It Was a Good Week for Numbers......And a Bad One for Geetting Tenure

The Economics Department senior faculty has decided within the last two weeks to recommend tenure for Richard B. Freeman, associate professor of Economics.

At the same time, the department has refused tenure to two other serious candidates. Marc J. Roberts '64, an associate professor whose courses are consistently popular with undergraduates, and Jerry Green, also an associate professor.

All three associate professors--and a fourth, Edward Leamer--were up for tenure this year, the next-to-last of their contracts.

Just when Freeman's appointment will take effect will be decided by an hoc Faculty committee. According to sources in the Ec Department, Dean Rosovsky has told the department that any new tenured appointments probably will not take effect until 1976 at the earliest or, more likely, 1977.

Limitations on tenured hiring enforced by the budget-conscious Dean's office played a major part in the senior faculty's decision to appoint Freeman. A source in the department said last week that Rosovsky told the senior faculty--before it made the decision on Freeman--that a tenured appointment could only be justified in "an academic field the department is short in."

Rosovsky's statement gave Freeman an advantage over both Roberts and Green: Freeman, as a labor economist, apparently benefited from the anticipated shortage in that field to be caused by the departure of John T. Dunlop, Lamont University Professor. Dunlop has been appointed Secretary of Labor and awaits confirmation by the Senate.

Freeman also benefited from the senior faculty's criteria for tenure--research and writing rather that teaching. Karl E. Case, head tutor in Economics, said this week that Roberts "has consistently been among the three most popular teachers in the department," according to the department's undergraduate questionnaire.

Case also said that Freeman's teaching has been rated by students as "extremely, mediocre," but that Freeman apparently was tenured on the strength of his "massive research and publishing.