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Hank Brown on accountability
University of Colorado president Hank Brown says the magic words:
It is imperative that we in higher education take the initiative to examine ourselves. There are many lawmakers at the state and federal level willing to intervene if we do not do so. Much of the scrutiny we are under is of our own creation. Colleges and universities have been less than forthcoming with the public and legislators about tenure, leading to the suspicion that higher education's primary focus is protecting its own rather than guaranteeing the highly effective and productive teachers and researchers that students and taxpayers deserve.
This is what ACTA has been saying for years. When academics respond to this simple truth with denial, hostility, and ad hominem attack directed at the messenger, they only compound their problems.
Colorado is tightening its tenure system in the wake of the Ward Churchill scandal. And Brown is glad to have been pressed to do so: "Public confidence in academic tenure, much less its understanding of the concept, is dropping," he writes. "To reduce this downward trend, we must be transparent in our processes and straightforward in our explanations of why tenure is necessary and how it works. These steps are crucial to tenure's future, just as tenure is crucial to the academy's and America's long-term well being and international competitiveness."
Brown consistently emphasizes the need to combine streamlined and tightened internal procedures with public accountability. Where many academics scoff at the idea that they are ultimately answerable to the public, Brown gets it right: Without public confidence, America's higher education system is going to fail--badly and fast. His colleagues at other colleges and universities should sit up and take notice.
Posted by acta online on March 26, 2007 at March 26, 2007 08:35 AM
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Comments
What an evasion! The reason for the trouble at Colorado is Ward Churchill. The reason Ward Churchill was a problem is the whole rotten "Diversity" sewer. In which the whole society has been and is complicit. It has very little to do with tenure per se. The evasion and dishonesty continue.
Posted by: Mike at March 26, 2007 10:41 AM
"It has very little to do with tenure per se."
Though I agree with the rest of your comments, I tend to disagree here: What permits such wild misconduct as we have seen in the matter of Ward Churchill is the almost complete lack of accountability that tenure establishes. For pity's sake: How long have they been trying to get rid of him anyway?
I know of only two contexts in which tenure exists (teachers and judges), and it is an unmitigated disaster in both contexts. Human nature is such that one simply cannot trust it with authority without serious checks on conduct. We may well wish that people were different, but they're not, and we have done scholarship and education very grave disservice by pretending that tenure is either necessary or constructive.
Posted by: Federal Dog at March 26, 2007 11:25 AM
I still maintain that it has little to do with tenure per se. He should never have been granted tenure in the first place. Without the other garbage, he wouldn't have.
It is probably good that Colorado is streamlining the tenure removal process. From what I have read, it is a relief to everyone involved, except possibly Ward Churchill. (And I'll bet even he is laughing at the whole business.)
We apparently don't agree on the broader question of whether tenure is a good thing. Let's leave it at that.
Posted by: Mike at March 26, 2007 03:09 PM
WLC'S PENSION
His pension is minimum $68,000.00/year, plus benefits.
He's laughing, all the way to the bank, at how he suckered taxpayers, all those years.
Posted by: Leonard Washington at March 26, 2007 10:11 PM
You've got it just right, LW--nice "work" if you can get it!
Posted by: Jacques Albert at March 26, 2007 11:35 PM
Leonard Washington, if so, the Colorado AG should bring suit to deprive him of his pension: it's a benefit obtained by fraud and as such he has no vested proprietary interest in it.
Posted by: Dave J at April 1, 2007 07:12 PM