Uncertain Principles

It's weird how blogs go in cycles-- I'll blog nothing but science for a while, and then flip into Academic Mode, as I have this week, and blog about nothing but tenure issues and academic politics. But, that just seems to be how things work, and the stories catching my eye recently are all about academia.

Such as this disturbing tale from Baylor. It seems that they're trying to boost their status in academia, but the latest attempt has caused a little controversy:

That’s because, several university officials said, senior administrators have come to believe that departmental standards were not rigorous enough and so applied new standards, which have never been shared with faculty leaders, let alone with those who submitted tenure portfolios under the old standards. Largely as a result, tenure denials at Baylor this year — which have been about 10 percent annually in recent years — shot up to 40 percent.

Twelve of the candidates were denied tenure this year, and while some are always denied, two statistics are raising particular concern at the university:

• Nine of the 12 rejected candidates had the support of both their departments and the universitywide faculty committee that reviews candidates after the departmental evaluation. In the past at Baylor, it has been rare for the president to overturn recommendations that had solid backing at all the levels of faculty review.
• The rejection rate was particularly high for women. Of the nine women up for review, six were rejected.

How charming. I guess there just wasn't enough mystery in the process as it was, so they needed to add a bit more.

The next level of this is obviously to apply the Monte Carlo method: each tenure candidate will be evaluated on their performance in the areas of scholarship, teaching, and service, with the minimum standard for each determined by rolling dice at the time of the review. It's cheap, easily adaptable to different types of institutions (A Research I school could use 1d20 to determine the minimum number of publications, and 1d4 for the minimum average teaching evaluation, while a teaching-focussed college might go with 1d8 for the publications, and 1d6 for the teaching evaluations (on a five-point scale, of course...). Yes, I'm a dork), and best of all the faculty will never know what to expect. They'll be so motivated by their utter terror of the process, that they'll scale heights of scholarship never seen before.

Or, you know, leave in disgust. One of the two.