Faculty will have more input on an October 2011 report on tenure and hiring practices than on an accompanying proposal to the Corporation for setting a ratio of tenured to non-tenured faculty, according to administrators charged with creating both documents.
At its Feb. 12 meeting, the Corporation commissioned the administration to write a report on hiring and tenure practices at the University and peer institutions, as well as the proposal for setting the tenure ratio. The e-mail announcing the report and proposal did not mention faculty involvement, which worried some faculty members, according to Cynthia Garcia Coll, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee and professor of education.
The administration has indicated it plans to involve faculty members when preparing the documents, though they will likely be granted greater input on the report than on the actual proposal, Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98 said.
Garcia Coll, who has met separately with President Ruth Simmons and Kertzer since the Corporation meeting, said she is now "more hopeful" that faculty will play a significant role in drafting the proposal and report. At the same time, though, she said she will not be fully convinced of faculty involvement until she sees solid evidence.
Faculty members "don't like to be given something that is complete," Garcia Coll said. "They like to debate it, they like to think about it, they like to make their opinions heard."
Kertzer said the Corporation had an "unusual" series of meetings with faculty before making any decisions about tenure. The most recent meeting took place the morning of the Feb. 12 Corporation meeting, when "a couple dozen" department chairs shared their opinions with Corporation members. In December, a delegation from the Corporation's Board of Fellows and Committee on Academic Affairs met with approximately 100 faculty members to discuss tenure.
"It's been an issue on which there's been a huge amount of consultation with the faculty on the part of the Corporation," Kertzer said.
Dean of the Faculty Rajiv Vohra P'07 and Edward Wing, dean of medicine and biological sciences, will both be involved in drafting the documents.
Vohra and Wing sent an e-mail to faculty Feb. 14 further explaining the Corporation's requests. Vohra said the e-mail was intended to respond to faculty concerns about whether the University plans to set a fixed limit on tenure promotions, as well as to explain what role faculty will play in crafting the documents.
According to the e-mail, tenure caps will not be instituted. Instead, the Corporation asked that administrators look to establish "ranges of tenure rates" that could lead to "healthy faculty renewal."
Professor of Philosophy James Dreier said he found Vohra and Wing's e-mail "somewhat reassuring" in that the administration would not be setting a tenure cap. Most encouraging, he said, was the switch in emphasis from tenure rates — the percentage of tenure-track faculty who are promoted with tenure — to the ratio of tenured to non-tenured faculty.
A high tenure ratio is "something that's fairly clearly a potential problem, whereas a high tenure rate is not as obviously a problem," Dreier said. "And the assumption that (a high tenure rate) is a problem appears — to a lot of the faculty — problematic."
The administration will work in "full and active consultation" with faculty when drafting the documents, according to the e-mail. But Vohra and Kertzer both said faculty involvement would probably vary between the report and the actual proposal.
"There will be consultation," Vohra said. "I can't imagine that some of these things would involve faculty debate and vote, because there are lots of things that are not of that nature."
The administration has a strong understanding of the tenure debate from recent discussion and voting on tenure-related proposals in faculty meetings, Vohra said. He added that any revisions to faculty rules would require discussion with the FEC and faculty vote. As for the report on hiring and tenure practices, he said it was "hard to imagine" what the administration could do without talking to faculty.
But the decision on tenure ratios, Vohra said, would be less likely to come up for faculty debate and vote. Vohra said he imagines the administration will look at how "different variables interact." Such factors might include how many faculty members resign or retire and how many professors the University wants to hire.
"If there's a mathematical equation, it's not a question of deciding," Vohra said. In drafting the proposal, the administration will design a model analyzing the University's ideal tenure ratio based on current hiring practices and plans for the future, Vohra said. "If you analyze a model, and you come up with a certain way of looking at things, you can explain and discuss it. It's not about deciding."
But, Vohra said, the University is still in the "early stages" of deciding how to work on the report and proposal.
Professor of Comparative Literature Edward Ahearn said he believes the faculty will be well represented in the drafting process, based on both the Corporation's meetings with faculty members and the e-mail from Vohra and Wing.
"I hope it will not be handled in a top-down manner," Ahearn said. "The way I read the message I got, it seems to suggest that all the interested parties will be consulted and that a broad range of people will be participating in the discussions. So I'm hopeful."
But Ahearn did express concern that the Corporation commissioned the University to compare its tenure policies to those of its peer institutions.
"They're in danger of not recognizing something very special at Brown and something very unique," Ahearn said.
Dreier voiced similar concerns, saying that to "find out what everybody else is doing" and imitate other schools would detract from Brown's unique philosophy.
Brown has a "strong tradition" of faculty governance, and maintaining that tradition will be essential in the drafting of the documents, Ahearn said.
The drafting will take place during a transition between provosts, as Kertzer steps down from his position in June. But Kertzer said he plans to start working on the report and proposal right away. He said he does not believe the change will slow the drafting process.
"These are the very issues I've been working on a lot for the last few years," Kertzer said. "Whoever's the new provost will be able to come in without losing speed in this issue."
