Boardroom

An Alternate Universe for Faculty Promotion

BY FRANÇOIS FURSTENBERG I have a small but persistent fantasy about academic life, about an alternate review and promotion system for university faculty. Here’s what I imagine . . . You were lucky to be hired as an assistant professor into a tenure-track job. Now six years later, you’re coming up for tenure. You’d like…

Demonstrated Incompetence at Brooklyn Law School

I am always amazed how some administrations defend themselves, as Brooklyn Law School Dean Nicholas Allard does, by claiming that the AAUP has somehow authorized their dubious actions. Allard claims that the school’s new policy on “demonstrated incompetence” is a “long-recognized and widely accepted regulatory term supported by the AAUP and others.” Brooklyn Law School’s new policy…

The Proposed Evisceration of Tenure at Saint Louis University

This, from the Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday: “Post-tenure review should be for the purposes of assisting faculty members in improving their performance,” says B. Robert Kreiser, associate secretary of the AAUP. “But the policy that has been proposed would effectively eviscerate tenure as it’s understood at most institutions of higher learning.” Unfortunately, that seems to be…