A weekend in New York is always a challenge. The cliché, so much to do, so little time, sounds trite but that makes it no less true. I filled the recent days with visits to art exhibitions and found that along with the satisfaction that comes from looking at lovely things, the collection of people viewing the shows was itself interesting.

First on my list was the Morgan Library, a midtown jewel both in its architecture and in its holdings. Charles McKim designed J. Pierpont Morgan’s first library, in the early days of the 20th century. Over the next century, several additions were completed, the last one designed in 2006 by the Pritkzer Prize winner, architect Renzo Piano.

But it was not the building, though elegant in design, but the...

Marc Bousquet and I have been having a recent exchange of memos. To gain the full context, please see earlier postings.

Experience has shown me that the world is full of inequities, variables, and marketplace conditions. Life is contingent. Adults understand that. They also understand that choices have consequences. A lot of lawyers hate their work but like the money. They make their beds.

In one of my early contributions to this page I remarked that on many campuses football and basketball coaches make more than French professors — a situation that appears to be out of line with traditional academic values. Perhaps there are fewer football coaches in the marketplace; perhaps certain schools place a higher value on football than they do on French. Perhaps at some colleges more students attend football games than enroll in French class. I doubt, however, that it is an arbitrary...

In a recent comment to an earlier posting of mine on this site (Tenure: Part II), Marc Bousquet asks that I elaborate on my suggestion that faculty be given more flexibility in changing their career paths and wonders why I appear to be pushing faculty out the door at the same time that I am suggesting ways to provide administrators with more job security. Here is a reply:

The two posts — “Safety Nets” and “Tenure, Part II” — are apples and oranges and not linked the way you imply. That is to say, the safety net suggested for administrators is proposed in order to protect administrators from retaliation in much the same manner that tenured faculty’s words and deeds are protected. Otherwise, arbitrary dismissals will negatively affect not only future hires but present performances, as well. See, for example, William and Mary and also Delaware State University.

My comments about...

Our friend is full of promise. Bright, energetic, discerning, able to think broadly and also drill down. His prose excites those who hear him; his classes fill up quickly. Writing an article based on his dissertation, he finds a new way to explain an old puzzlement. Likeable and perceptive, he lunches with colleagues, serves on committees and mentors students. And yes, he’s on the tenure track. A year before the mandatory review, he’s proposed for promotion and tenure and everyone says, yes — it is yours.

We watched our friend soar through the ranks. His first book was nominated for a great prize. He served on panels at annual professional meetings and guest-lectured around the country. However, 20 years after the award of tenure, he finds the work no longer engaging. A highly reputable press publishes his second book, although it is far less impressive than the first. He’s thinking...

Last week’s news brings a remarkable story from Delaware State University. President Allan Sessoms and five other university administrators “have lost their academic tenure as part of a settlement with the university’s faculty union,” reports the Delaware News Journal. Moving from the administrative ranks into senior faculty positions will no longer be automatic. The Delaware case turns on contract language between the university and the faculty union, and as I do not have that text I will not comment on specifics. But there are some general issues in this story worthy of broader consideration.

People join the administrative ranks at universities and colleges for a variety of reasons and do so by multiple career paths. It is most common, for instance, for a dean to be appointed from the faculty ranks. Law deans mostly come from law faculty, strangely not from practice or even the...

Since its debut in 1839, photography has possessed a magical quality. While the 19th-century “mirror with a memory” intrigued and enthralled most of the general public, a minority of people was somewhat less enthusiastic, more concerned about what they perceived to be outer body experiences, to use modern terms. They believed that each time a person had a portrait made, a piece of that individual’s soul was captured. The camera was a vessel for memory, holding a precious sliver of life’s history within its frame and the printed image became a quasi icon, an item suitable for contemplation and remembrance.

There was something almost biblical about the early process of creating an image. Needing a source of illumination, pictures were seemingly carried on rays of light, traveling from the subject and momentarily transferred or hidden inside the camera, adhering itself onto a...

Most colleges provide employee benefits in addition to pay to compensate the administration, faculty, and staff on the full-time payroll. Every campus has a slightly different set of offerings — mostly the differences reflect how much of the benefit is provided by the institution, how much with an employee matching contribution and how much control over options the individual employee has.

Faculty receive the special benefit of time — usually paid for a nine-month commitment, with June, July, and August free for research, writing, other work or play. Both faculty and staff also often receive tuition remission for themselves and for family members (with wide campus variations). When I was a lawyer, a client who had no children asked me to help get his university to assist him with the cost of his elderly parents in a residential facility, for a sum equal to tuition benefits (the...

Readers have written to me about the posting on February 2nd, “Uncle Sam Needs You,” asking that I point them in the direction of further information on the subject of national service. Two documents may be of interest.

The first is a task force on national service hosted by the American Jewish Committee which was released in July 2007, called “Imagining America — Making National Service a National Priority.” I had the honor of chairing the task force, comprised of participating members who represented a broad range of constituencies from education, government, industry, and social service. Copies are available either online or from the AJC at 165 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10022.

Today, my mail brought...

It is Super Tuesday, and a helpful word or two addressed to the next president of the United States, whomever she or he may be, seems appropriate. Here, then, is an open letter, adapted from an article I wrote for a recent issue of Currents, published by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education:

To the President:

The most important thing you can do for U.S. higher education is to demonstrate, by your actions as much as your words, that you truly understand and cherish how consequential the contributions of our colleges and universities are to the well-being of our republic and democracy.

Many of my colleagues might offer you specific advice about making Pell Grants more generous; or making it easier for foreign scholars to teach and study here; or about increasing funding for research and fellowships at universities, particularly through the National Institutes of...

It is college admissions season. On campuses around the country, staff members are reading application essays, perusing letters of recommendation, charting SAT scores, checking alumni records, looking at coaches’ wish lists and balancing the incoming class with males, females, northeasterners, southwesterners, volleyball spikers and trombone players. In the end, using best judgments and past predictors, looking at current trends and financial aid packages, letters to high school seniors will be prepared for mailing that say yes, no, or maybe.

Colleges do their very best to sort the thousands of applications received with a set of what I describe as semi-scientific guidelines: all things being equal (and no two applicants are ever equal), the student with the strongest grades, higher test scores, better references, rarer skill set, and better vocabulary will get in. But life is...