Reward for Research

The decision of the Administration, announced Monday, to inaugurate term leaves for assistant professors is entirely in keeping with the report of President Truman's Commission on Higher Education. That report complained that "leaves for study, travel, or research are entirely too rare in American higher education."

This scarcity is particularly regrettable in the case of assistant professors. They find themselves obliged to write books to win permanent appointments but without the time in which to do it. Now, through a brand new program of term leaves with pay, assistant professors at Harvard will be able to compete with men at other colleges on an equal or more advantageous basis for permanent appointments here or elsewhere. Young teachers will be given time, short as it is, to write the book so essential to their advance.

Truman's Commission goes on to say, "It is through research that a faculty member becomes an authority, adds uniqueness to his teaching contribution, feeds his own intellectual curiosity." The Administration has put this opportunity into the hands of its younger men, and, with an additional gesture of magnaminity, it states that the assistant professor has no formal obligation to return to Harvard when his leave is up.