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A Wake-Up Call for Junior Professors

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By Gabriela Montell and Jennifer K. Ruark

Junior scholars have complained; so have some university-press editors: While publication of a book has become a standard requirement for tenure in English and across the humanities, the current economics of publishing mean a lot of fine manuscripts won't ever see print. Now even the leaders in the field are agitating for change.

In a recent letter to members of the Modern Language Association on behalf of the group's executive council, the MLA's president, Stephen Greenblatt, sounds the alarm, pointing out that university presses are cutting back -- and in some cases even eliminating editorial positions -- in English and foreign-language literature.

Some junior faculty members may not clear the publication hurdle "no matter how strong or serious their scholarly achievement," writes Mr. Greenblatt, a Harvard University English professor, "because academic presses simply cannot afford to publish their books." He adds: "Their careers are in jeopardy, and higher education stands to lose, or at least severely to damage, a generation of young scholars." Departments should take the current situation into account when reviewing tenure cases this year, he says, and over the long term should reconsider the criteria for tenure -- or, perhaps, offer a first-book subvention to help cover publishing costs.

"This letter is not meant to say, 'Give this year's junior faculty a free ride' -- not at all," Mr. Greenblatt says in an interview. "I wouldn't expect Harvard or any university would suddenly lower the bar. The question is whether [book publication alone] is what we should be paying attention to." He suggests that tenure committees might reassess the value of other scholarly achievements, including journal articles, certain lecture forums, or electronic publications. "I passionately believe in the research enterprise, but I think we must recognize that the traditional avenues for publishing research in the humanities are narrowing."

So far, the Modern Language Association has received about 200 responses, most of them positive. One respondent, Stephen Tabachnick, head of the English department at the University of Memphis, says his department recognizes the economic realities -- including the fact that "most university presses now balk at publishing long books" -- and so requires a minimum of 120 printed pages of writing, in book or article form.

But in the foreign languages, where book contracts are even harder to come by, alternative publications may also be harder to measure. "It is sometimes difficult to determine what the prestigious journals are, since there are so many particular venues by language area," wrote Doris Y. Kadish, a professor of French and women's studies at the University of Georgia. "Rarely is one able to judge them as easily as for strictly English journals."

Kevin J.H. Dettmar, chairman of the English department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, has not contacted the MLA, but points out in an interview that for scholars who haven't earned their Ph.D.'s from top-ranked universities, "being able to publish a book is a way of demonstrating their quality of thought." Although he has heard anecdotal evidence of the problem Mr. Greenblatt describes, he hasn't yet faced it in his department. "There are economic forces making it harder to publish, but at the same time the bad job market has given even teaching institutions their pick of candidates with books ready to be published. How do you stop that momentum?"

Joseph Kronick, director of graduate study in the English department at Louisiana State University, says he has seen some assistant professors struggle to publish books. So far, however, his department is sticking to its requirement of a book for tenure, he says. So is the English department at Indiana University at Bloomington, although Steven Watt, its chairman, says he would be willing to make an exception in light of the current situation.

"Our governance documents state that outstanding scholarly achievement is typically the publication of a book from an appropriate scholarly press," Mr. Watt says, "but I think I would have no trouble at all promoting a person who'd published a series of strong articles, but who didn't have a book, to associate professor and advocating their tenure."

While some professors say they are amenable to making exceptions on a case-by-case basis and favor adjusting the requirements for tenure at their institutions, they're quick to point out that such changes would require the approval of university administrators, who might be reluctant to make any changes unless other institutions came on board, too.

"Being able to show that it's a national trend, that there are standards in place, and that the MLA backs change will make it easier to win over administrators," Mr. Kronick says. Without those things, "I think it will be a struggle to convince administrators to consider articles instead of a book because they might feel that would be lowering standards."

Unless elite institutions such as Harvard and Stanford lead the charge for more flexible tenure requirements, other institutions will be reluctant to follow, says Peter Manning, who heads the English department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. "I think that places that are Harvard wannabes or that want to become more prestigious are going to go on aping the practices of the major institutions, and this troubles me."

Harvard, at least, is not planning any such changes soon. "The kind of experience and training that's involved in producing a sustained piece of research and writing is rather different from the kind of training and experience that's gleaned from doing a 25- to 30-page journal article. I would be sorry to see us give [the book] over out of, as it were, marketplace pressures," says Barbara Lewalski, director of graduate studies in Harvard's English department.

Most professors interviewed for this article say they will continue to tell junior faculty members that they'd better have a book by the time they come up for tenure. "I would say still that if you go to an institution like Stony Brook or Berkeley or Michigan or Wisconsin, you had better have a book manuscript accepted by the time you come up for tenure," Mr. Manning says. "There are always going to be exceptions, but you would be really foolish to count on being one of them."

Professors also say they'll encourage graduate students to choose their dissertation project carefully and to consider how it could be turned into a book.

The good news is that "graduate students are in a relatively good position in that they're not out there yet, so one would hope that in the meantime departments will be thinking seriously about their requirements, and that institutions will be looking at support for libraries and scholarly presses," says Phyllis Franklin, executive director of the MLA, who is retiring from the position at the end of this month.

The bad news is that despite Mr. Greenblatt's efforts to nudge departments to take action, it could be some time before his letter has any real impact.

"You can't push an elephant with a letter," says Paul J. Dolan, an associate professor of English at Stony Brook. "Yes, it's a very great first start toward moving the elephant, but you're going to have to get the elephant up off his butt. So I think it will be status quo for a couple of years."