. Those responsible for tenure decisions should never succumb to such pleadings; they are obliged to remember Sidney Hook’s observation that “most…tenured faculty who have lapsed into apparent professional incompetence…were marginal cases when their original tenure status was being considered, and reasons other than their proficiency as scholars and teachers were given disproportionate weight.” The principle should be “When in doubt, say no,” a policy that will not be popular with Adam, his family, or his friends. But only by maintaining rigorous standards for the awarding of tenure can an institution safeguard its academic quality.
Adam’s record might be summarized as follows: good but not excellent teaching, good but not excellent service, and fair scholarship. I believe this record does not justify the granting of tenure.
Consider next Eve, who begins her teaching career at Western University. Her dissertation, completed prior to her arrival, is published by a leading university press. Throughout the next five years, she contributes substantial articles to major professional journals, and months before she is to be considered for tenure, another major academic publisher accepts her second book.
Unfortunately, her teaching record is far less successful. Students complain that her lectures are bewildering and that she is rarely available for consultation outside class. Registration for her courses is small, although a few advanced students have signed up repeatedly. Peer review, if in use, may have revealed that she speaks in a monotone, while peering out the window. Her presentations reflect a firm grasp of the most recent literature but are convoluted and fail to motivate most students. She has reluctantly agreed to serve on several departmental committees but has little to say at the meetings. Should she be awarded tenure?
Her teaching is not good, and her service unimpressive. How strong is her scholarship? If the evidence indicates that no one is available who can match the quality of her research, then she has a case to receive tenure. Her teaching, however, presents a serious problem. Perhaps she could work only with advanced students and not be placed in introductory courses. If, however, she cannot be trusted to be effective at any level, then awarding her tenure is irresponsible because even a university that puts the highest premium on research is obligated to provide students with competent instruction.
Her situation might be summarized as follows: research outstanding, teaching weak, and service unimpressive. In my view, only if outside experts agree that she is a scholar of unquestionable national or international renown might she deserve to be granted tenure.
In the final excerpt I shall consider two actual tenure cases.
Steven M. Cahn
Steven M Cahn is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Among the recent books he has authored are Teaching Philosophy: A Guide (Routledge, 2018); Inside Academia: Professors, Politics, and Policies (Rutgers, 2019); Navigating Academic Life: How the System Works (Routledge, 2021); Professors as Teachers (Wipf and Stock, 2022), and, most recently, From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor, Second Edition (Wipf and Stock, 2024).
