Tenure and academic freedom were on the agenda at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association here last month. An MLA committee previewed its forthcoming report on evaluating scholarship for tenure and promotion, and the association's Delegate Assembly took a stand on a proposed "academic bill of rights."
The MLA's Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion gave a preliminary report on its survey of tenure-review practices in 671 literature departments at 476 colleges around the country.
The panel tentatively plans to recommend significant alterations in tenure review, including a proposal that a "diverse portfolio" of scholarly work — encompassing articles and online publications as well as monographs — be considered in tenure-and-promotion decisions.
The panel also plans to make other suggestions, among them that no more than six outside letters of review be required in such decisions (some universities now require as many as 15 to 20), along with a plea that departments negotiate "memos of understanding" with new hires that explicitly spell out what sorts of work, including teaching and service, count toward earning tenure.
Members of the panel include John D. Guillory, of New York University; Michael F. Bérubé, of Pennsylvania State University; Leonard Cassuto, of Fordham University; Donald E. Hall, of West Virginia University; and David E. Laurence, of the MLA. Its final report and recommendations will appear in the MLA publication Profession 2006 late this year.
2 Votes on Academic Freedom
The Delegate Assembly approved two resolutions on academic freedom. The first measure resolved that the MLA oppose the academic and student "bills of rights" that have been introduced in some state legislatures and Congress, on the grounds that such bills would "give some power over course content and faculty expression to one or another governmental agency."
The second resolution urged the American Association of University Professors "to strengthen its protection of free and critical teaching." The measure also said that "academic freedom is under assault from the right" and that "AAUP policies are routinely misrepresented in this assault."
Both resolutions were "carried by a clear majority" of the approximately 150 assembled delegates, according to Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the MLA.
