Word: ad
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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While both judgments are somewhat subjective, Ford feels that "the ad hoc committees have been a wonderful thing for Harvard because they keep the departments on their toes." The system avoids the parochialism implicit in a permanent faculty committee on tenure, such as exists at Yale, for it insures that departments cannot blindly perpetuate a single tradition of scholarship...
Predictably the critera for which an ad hoc committee looks in a candidate are scholarly achievement and potential, as well as teaching ability. This does not mean that the candidate must necessarily have published prolifically, according to Ford. Rather, "he must be alive: the constructive influence he may have on his colleagues is sometimes more important that the number of his publications...
...Ad hoc committees recognize that publishing is not an end in itself, according to Ford, but they do consider it the most reliable indication that the candidate will be able to grow with his field. There are tenured Faculty members who have published no more than a few journal articles. Nevertheless, in the History Department, Fleming says, "It is very difficult to imagine that a candidate wouldn't have published a book, in many instances two books--one of them being his Ph.D. thesis...
Harvard has chosen to keep the deliberations of ad hoc committees secret and thus avoid the risk of public outrage that might attend the rejection of a tenure nomination, such as occurred at Yale this year in the Bernstein case. It is impossible to know for sure whether or not the committee act as a rubber stamp--whether the refusal of a nomination is a common occurrence, or whether the existence of the committees discourages thoughtless nominations...
Ford and Fleming disagree on the frequency with which tenure nominations are "bumped back" to the Department by ad hoc committees. Ford says that it happens infrequently but that when it does, the Department is free to re-submit the nomination with new evidence. Fleming agrees that such a course of action is possible, adding however, the Dean has been known to blithely ignore such re-submissions...