Word: hls
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...move that has stirred surprisingly little Faculty unrest, University President Lawrence H. Summers has revamped the historically autonomous tenure process at Harvard Law School (HLS). Unless transparency is made a priority, a potentially positive change could be little more than a power shift...
Under the old system, candidates receiving two-thirds approval by a vote of the full HLS faculty were then passed along for a presidential stamp of approval—which rarely went against the faculty’s vote. Under the new system—which is in line with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Kennedy School of Government tenure processes—Summers will now appoint an ad hoc committee to review each case brought for tenure review. This committee, also chaired by Summers, will include experts from outside HLS who can objectively judge a candidate?...
...addition of the ad hoc committee to the selection process should help HLS make appropriate decisions about whom to select for tenure. Although faculty from within a school are often the most qualified to determine how cohesively candidates will work with existing Faculty and the student body, the selection of tenure without any outside judges can make the tenure process dangerously biased. Too often, the insular world of academia breeds a faculty that “self-reproduces” in only offering tenure to a certain type of professor favored by the faculty. Broadening the initial round of selection...
Despite the benefit of direct outside opinion, the new committees may also give Summers undue influence on the selection of Faculty—potentially undermining the autonomy of HLS. Ideally, the qualifications for tenure should be made public, and the ad hoc committees should better clarify and make transparent the overall process so that candidates can rest assured that they are being treated fairly by the system. But the tenure process is highly secretive and likely to remain that way. Through micro-management—and possibly mismanagement—Summers could potentially prevent candidates he personally dislikes from getting...
...across the University. The central administration should look to programs like PON as models for innovative ways to break down traditional barriers between the schools. Though Pozen cites a recent seminar on corporate governance as the only notable exception to the general lack of interdisciplinary cooperation and courses between HLS and HBS, I have offered a research seminar on negotiation and dispute resolution with faculty from KSG and HBS since 1998. The popularity of this course (there are always auditors who are sitting on the floor, along the window sill, and anywhere they can get a space) speaks...