I mostly read science-oriented blogs these days, where I get to hear again and again about how awful the treatment of academic scientists is, and how physics departments are horrible Kafkaesque operations dedicated to crushing the souls of postdocs and junior faculty. Which makes the train wreck that is the Philosophy department at William and Mary particularly interesting to see:
The norm in academe is for junior faculty members to sit out departmental votes on tenure decisions. Such matters should be handled only by those who have already earned tenure, the theory goes.
When it comes to another key personnel decision -- whom to hire for new positions -- tenure-track professors who haven't yet earned tenure are generally included, not just in discussions, but in actual votes. At the College of William & Mary, this bothered two senior professors of philosophy. They argued that including junior faculty members in actual votes on new hires was bad for the department (on the theory that they would hurt the department's quality by voting for candidates to whom they would compare favorably when coming up for tenure) and for the junior faculty members (who might feel pressure to vote in certain ways to please powerful senior professors who would soon be voting on their tenure bids).
The two professors feel so strongly about the issue that they have pulled out of participating in departmental votes on new hires. And their actions were among those cited by an outside review team in blasting the department's treatment of junior faculty members. That team's report, in turn, prompted college administrators to take the rare step of removing the department chair, bringing in an English professor to lead the department.
I have to admit, my initial reaction contains an element of schadenfreude. It's nice to see that smarmy humanities types can be just as unpleasant to their younger colleagues as us nasty science types...
Beyond that, the story is a hugely tangled mess of he said, she said, this other guy said, somebody sent me an email that said, etc. that I don't really feel like I can say anything sensible about the specifics of the case. I'm just glad I don't work there, because damn...
Regarding the actual policy under consideration, I think it was covered pretty well by Robert Kreiser of the American Association of University Professors:
Kreiser scoffed at the conflict of interest issue raised at William & Mary and said that senior faculty members could have their own sets of conflicts. "You could argue that senior faculty like things the way they are, so they might not want to bring in people who would challenge them," Kreiser said. "Why not exclude entrenched senior faculty members from votes on new hires?"
I think it's entirely appropriate for junior faculty to have a say in hiring decisions. Not only are they the people who are in the best position to know what's "hot" in a given field, they're the ones who are potentially going to have to work with the new hires for the next forty years. I agree that it's not appropriate for junior faculty to vote on tenure cases (to avoid any "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" wheeling and dealing), but they absolutely need to be involved in hiring new colleagues.
The larger lesson here is pretty much the same as it's always been: Some people are assholes. They show up all over the place, in academia and out, and when they end up in positions of responsibility, they create horrible messes for the rest of us.
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A friend of mine (another astronomer) is now the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) in the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy here at Vanderbilt.
However, before that, he was the DUS for... the Political Science department. That department was in a mess similar to the mess you describe, and was put into receivership. A dept. *head* (not chair) was appointed from outside the department, they were no longer allowed to admit graduate students for a couple of years, etc., all in an attempt to rebuild the department to make it less of a mess.
The scary thing is, about 6 or 7 months after I got to Vanderbilt I found out that the only reason the new Dean didn't put *our* department into receivership was that he didn't have a good candidate immediately ready to take over the department. Our department had been subject to an external review the year or two previously, and it also came back with a very stern report. Of course, when I was interviewing, I heard about this, but *serious* spin was put on it. (The then-chair said, "I think this will be very positive for our department as we move forward into the next century." (This was 2001.)) When I finally got there and read it, *and* as I watched our department fall upon each other like demons cast out of heaven and struggling for control of hell, I thought, damn, I've walked into a trap.
Fortunately, as little as two years later things were *much* better. Nowadays, my department just has the normal level of academic infighting and faculty assholism, and as such is a very healthy department on the typical academic scale of things. But, damn, we were a mess the first year I got here. It was scary.
-Rob
William votes "yes," Mary votes "no," and, just a second, I'm not sure that we have a quorum...
I've seen Chairs deposed, and even Deans. For that matter, I set up a Vote of No Confidence at the College Senate of a college, many years ago, which resulted in the Trustees firing the college President. I may have been very Junior, but I don't let Philosophers run over my twitching body...
Though, it sounds like those two senior faculty members sincerely think they're advocating this for the sake of the junior faculty.
Oh, there's lot's more to this story! W&M's politically correct (& former ACLU lawyer) President Gene Nichol removed an "offensive and unwelcoming" cross from the campus chapel. (But he allowed an apparently non-offensive and welcoming "sex artist" show, complete with strippers felating dildoes, in the University Center - but that's another story.) That resulted in 18,000 upset alumni (including one revoking a $12,000,000 pledge). The Chairman of the Philosphy Department vocally refused to back a petition supporting President Nichol during this incident. By sheer coincidence (or perhaps not) that chairman was removed from his chair shortly afterwards and replaced by none other than the originator of the petition of support, giving the impression of a political payoff. Two other philosophy professors (both avowed atheist) also wrote scathing articles about Nichol's leadership during the cross mess. And, voila, the whole department is now in receivership. Nichol is not only a controversial President, he is also tone deaf when it comes to the appearance of impropriety. This is not just a small, intra-departmental spat. It's a one part of a huge campus-wide mess involving secret cross removal, sex shows and department purgings. The epicenter is Gene Nichol, President of W&M. It's been one fiasco after another.