Duke Wary Of National Tenure Issues In The Humanities

Duke officials are joining the Modern Language Association (MLA), university presses and other groups in raising concerns about how financial difficulties in academic publishing affects tenure, particularly in the humanities and "soft" sciences.

In his annual review of tenure before the Academic Council, Provost Peter Lange on Thursday told faculty members that greater financial constraints on university presses are reducing the number of monographs being published and causing the presses to look hard at the types of books they do publish.

For decades, Lange said, the publication of one, if not two, books was a requirement for tenure in many fields in the humanities. While the current numbers are not showing any precipitous decline in junior faculty members earning tenure in these fields, Lange said the situation is serious enough that Duke will have to look at the issue closely.

"University presses are under greater constraints," Lange said. "It used to be the leading university presses could count on a large number of libraries to purchase every book they published. Now the number of libraries who do that has dropped from about 800 to 250."

In May, Stephen Greenblatt, president of the MLA, wrote an open letter questioning whether tenure standards could remain in place with the declining number of publications. An MLA subcommittee is looking at what can be done to ease the situation. (Greenblatt's letter was printed in the Faculty Forum in the Sept. 27 Dialogue. It is also available at www.mla.org.)

Lange said there are no easy answers. "We don't have a solution to this, and the MLA will likely have a difficult time. But at the same time, we have to be aware that this issue is out there, and that [the economics of academic publishing] feeds back on the tenure process."

In his talk, Lange said new tenure process guidelines approved last year seem to be working. While the reforms didn't significantly change the tenure process, changes were introduced to reduce the amount of documentation needed in the tenure process, speed the process when the decision is clear and guarantee the value of interdisciplinary research.

Of the 18 junior faculty members up for tenure last year, one candidate withdrew and one was not forwarded by the faculty to the Appointments, Promotions and Tenure Committee (APT). Of the remaining 16 cases, 14 were approved by APT and two were turned down. Of the 14 approved by APT, Lange declined tenure in one case.

Lange noted that 13 of the APT decisions were unanimous - one was a unanimous no - and that in two others there was only one minority vote. In only one case was there a significant minority vote.

"I'll note that there was only one unanimous 'no' vote," Lange said. "These are generally 'pass-the-buck' cases. The numbers of them are declining, which says to me the departments are doing a better job of reviewing their tenure cases."

While a large percentage of junior faculty members up for tenure were successful, Lange cautioned that these figures illustrated only a portion of the larger picture. Other candidates were weeded out earlier. And, over the past several years, the proportion of all new junior faculty members who receive tenure has remained close to 50 percent.

At the same time, fewer junior faculty members are leaving after the third-year review. This, Lange said, indicates the departments are doing a better job of advising faculty members early on and giving them clear signals as to what they need to do for tenure.

In other items before the council, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask discussed changes in the health plan coverage for Duke employees http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/dialogue/announce_article.html.

Trask warned that financial forces are continuing to crunch employers and employees alike on health care costs. He singled out pharmaceutical companies' advertising campaign for driving up costs and usage of new drugs. "We have to find some way to start pushing back against the television-advertised drugs," he said.

Although the premium increases were moderate compared with the national double-digit increases in health care costs, next year Duke may not be as lucky, Trask said. "I'll be honest that neither I nor (director of benefits administration) Lois Ann Green know what to do next," Trask said. "There is no way to squeeze any more out of this plan without the employer paying more, the employee paying more or having another round of cuts in benefits, only more substantial. Unless someone at the federal level does something, we're going to have tough choices to make in the future."