Assistant Professors Robert Benedetto of Mathematics; Ethan Cotfetter of Biology; Jonathan Friedman of Physics; Maria Heim of Religion; Nassar Hussain of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought; Eric Sawyer of Music and Nishi Shah of Philosophy were all promoted to the position of Associate Professor. The College will not renew the contract of Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance Manuame Mukasa at the end of this semester.
“The College is most fortunate to welcome this outstanding cohort to the tenured ranks of our faculty,” said Dean of Faculty Gregory Call of the decisions. “Their continuing commitment to their scholarship and to our students will serve our community very well in the years to come.”
The original purpose of tenure was to protect the academic freedom of exceptional professors by giving them a term of employment that could not be discontinued due to the nature of the professor’s academic work. Tenured faculty would then have the liberty to explore whatever scholastic venues they wished and ultimately contribute to the intellectual development of the college community.
In practice, the main difference between the scholastic freedom of tenured and of tenure-track faculty (before receiving tenure) is that tenured faculty can choose projects without concern for time constraints, whereas tenure-track faculty must complete some major academic work in time for their evaluations for reappointment and tenure, said Call.
Tenure-track faculty members face two series of evaluations that they must successfully pass in order to hold their positions. Initial reappointment evaluations typically occur in the third year of a professor’s term and final tenure evaluations in the seventh year, though exceptions are made for professors who taught at another institution before coming to Amherst.
Tenure evaluations begin at the departmental level, where a group of tenured faculty evaluates a professor’s teaching, research and finally, his or her service to the greater community. The department then writes a letter of recommendation that it presents to the Committee of Six (the Executive Committee of the Faculty) along with all of the evaluated materials, including copies of the professor’s scholarly work peer reviews of the professor’s academic work, and student evaluations of the professor’s teaching ability. The Committee of Six subsequently makes a recommendation to the president. Based on the president’s decision, the Board of Trustees votes on which candidates will receive tenure, the ultimate prize in academia.
When evaluating teaching, the department takes both student and faculty evaluations into consideration. According to Call, student evaluations are very important when evaluating a candidate’s teaching quality. The students of every tenure-track faculty member now submit end-of-course evaluations that, according to Professor of Mathematics David Cox involved in the evaluation of Benedetto, is an important change to the tenure process that has been made in the last couple decades. Additionally, when a faculty member comes up for reappointment or tenure, every past student is asked to write a retrospective letter evaluating any courses taken with that professor.
The department also carefully observes a candidate’s teaching. According to Cox, math professors attended Benedetto’s classes for a few weeks “to see how ideas are developed” in his classes first-hand.
A tenure candidate’s research record is equally important. In order to evaluate a professor’s scholastic work, the candidate’s department will send samples to experts in the candidate’s field at other institutions. As Cox explained, the candidate will give the department the names of possible external reviewers. The department will then compile a list of reviewers based partially on the candidate’s list and partially on the department’s own considerations. When choosing reviewers, he explained, “We look for some people who are experts in the candidate’s precise field of research and some other people who, while not serious experts in the candidate’s field, are familiar with his or her work and have a broad knowledge of the larger area in which the candidate works.”
When the candidate’s work is evaluated, the College asks external reviewers to review the professor’s work only with respect to quality and not to quantity, pointed out Call. Amherst wants professors from major universities to realize that professors at small liberal arts schools are expected to devote more time to their teaching and less to their research.
The College has recently made changes to the tenure process. In addition to the end-of-semester evaluations, Cox said, the evaluation process has become much more standardized across departments. For example, the College requires each department to submit a candidate’s academic work to roughly the same number of outside reviewers. Such changes, however, have complicated the process and have led to significantly more paperwork.
Despite standardization measures, the process still has a subjective element to it. Friedman mentioned that it is still difficult to be sure if candidates are being treated equally across departments. Benedetto cited “the lack of a clear cutoff for how much one has to do or how strong one’s performance has to be to get tenure” as one of the most “nerve-racking” elements of the process, though he cautioned that to set perfectly clear, strict tenure standards would be to create a “set of arbitrary requirements guaranteed to squelch precisely the kind of creativity and flexibility that are the hallmark of a good academic career.”
Benedetto also mentioned the subjectivity of reviewers, whether students, other members of the department, or professors at other institutions, as another potentially unfair element of a tenure evaluation. However, the candidate does have the chance at the end of the process to send the Committee of Six a letter responding to the departmental recommendation. Also, measures have been taken recently to limit the unfair effects of biases by giving the candidate more input in the process—the candidate now has discussions with the chair of his or her department and sends a letter both to the Committee of Six and to external reviewers.
Once a professor makes tenure, he or she is expected to uphold certain administrative responsibilities within the department. These responsibilities include acting as department chair and serving on various committees, including (but not limited to) those that review tenure-track faculty for tenure and reappointment. Tenure-track faculty are usually exempt from these responsibilities so that they have plenty of time to develop themselves academically.
However, other than these slight distinctions, the differences between the position of tenure-track professor and tenured professor are few. Benedetto and Friedman both mentioned that the job security that comes with a tenured position is the principal benefit of making tenure.
Not every candidate at Amherst passes the evaluation, as excellent as they may be. Call said that “we are very fortunate… to hire exceptional people” who are typically “strong candidates for reappointment and tenure.” He noted, though, that the percentage of faculty who do pass their tenure evaluations is lower than 100 percent and, for example, that seven out of eight faculty members made tenure this year. The very fact that a sizable number of faculty do not make tenure is a testament to Amherst’s desire to ensure that all professors are of the highest caliber.
The tenure process is not perfect, but Amherst has been continually seeking to improve the process to ensure that all faculty are treated equitably and that anyone who meets the College’s strict standards is well-deserving of the honor. Though the importance of tenure in regard to academic freedom may have diminished slightly, tenure still plays a role in making sure that Amherst’s professors are first-class and that accomplished faculty members are suitably rewarded.