On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Mike Scoles wrote:
> I am not sure that I understand the situation. Was the person denied tenure
> because he is African-American, and the tenure committee was Eurocentric?
> Or, was the person denied tenure because of weaknesses in (up to) three of
> the four areas often considered in tenure decisions. Service is important,
> but so is teaching, and scholarship, and collegiality. Institutions differ
> may differ in their weighting of these areas, but they generally make the
> rules known to faculty during their probationary period.
>
It is just that the rules must change.So far tenure criteria are
Eurocentric in that they emphasize activities that reward excessive
cerebralization and cognitive and scholarly activities which can be
viewed as the "be all" and "end all" in itself.
When someone becomes a public intellectual and contributes to commnity
servica positive symbionic relationship is established.
I am not knocking down the other aforementioned criteria,but the public
and community service intellectuals are helping in the classroom
of diversity without boundaries
The publish or perish paradigm may be on its last footing.
A dude named Thomas Kuhn wrote a book titled "The structure of
Scientific Revolutions" and wrote about conforming to the zeitgeist
of the times.
With accountability so much in the news these days
(for example the Bush's plan to cut off money to schools that are not
performing excellently), why not put universities and their
faculty on hold that their knowledge bases should trickle down to the
community services.."The structure of tenure revolutions"?
I suspect that if we establish a criteria that all condidates for tenure
will have to spend 10 hours a semester helping the homeless,we will see
more community service involvement.
Michael Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
