[224] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Northeastern to review tenure?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anne Hunter)
Fri Apr 27 09:49:58 2001
From: Anne Hunter <anneh@eecs.mit.edu>
To: wally@sub-zero.mit.edu
CC: alsmith@mit.edu, Sourav.Mandal@ikaran.com, mit-talk@mit.edu
In-reply-to: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0104270018450.3010-100000@sub-zero.mit.edu>
(message from Wally on Fri, 27 Apr 2001 00:26:37 -0400 (EDT))
Reply-to: anneh@eecs.mit.edu
Message-Id: <E14t8cv-0000y0-00@altoids.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 09:49:41 -0400
It's so strange that things only heat up on these lists when we're
all so busy.
I can only speak about Course VI, where I've worked long enough to
piece together things that professors have said in my hearing.
Personnel (faculty promotions and tenure) is the process here most
shrouded in secrecy. Aimee's right when she says that they have to
make some distinctive contribution so that they're one of the top
people in their sub-field in the world, or be clearly headed there
within ten years. But they also have to be good research supervisors,
good teachers, as assessed in this department's student-controlled
Underground Guide and its raw evaluations, and good advisors, again as
assessed by their advisees. But it's in that order. Prof. Richard
Adler, now deceased, was Associate Dept. Head for EE, and he said
that fabulous research is always seen as evidence for the potential
to be a *great* teacher while great teaching is not seen as showing
potential for great research. And that when the Dept. Heads argue
for someone on the basis of great teaching at Engineering Council,
the next stage after Dept. approval, they are made to feel that they're
"arguing for mediocrity"! There are people who've got tenure on the
basis of their teaching, but it has to be at a world class level, like
Woodie Flowers.
I feel that EECS undergrads are extremely demanding and critical of
their instructors. There's no lecturer so good that some student
doesn't hate their style, and nobody so bad that somebody doesn't
think they're terrific teachers. This includes people like Prof. Bose!
I haven't seen this in Course VI, but elsewhere at MIT, as well as at
other colleges I've been at, you can have terrible politics where the
senior faculty who make the first decision are clearly jealous of
their colleague's "popularity", and decide the s/he isn't serious and
panders to students. There was a case of this a few years back where
the junior professor's department refused to approve his case for
further review. Students and faculty outside his department
complained vehemently, and the higher levels of MIT asked his
department to reconsider, and to approve him under special
circumstances where he wouldn't count as one of the tenure spots
they're entitled to. They still refused, and he went, I believe, to
Harvard, as research staff. But he loved MIT so much that he
continued to teach his class here as a visiting professor for several
years.
There is this strange syndrome I see in VI where professors who are
refused tenure because their research is weak *stay* at MIT, as
permanent research staff. Ironic, huh? Often they seem quite bitter,
and really ought to have left MIT so they could put it behind them.
Sometimes they just keep on advising and teaching, and you would
never know that they're not tenured faculty unless you check their
title in the directory.
In other departments (and at other universities) they may hire two or
three assistant professors where there is one tenure spot they have to
compete for, but in VI they don't hire a tenure-track professor unless
there's a tenure spot for her/him. So there's no competitiveness,
just pressure, which is just like it is for Course VI undergrads, I
believe. But any time we don't tenure a professor we have to go a
year with a hole in that spot, and then if we succeed in finding and
hiring somebody, start over with an assistant professor. So we're
well-motivated to do everything we can (e.g. seed money, mentoring) to
help them get tenured.
Anne
