Professor Cornel West is in a dispute with Harvard University, where he teaches. West says the school has denied his request to be considered for tenure, and he's threatening to leave Harvard. It would be his second time exiting the school under contentious circumstances. He left Harvard nearly 20 years ago after a conflict with its then-president, Larry Summers. Hofstra University provost and senior vice president for academic affairs Herman Berliner discussed the tenure process with GBH All Things Considered host Arun Rath. This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Arun Rath: West has suggested that this isn't just about him, or just about Harvard. He's talked more broadly about how minority faculty members are treated across academia when it comes to tenure. Is there anything to him saying that? Do we have any indication that minority professors get tenure at lower rates?
Herman Berliner: I think what we know is that there isn't a diversity of faculty across the country that we should have, and that all of higher ed needs to work harder so that the faculty reflect more what our students are like today, and that's not taking place as of yet.
Rath: Is that something — with tenure as it exists, just because of the weight of history — that we have an imbalance on college campuses?
Berliner: Tenure as it exists is an assurance of job continuation. It's based on doing a terrific job and then as a reward and acknowledgment for doing a terrific job, you get the equivalent of academic freedom, which is very valuable, and lifetime employment. So those are the benefits of tenure. So the system itself, recognizing how hard someone works and acknowledging that in a tangible way, probably isn't at fault. What has to happen with tenure, and what I think is in fact happening more and more, is that the process has to be totally transparent so that a person is awarded tenure on their merits. It shouldn't be something in a back room, and it shouldn't be something where the faculty member who's ultimately going to stand for tenure isn't completely sure as to what's expected of that person. The person who is the tenure candidate has to know what's expected, has to get continuous feedback. The tenure criteria have to be clear. Then, if all of that is followed — and it has to be an inclusive process in terms of awarding tenure — if all of that is followed, then the tenure decisions will be the kind of decisions that should be based on merit.
Rath: So for instance, when West said that it's even beyond just race, it's about his political views about Israel — if we had transparency, we wouldn't be seeing this just as a back and forth in the pages of Harvard University's student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson? We would know what it was all about?
Berliner: Right. This is a very complicated situation, because a spokesperson for Harvard has said that tenure really wasn't the issue. Tenure wasn't what was being considered. So we really lack the facts to know exactly what was going on. It should not be because of a person's opinion on Israel. It should be that the faculty member feels that they are able to express their opinion, know exactly what's expected of them in terms of tenure, and be judged on that.
Rath: Is this just a Harvard thing, or is this kind of opacity, this lack of transparency, pretty much the rule with tenure at universities?
Berliner: I think it's actually gotten better over time. If you go back a number of decades, it was an old boys network, and really it was a goodness of fit criteria. Nowadays, the criteria in most places are clearly spelled out — typically excellence in teaching, scholarly productivity and a definition of how that's judged. Then, of course, the long-term needs of the institution — is the enrollment there to justify an additional tenured position? If the system works well, a faculty member should get feedback every year on how they're doing.
There should be the equivalent of an annual evaluation with benchmarks and a discussion — are you fulfilling the criteria in terms of excellence in teaching? What specifically are those criteria? What's the criteria in terms of scholarship? Is it defined in terms of journal articles, grant applications? What exactly is expected? What am I being measured against, and then what progress am I making to meet all those requirements? If that's the case, there should be no surprises when a person stands for tenure. If the annual evaluations have indicated that the person is on schedule to do what needs to be done when the time comes for tenure, tenure should be relatively routine and should be awarded.
Rath: As you know, there are people who are critical of the very notion of academic tenure. Could it possibly be a relic right now?
Berliner: Let me go back a step. I'm a tenured faculty member. When I was tenured, the mandatory retirement age for tenured faculty was 65, and then it became 70. There is no mandatory retirement age now, and I don't believe in age discrimination. So that part's good. But what there also is in terms of higher ed is the kind of post-tenure review that really provides the feedback that a person gets before tenure, but after tenure, in terms of how they're doing. Once a person gets to full professor, there's almost no feedback. And if there's no post-tenure review, there are going to be instances where there are some people who basically stay too long because the accountability isn't there.
So I think the system has become more transparent. There's much more that needs to be done, and there needs to be more opportunity in higher education. But it's also a case now that there are fewer opportunities for people to get tenured positions because people are staying longer, because institutions have other needs that they must meet. And so the number of tenured opportunities has gone down, and that also is, I think, a concern.
Rath: So if we have a more ideal version of tenure where there is transparency, where there is a review process in place post-tenure, what does that protect for us in terms of the 21st century? What does that academic protection mean?
Berliner: I think the academic protection for students is that a person is being continuously evaluated and the person is really doing what the person should be doing. That, I think, is a tremendous plus for the students. If there is no post-tenure review, then that kind of feedback in terms of how a person is doing isn't there, and there's not the opportunity for whatever needs to be corrected to be corrected. So then there needs to be comprehensive review before, and there needs to be comprehensive review after.
Rath: I just want to be conscious of the fact that we're talking about Cornel West, who is something of a rock star as far as professors go. But I have to imagine this is playing out in a lot of cases and a lot of areas where we're just not aware of what's happening.
Berliner: I think what's playing out is there are still cases where the transparency isn't there, where someone stands for tenure and is not really sure exactly what is expected. That should never happen. It should be that you've gotten, as I said, the kind of feedback continuously that when you stand for tenure, there are no surprises. I think that's enormously important. If not, you really don't know what's expected of you. And then I think because there is no more mandatory retirement — and there shouldn't be — there really has to be a robust post-tenure review process, so we continue to provide feedback to individuals in terms of how they're doing. And if there are issues, they can be addressed.
