UP OR OUT: YALE TOO

President Seymour's Annual Report contains a section on a tenure program for Yale drawn up by a faculty committee. It appears Yale has adopted the Committee of Eight's Report lock, stock, and barrel. A few names have been changed, but underneath this veneer the same situations actually exist.

Consequently it has adopted all the good features of the Harvard plan. It boosts a man up the ladder at an early enough age so that he still has some elements of unconventionality in his make-up. Likewise it frees a man young enough to enable him to get a good job elsewhere.

However, in adopting the Harvard plan, Yale has taken the bad with the good. True no immediate firing took place, but the system of promotions becomes inflexible. Predictable vacancies based on actuarial tables govern the number of advancements and the number of dismissals. Rarely, if ever, does the number of desirable men coincide with the number of predicted vacancies.

In place of a rigid up-or-out system, far better would be a plan of advancement based on two standards. The first would be a man's ability as a teacher and as a scholar; the second, the current teaching needs of the university. If these criteria are used it means the creation of an additional associate professorship whenever needed. Such a system of promotion does not necessarily imply a large block of frozen professors, but it does mean that the administration has an open mind regarding their possible use.

President Seymour's Report, however, seems to indicate that Yale, like Harvard, has closed her eyes to such a method of solving the tenure problem. This move is unfortunate not only in itself but because it furthers a policy made fashionable by Harvard. Strict adherence to actuarial tables as a criterion for appointments is scarcely in line with giving the best possible education available. No extensions of the budget are necessary to raise the level of instruction. The difficulty can be circumvented by a change in the inflexible promotion policy.