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Gee takes on tenure reform in annual address to faculty

Posted on | October 21, 2009 | 1,277 views |

‘True heft’ of vitae, he said, should be more important than simply length

By Jeff McCallister

Gordon Gee has hinted on a number of occasions since he returned for his second term as president of Ohio State that he thought the system by which faculty are recognized and rewarded for their work needed an update.

He used his annual address to faculty Oct. 7 at Thompson Library to call for an overhaul.

“The central point is that the time is right, at this moment, to focus intently on the quality of your work and its impact on our students, our disciplines and our communities,” Gee said. “Quality and impact — those must be the two central considerations in our reward system. And I am urging the provost and the deans to attend particularly to those two criteria in promotion and tenure decisions.”

At Ohio State, new faculty enter as assistant professors and have six years to build up their research profile, teaching and service. In their sixth year, they face a rigorous review to see if they measure up to the level of excellence required for full professorship.

The heart of tenure is academic freedom (critical to exploring new areas of inquiry) and peer review (empowering faculty to determine quality of research). Once a faculty member receives tenure, he or she is promoted to associate professor.

Traditionally, faculty members have been judged on the amount of work they’ve had published or the number and amount of grants they’ve brought in.

Gee said it’s time to change that standard.

“I believe we must finally speak aloud the truth: That some arbitrary volume of published papers, on some narrowly defined points of debate, is not necessarily more worthy than other activities,” he said.

“This university is big and strong enough to be bold enough to judge by a different standard. We can dare to say, ‘No more’ to quantity over quality. We can stop looking at the length of a vita and start measuring its true heft.”

Gee listed several examples of the type of work he said has been undervalued in tenure decisions in the past:

• A comparative studies professor who incorporates field work in remote Peruvian villages into her community development courses.
• A faculty member who creates new electronic tutorials to teach literacy skills to kindergarteners.
• The young music faculty member who develops year-long youth symphony programs that give graduate students valuable teaching experience while also providing children the opportunity to learn the beauty of music, the challenges of public performance and the traits of diligence and perseverance.
• Faculty who are “truly gifted, magical teachers — those who inspire a passion for Homer, Mill or Faulkner that lasts a lifetime.”

“This university, finally, can be the first to say, ‘We judge by a different standard.’ And let others follow our lead if they wish,” Gee said. “Only an exceptional institution could take this kind of action. Only an institution that is of great quality and great breadth. Only one that is blessed with strong public support and superb faculty.”

The wheels already have been set into preliminary motion. Provost Joe Alutto issued a set of guidelines this past spring that acknowledge faculty members contribute in different ways to the multiple missions of departments and colleges and encouraged continued and explicit consideration of those different contributions when determining rewards such as salary and tenure.

“All of this requires much of us — of you and me, together,” Gee said. “And, yes, it is over and above the work you do in the classroom and the laboratory. As we think through how to re-calibrate our reward criteria to focus on quality and impact, I am challenging all faculty members to work together to redesign committee structures to accommodate this new focus.”

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