COLLOQUY

I have just witnessed the issuance of a terminal contract to a tenure-track faculty member who was keenly intelligent, well liked by his students, a fine and newly published scholar whose real crime was not "getting along." He raised and asked too many questions. I do not believe that any system that generates such wanton destructiveness on a talented and well-qualified, not to mention dedicated, person who has devoted a number of years to his preparation for a career in higher education can be defended except under the greatest of perils and only then when such a process is the only way of addressing them.

Yet that is not the case. Non-tenured faculty have just as great a need for protection in freedom-of-speech matters as tenured faculty. And clearly, other contractual agreements can be instituted if needed and applied to all who teach at our colleges and universities. Difficult, yes. But in looking at the human costs of the present system, its abuses, and the lack of any meaningful openness in the process itself, I cannot bring myself to view it as anything short of morally and intellectually repugnant and bankrupt.

--Gerald Davey, Assistant Professor, Trinity University, San Antonio, Tex. (posted 2/28, 11:45 a.m., E.S.T.)