Soteros-McNamara is a third-year political science student.
By Thomas Soteros-McNamara
In light of current row initiated by the rejection of tenure for
UCLA professor Joshua Muldavin, some students would like to blame
the system of appointment as being unfair and Byzantine (“Faulty
system denies tenureship to worthy professor,” Viewpoint,
Daily Bruin, Feb. 27). Curiously enough, this is true, as the
tenure methodology used by the University of California should be
considered archaic and horribly inefficient.
The reasoning, however, is not because seemingly excellent
candidates for lifetime employment have been rejected
unwarrantedly. Instead, the tenure process solves more problems
than it creates. In regard to Muldavin’s specific case, there
are several motivations to reject him, other than the notion that
the administration hates good teachers. It is unwise to speculate
here about them, but more alarming is the concern that somehow
there was a mistake, that a heavy-handed bureaucracy has claimed
another victim.
The idea of giving a person employment for life is something
that is unheard of in every other sector of our society. Only
judges serve for life, and even they can be impeached. The logic
for giving a professor a job for life apparently must outweigh the
danger of reduced mobility in the academic labor market.
Of course, when tenure first was initiated at the University of
California in 1934 the idea was to protect a faculty member from
the administration by providing him or her with “academic
freedom.” That way, they would not have to conform to the
academic and social policies that might change during a long
career. This idea really worked well until the federal government
attempted to reverse our apparent loss to the Evil Empire over
Sputnik.
After 1957, thousands, and then millions of graduate students
across the country appeared in tweed jackets and lab coats begging
for full-time jobs. The growth was so pronounced that the
University of California eventually reformed their process for
tenure to adjust the pageant to its needs.
The simple multiplication of eager students was not the only
problem. The other problem was that the state of California had
reduced the percentage of the university’s operating costs
that it would subsidize.
Hard up for cash, the UC schools turned to lucrative federal
contracts for weapon systems and the like to help pay the bills.
Professors no longer could spend infinite time in the classroom,
and “tenure-track” minded graduate students began to
bear responsibility as “teaching assistants.”
The other problem became that large private universities, such
as Harvard and Stanford, also began to bid for these large federal
contracts, and a previous cooperation among larger universities
across the United States broke down. Soon one contract was not
enough; soon it was hundreds of contracts and hundreds of clients,
not just the federal government.
Therefore, it is important to note that while our mission
statement says the UCs are teaching colleges, they have been
coerced financially into “research institutions.” For
the university, it is clear that how well a faculty member teaches
bears no importance to tenure considerations if the person is not
as adept a researcher. Since a professor with tenure is a known
quantity, from a labor point of view, one would seek a long-term
contract for this individual.
Despite these arguments, comments persist that the tenure
process is unfair because students do not have the ability to
participate in the tenure hearings. While most students would
appreciate the assurance that our faculty can teach, such is a very
uncommon request.
When in our society do we select the people who serve us
personally as a matter of customer service? The entire purpose of
having a brand name is to ensure that the customer trusts the
business to employ only persons of the same caliber of their
predecessors in that business. Though this may seem hard to apply
to tenure, that is mainly due to the student’s ambiguous
feelings about his or her quality of education received at the
University of California.
Most students believe that UCLA is a worthwhile brand to buy
into but simultaneously hold reservations about the
“product” of education. If this seems contradictory,
you are not alone. It is not ridiculous to think that if a certain
faculty member left, that many of his or her disciples might also
defect.
When a “fan favorite” is denied for tenure, however,
students should not protest without reflecting on the fact that
UCLA is a major research university. There a hundreds of small,
liberal arts colleges that your college counselor told you to apply
to in high school, and whether or not you did ““ you still
enrolled at Big State.
The final consideration about employment is that at the
University of California, the “cost of instruction”
remains subsidized by the state. No fee that a resident of the
Golden State pays ever is used to remunerate a professor. The UC
Regents, and by extension, the state ultimately cough up the funds
to keep our faculty in tweed and penny-loafers.
The students do not hire or retain faculty in any sense. If they
did, then the idea of student interaction in the selection of our
full-time academics would have a place.
It cannot be ignored that the quality of undergraduate education
in the classroom has fallen off its once high and mighty perch.
The process of tenure, however, is not something that
contributes to this as much as some will claim. Instead, every
student on this campus should recognize that he or she probably
thinks of workers and employees of low training and skill as being
expendable. You see, once you pull back the brick and ivy and
expose the university for what it really is, tenure fits. Of course
if the thought of being expendable makes one nervous, maybe one
ought to transfer for greener pastures.