Last year, the Main Campus Executive Faculty wagged its collective finger at Georgetown students, calling student life a “culture of functionality” and “underachievement” with too much partying and not enough academic excellence. The Intellectual Life Report, though not without its flaws, was refreshing in its willingness to unflinchingly scrutinize Georgetown’s academic environment. Today, as the MCEF brings recommendations for stricter tenure criteria before the Georgetown Faculty Senate, the Faculty Senate once again has an opportunity to prove its dedication to improving Georgetown’s academic environment. The Senate should approve the MCEF’s proposal and vote to strengthen the Faculty Handbook’s guidelines for tenure-seeking professors.
The proposed changes would amend the handbook’s vague and disinterested language, emphasizing that tenure implies a responsibility of excellence along with a right to intellectual freedom. Granting tenure to a professor is an extraordinary measure of faith in the enduring excellence of Georgetown’s permanent faculty—the University cannot afford to make lifetime commitments to professors who show signs of complacency or underachievement. The revisions highlight specific criteria used for judging both a tenure candidate’s body of scholarly work and teaching ability by stressing creativity and independence of thought as well as an ability to communicate with students and stimulate their academic curiosity. A creative and independent faculty which has more of a vested interest in its students can only improve the quality of learning at the University.
Focusing the handbook’s language will more accurately reflect the actual standards used to grant tenure. Rather than following a personal set of unwritten standards to judge applicants, the University Committee on Rank and Tenure will be able to fairly and consistently compare professors to one another. While these revisions should not change the number of professors who receive tenure, it will improve the quality of scholarship and teaching at Georgetown. When the Faculty Senate approves the proposed changes today, as they hopefully will, they’ll be signaling a renewed commitment to academic excellence and laying down a roadmap for Georgetown’s sustained improvement.
