The Trustees of the College granted the promotion of associate professor to seven of the eight assistant professor candidates up for ultimate determination this year. Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance Manuame Mukasa was the only candidate passed over.
Students who worked with Mukasa expressed disappointment when they heard of the decision. Donatella Galella ’09, currently studying abroad, described her reaction to the news as one of “shock and disbelief.”
“Professor Mukasa is a brilliant, interesting, and considerate teacher, and I will be devastated if Amherst loses him entirely,” Galella said. “The classes I took with him were the most challenging and the most rewarding that I’ve ever experienced.”
Mukasa declined The Student’s request for an interview. In a written statement he released to the paper, he wrote, “A matter like this is too complex and personal to be characterized adequately in a short response or even a larger article. There are dynamics involved that cannot be appreciated from outside of the process. I value the time I have spent here and the many talented students and colleagues I have worked with. I look forward to the work I will do in the future.”
Teana White ’10 took The Changing Image of Blacks in Film with Mukasa. She said of the course, “[It was] possibly my favorite course that I’ve taken here at Amherst. A lot of my friends wanted to take his class, but now they won’t be able to.”
“I was surprised to find out that Professor Mukasa was the one professor [passed over for tenure],” White added. “I was disappointed.”
Dean of Faculty Gregory Call pointed out that under College policy, “someone who is denied tenure has the right to teach at the College for one more year.”
Call believes some confusion has arisen over how the tenure process works. Call described the process of faculty review for clarification: “If a new professor is hired to a tenure-track position and doesn’t have extensive post-doctoral teaching experience before coming to Amherst, they first receive a three-year contract. They come up for reappointment in the Spring of their third year.” The decision to reappoint is based largely on department recommendation, student course evaluations and the retrospective letters solicited from all students taught by tenure-track faculty.
“The second contract, after being reappointed,” Call added, “is a four-year contract. Under most circumstances, a professor will be coming up for tenure in the fall of their seventh year. The tenure decision is very much like the reappointment decision.”
“I believe that student evaluations are extremely important and supposedly they are heavily weighed in the process,” Galella said. “Apparently they were not enough in this case, despite the glowing praise my peers and I have for Professor Mukasa.”
White also saw the opportunity to write comments as an invaluable tool for students to make their voice heard in the tenure process. “Students may not know that it’s very important to respond,” she said. “If they don’t respond, something like this can happen.”
Call said, though, that a tenure decision is based not only on the department recommendation and student evaluations, but also on peer evaluations by outside sources within the professor’s field as chosen by both the department and the candidate for tenure.
“A rich range of material is considered,” Call said. “Teaching and research are the big things. Our people are involved in the community and do good-to-great service. The challenge is that we expect our faculty to excel.”
While the trustees passed over Mukasa, they announced that Assistant Professors Robert Benedetto of Mathematics; Ethan Clotfelter 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 associate professor.
Call described the eight candidates as “a very strong group.” He explained, “I am continually impressed by how much our faculty contribute to our community and their fields.” He declined to speak about specifics about any individual candidate.
“I’m an intended Theater and Dance major,” White said. “I wanted [Professor Mukasa] to be my advisor, but to know that he isn’t going to be here any more is saddening.”