Lisa Bradley
m H
Monday, November 10, 1975
Most people would probably agree
that a major feature of any university is
a tenure system. The significance of such
a system lies in the protection it affords
faculty members against capricious and
arbitrary dismissals of a political nature
and against Violations of their freedom
of expression, whether verbal or
written. Indeed a primary grievance
directed at the five-year review systems
in operation at many universities is the
potential abuse inherent in such a
scheme. -
Controversies arising in discussions
of tenure surround neither the need nor
the value of a tenure system, but rather'
the actual provisions of the system. Here '
at UNC the bestowal of tenure, as.
rigidly defined by the Board of.
Governors, or of promotion rests upon
considerations of the following duties
and responsibilities of faculty members:
community service, publishing
research endeavors and
teaching. Seldom do faculty members
excel in all of these fields and many
times the overriding qualification is the
quantity of publications or research
either completed or ongoing. Besides,
the quality of an institution's education
is measured to a great extent by the
quality of research produced by the
faculty of that institution, and their
resulting eminence in respective fields.
Publication research requirements
serve an important purpose in our
society. The generation of new theories,
ideas, opinions, insights, etc. vitalizes
the academic world and serves as an
important goal of any university. At the
same time these requirements ideally
offer assurances that faculty members
"keep up" with current thought and that
consequently students will receive an
education that is . neither outdated nor
stagnant.
There nevertheless exist two well
grounded criticism of
publishing research demands. In the
first place one might note that the
phenomenon of "publishing for the sake
of publishing" inevitably will arise, at
some point, out of this system. The
production of consistently creative and
original materials within a specific
period of time and of a sufficient
quantity is recognized as an
unreasonable request for the following
reasons: (1) the fact, albeit frequently
denied, that some fields of study quite
simply offer no prospects for original
thought and (2) the often lengthy time
involved in producing truly reflective
and carefully prepared research
precludes the possibility of requiring a
specified quantity of work within a
given period of time. What emerges in
Forrest Read
The editors of the Daily Tar Heel,
presumably reflecting student attitudes,
want to know "whether there, is an
overemphasis on research at UNC and
whether this forces professors to live by
the dictum 'publish or perish.' " The
second "whether" answers "yes" to the
first while implying that to "publish" is a
professor's only way "to live."
In their specific questions, the editors
assume correctly that "publish or
perish" is a factor in the hiring, firing, .
promotion or tenure of UNC
professors, then ask"is its effect positive
or negative?" and "does it have an
adverse effect on the quality of teaching
and therefore on the educational value
of the University?" Tending themselves
toward "negative" and "adverse," they
wonder "Are the manuscripts published
by professors always really worthy of
publication?" "Does the tenure system
take teaching merit into account?"
"What, if any, are the detrimental effects
of tenure?"
To answer these questions for a
university offering varied studies
involves intimate knowledge both of the
studies and of departmental practices.
To answer them for my own
department, English, would result in
pros and cons depending on point of
view, i.e., the. administrator's, the
colleague's, the student's, the teacher's
and the serious scholar's or
intellectual's. One would seldom find all
these in a single person, so it would
become a matter of self-interest, , as in
the questions asked by the Daily Tar
Heel. And such, indeed, is the nature of
the beast "publish or perish," a slogan f
coined to dramatize how administrators
and tenured professors intimidate those
seeking to join their ranks.
The conjunction "or" is indicative. In
practice it often does become "publish
or teach," on the assumption that to
publish is to be serious while to teach is
not. A wittier version is George Bernard
Shaw's "Those who can, do, those who
can't, teach." Shaw, of course, did both,
and there lies the secret: it should be
"publish and teach"; or, looking at
origins, "think and teach," "write and
teach."
Not everyone's experience and
W :
ri A cM if X W
,ssr'Z" "', . '"miiw"iwmiinmf Xl. I I I 1
f ' ' y - 1 fZl S 7 ; . i
r y "' y $
W " y s ' ' m i iii i. . ' '' mzzr7 6 y
'fyytmsZys, ?yyyyyyyyyy"'yyyyyyy?
y'yy'fyyyyfyy?yyyy
noMT CAREHoVJ PooKSyouVeWRiTrfBia-tHtY DoMT GIVE TWt TO fooTBALL CoAcHSf"
the place of original materials all too
regularly are manuscripts, articles and
book reviews which at best might carry
lables of pedantic, trivial, obscure,
innocuous, etc.
One must too consider a second
indictment against publishing
requirements. The promotion of
learning is a stated purpose of the
university, rivaling the generation of
new ideas in importance. However, the
premium placed upon research, for
tenure and promotion purposes, has a
deleterious implication for teaching.
The inherent danger lies in the
opportunity research demands create
for the relegation of teaching to a
secondary status. This problem
magnifies itself because no institution
mechanisms exist to pressure those
tenured faculty members who are, in the
eyes of both graduate and
undergraduate students, less than
competent teachers into proving their
teaching abilities. Furthermore,
regardless of a faculty member's "rank
and of the quality of his or her teaching
Publish or perish?
...or teach?
minlFS
'
17
if
Ac A
, vCy
A ....
This column is the first in a series of five discussions by
professors on the merits andor demerits of publishing
requirements as the major basis of tenure decisions.
Lisa Bradley's column, above, introduces the salient
problems involved in a "publish or perish" system, particularly
its effects, on the quality of teaching at the University.
See page one for a related article on the tenure system.
perspective will be the same, but in my
observations and for myself there is no
honorable or intellectually satisfying
way to make these alternatives
"either or"; such bifurcation fits better
the "fish or cut bait" of "the struggle for
existence" and the melodramas of
existentialism.
In the life of the mind, it has been said,
there are no victories. The consolation,
if one can survive the "both and" of
irresolvability, is no defeats. And how
keep it going? By struggling in a field
larger than a classroom containing a
captive audience of nonpeers, and by
refusing to let the classroom, whatever
percentage of the clientele might prefer
it, become a showcase for easily
digestible materials and forever-soaring
grade-point averages.
I am talking about research in the
genuine sense of trying to advance
human awareness, with all that implies.
yy y
abilities, anyone who prolifically
publishes and or who brings
"distinction, recognition and honor" to
the University will not be too strongly
"encouraged" to correct teaching
deficiencies.
There seems to be no viable remedy
for the "publishing for the sake of
publishing" illness. Any university
efforts to stress iquality of research will
open themselves to charges of prejudice
and subjectivity and will perhaps have
further adverse effects upon teaching.
Corrections in this area will arise only
when fundamental belief and priority
changes occur in the academic world.
Steps may be suggested, however,
toward alleviating the harmful impact
of research demands upon teaching. The
requirement of education courses offers
one solution, as does the "passing" of a
classroom observation period. An even
better suggestion is the participation of
students in the tenure
promotion hiring dismissal
proceedings: the resultant undesirable
consequences for students must be
rfjtv JJL?L ,rW
No one who is trying to do that will be
satisfied until he has, written for his
peers, very few of whom are at his
university. Nor will writing for his peers
be enough. He (or she) will also want to
get the young going on the same track:
how can it be otherwise if one is
impassioned by a quest, and wants to
impart it, and wants to share it in all its
translations? Such, we are told by great
thinkers, writers, and teachers, is "the
gay science" (cf. the tone of our beast,
"p. or p.").
How could it be an honorable
profession, both subjectively and
objectively, if teaching were not
refreshing itself through thinking and!
writing? if the yellowed notes of courses
taught over and over were not being
renewed? How can there be
enthusiasms, not hoked up but real, if
there are not struggles with stubborn
materials, against old theses, for new
yyyy y y y ' , y
taken into consideration, however.
These criticisms of the effect of tenure
upon " teaching are by no means I
implications that the tenure system and
quality education are incompatible.
These protestations should rather be
viewed as lamentations of one who
wishes that the quality of teaching
would be as highly respected as the
quantity of research that somewhere
in this in many ways fortunate
university there would be a place for
those faculty members who are
dedicated to the goal and aspiration of
the teaching of others at the expense of
doing research. The dismissals of faculty
members who, in the eyes of students
and frequently of fellow workers are
inspirational teachers as opposed to
mediocre researchers, reflects a tragic
state of affairs on a campus whose
avowed purpose is the promotion of
further learning.
Lisa Bradley, chairperson of the
Academic Affairs Committee, is a
senior psychology major from Raleigh.
light? To be sure, talk breeds ideas; but
the spoken word countenances more
bullshit than the written, which
demands mental discipline and
composition. I have lost many fine ideas
and turns of phrase in the classroom, as
in bull sessions. Only writing, where
ideas can be elaborated, gives ideas a'
chance to enter significant relations and
to become lasting.
The classroom, like my job, is here
and now. But what about the past, for
which I feel responsible, and what about
the future, which 1 want to try to affect?
Teaching can do that in part, but only
on a fairly elemental level. Alas, that
level is as far as most students want to
go. But "the educational value of the
University" has another claimant, one
indeed "universal" not this year's
students, or North Carolina or the
United States, but the human mind. I
want to plug into that. So should more
students, and may be more professors,
too.
"Can a professor survive as a
university instructor if he emphasizes
teaching rather than research?" Again
the "either or." In my experience the
two are neither antagonistic nor
separable: if one does not feed the other,
one grows to a monster while the other
perishes. There are many ways to
"survive as a university instructor," if
that means to "get tenure." But tenure
has a detriment, and it works both ways:
it may promote ambition beyond the
quotidian claims of teaching; but it may
also relax the struggling mind until it
yields to such opiates as adoring
students, "the Southern part of heaven,"
or an ever-increasing fit of easy-chair
and middle-age spread. For a low-grade
institution some wit coined the variation
"publish or stay."
I fear these last more than I fear,
"publish or perish," for in my
profession, as I see it, survival of the .
mind whether one person's or a
university's is more important than
anybody's job, or anybody's preference
of one professor over another, or any
quasi-political slogan.
Forrest Read is an associate professor of
English. .
Hostilities
In two major confrontations
between Student Government
figures and the Black Student
Movement, the BSM budget has
been frozen, legally impounded by
the treasurer of the student body and
the chairperson of the Campus
Governing Council Finance
Committee. Both of these fund
freezes, while procedurally proper,
have been of little benefit to any
element of the student body.
The first fund freeze came as a
result of an alleged illegal checking
account and possible
misexpenditure of funds by the
BSM Gospel Choir. The freeze
ended for all but the Gospel Choir
funds following a BSM march on
South Building and the Carolina
Union, inaction by the CGC and
internal struggles within the
executive branch.
The second freeze followed the
BSM presentation of world
heavyweight champion Muhammed
Ali and the handling of cash receipts
from the program. Security agents
were apparently paid from sales of
tickets without BSM processing the
money through the Student
Activities Fund Office as required
by CGC budget law. That freeze has
not yet been lifted, except for alump
sum for Ali's honorarium.
The fund freeze has hurt the
programs sponsored by the BSM.
Black Inkt the official publication of
the group, could not publish for an
extended time because of the
impoundment. The Gospel Choir,
recognized as one of the best in this
part of the i country, cannot spend
any of its budget for travel or other
expenses. Students, both black and
white, cannot . benefit fully from
these programs as long as the vital
funding is not forthcoming.
This is not to say, however, that
the BSM funds should not have been
frozen. Flagrant violations of
Student Government law, should
they occur, must be dealt with
swiftly and thoroughly. But in both
these BSM fund freezes, the
application of the law and proper
remedial steps have been hampered
by overeaction on the part of the
CGC Finance Committee and
Student Government. Former
Finance Committee Chairperson
Bill Strickland quickly refused to
honor a requisition for Ali's expenses
on the day of the speech (but before
the speech occurred) because
someone labelled the request "late."
The BSM refused to discuss the
funding situation with a DTH
reporter and closed ranks behind its
chairperson in an effort to regulate
83rd Year of
Cole C. Campbell
Editor
Jim Grimsley
Managing Editor
Greg Porter
Associate Editor
Jim Roberts
News Editor
Robin Clark
Features Editor
Susan
Shackelford
Sport Editor
Barnie Day
Projects Editor
Joyce Fitzpatrick
Graphic Arts Editor.
Business: Reynolds Baiiey, business manager. Elizabeth Bailey, advertising manager. Staff:
Henry Birdsong, Elisabeth Corley. Steve Crowell. Jay Curlee, Mark Dubowski, Ellen Horowitz,
Larry Kulbeck. Mark Lazenby and Linda Livengood.
Composition editor: Mike Leccese. Editorial assistant: Gloria Sajgo.
Student Graphics, Inc.: Dean Gerdes. shop foreman. Typesetters: Stan Beaty; Henry Lee and
Chiquetta Shackleford. Ad Composition: Judy Dunn. Carolyn Kuhn and Steve Quakenbush.
News Composition: Dave Gentry, Brenda Marlow and Joni Peters.
Printed by Hinton Enterprises in Mebane, N.C.the Daily Tar Heel publishes weekdays
tduring the-regular academic year.
must cease
any information released. Until the
anti-BSM forces in Student
Government relax their aggressive
stance and until the BSM leadership
loosens its grip on pertinent
information, further clashes
between the two groups will
inevitably reoccur. ,
And students will suffer for it. In
the spring, when the new BSM
leadership seeks a budget with which
L
y-:-,-,.-.Sw
Lester Diggs
BSM chairperson
i
Bill Strickland
Former finance chairperson
to expand its programs, the legacy of
the current leaders may limit the
appropriations. What is good about
the BSM will suffer because of what
is bad.
Officials of both the BSM and
Student Government ought to
encourage the special investigation
of the BSM Gospel Choir under
Dean Harold Wallace and CGC
Representative Sheri Parks to come
to a rapid conclusion. Both sides
should sit down and iron out the
"failures in communication" which
have caused the current fund
shut off.
Until some happy medium can be
reached and the hostility reduced,
more and more major
confrontations will mark the
remainder of this academic year.
Editorial Freedom
News: Lynn Medford, assistant news editor. Art Eisenstadt,
associate news editor. Writers Sue Cobb, Miriam Feldman,
Dwight Ferguson. Dan Fesperman. Chris Fuller, Sam Fulwood,
BruceHenderson Polly Howes, Bob King, Vernon Loeb, Nancy
Mattox, Vernon Mays, Greg Nye, Tim Pittman, Laura Seism,
Merton Vance and Richard Whittle.
News Desk: George Bacso. assistant managing editor. Copy
editors: Janet Creswell, Autumn Dobies, Ben Dobson, Jan
Hodges, Clay Howard, Todd Hughes, Ted Melnik, Malia Stinson
and Betsy Stuart.
Features: Linda Lowe, assistant features editor. Critics: Rick
Sebak, drama; Michael McFee. Laurance Toppman, Hank
Baker, film. Writers: Alison Canoles, Susan Dat2, Elizabeth
Leland. Fred Michael, Sue Ann Pressley. Liz Skillen and Bill
Sutherland.
Sports: Jim Thomas, assistant editor. Gene Upchurch, desk
assistant. Writers: Jane Albright. Keven Barris, Brad Bauler.
Doug Clark, Mike Egan. Chip Ensslin. Alan Ford, Jim Gentry,
John Hopkins. Pete Mitchell, Bill Moss. Lee Pace. Ed Rankin.
Grant Vosburgh. Tom Ward and Ford Worthy.
Graphic Arts: Martha Stevens, head photographer. Staff
photographers: Alice oyle, Steve Causey, Charles Hardy,
Margaret Kirk and Howard Shepherd. Cartoonists: John
Branch. Stan Coss and Nan Parati.