Tenure-Track Profs Should Be Tutors

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 recommended in an interview yesterday that more senior tutors be tenure-track faculty members and that tenure timetables for junior faculty be lengthened to reflect the added duties.

Currently, none of the 12 Allston-Burr Senior Tutors holds a tenure-track position.

Lewis said he would like to see more "ladder faculty"--assistant, associate and full professors--in senior tutor roles.

"It's important to try to get some faculty involved in that way...because they are the people who communicate with the rest of the faculty," Lewis said. "The [current] senior tutors are an excellent group, but the image that the faculty has of the Ad[ministrative] Board changes when the senior administrators are not the people they see in faculty meetings."

His statement echoed a recommendation from the Report on the Structure of Harvard College, issued last year by Lewis and Administrative Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Nancy L. Maull.

Lewis acknowledged that associate and assistant professors have many demands that could keep them from applying for senior tutorships.

"It's not a simple matter to do, because the pressures on academic life and promotion and so on have made the academic job market tougher than it once was," Lewis said.

To encourage tenure-track faculty to apply for posts as senior tutors, Lewis said the University should consider extending the length of time associate and assistant professors can stay at Harvard before being considered for tenure. Now, they are allowed eight years with a tenure decision in the seventh.

"Dean [of the Faculty Jeremy R.] Knowles and I have had discussions about slowing the tenure clock," Lewis said. "I think I can probably get some concreteness to that proposal before the next hiring season comes around" in the spring.

A lengthened timetable would make it easier for tenure-track faculty to balance the demands of research with an administrative position.

"Departments are certainly concerned in the case of prominent junior faculty to give those people the best possible opportunity for promotion.... They may counsel them to devote every spare instant to departmental duties like teaching," Lewis said. "That's part of the reason for making this calendar adjustment."

Although the senior tutor position counts as a half-time job and would take junior faculty members away from their classes, departments would not lose out because they would receive replacements, Lewis said.

Another reason for hiring tenure-track faculty members as senior tutors is their relative academic stability, Lewis said.

"I think it's a very, very hard thing to be a graduate student writing a thesis while you're a senior tutor," Lewis said.

"It would be better if their academic position were more stable, taking on this job," he said.

Lewis said a senior tutorship could add to a junior faculty member's experience.

"If you plan to leave and go to another institution and become a dean,...getting experience as a senior tutor is a very good thing for your resume," Lewis said.

In the past, Lewis said, more tenure-track faculty members served as senior tutors.

"It was not very long ago when there would be two or three or four ladder members as senior tutors," Lewis said. "As late as 1960s, there were nine senior tutors, and seven of them were professors of one rank or another."

Lewis added that even in 1985, four of the senior tutors were "ladder" faculty members

Although the senior tutor position counts as a half-time job and would take junior faculty members away from their classes, departments would not lose out because they would receive replacements, Lewis said.

Another reason for hiring tenure-track faculty members as senior tutors is their relative academic stability, Lewis said.

"I think it's a very, very hard thing to be a graduate student writing a thesis while you're a senior tutor," Lewis said.

"It would be better if their academic position were more stable, taking on this job," he said.

Lewis said a senior tutorship could add to a junior faculty member's experience.

"If you plan to leave and go to another institution and become a dean,...getting experience as a senior tutor is a very good thing for your resume," Lewis said.

In the past, Lewis said, more tenure-track faculty members served as senior tutors.

"It was not very long ago when there would be two or three or four ladder members as senior tutors," Lewis said. "As late as 1960s, there were nine senior tutors, and seven of them were professors of one rank or another."

Lewis added that even in 1985, four of the senior tutors were "ladder" faculty members