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Mr. Petr Beckman
Access to Energy
P. O. Box 2298
Boulder, CO  80306
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Dear Petr:

	It seems to me that the American tenure system works in
the opposite way to what one might think.  When I recall the tenure
decisions in our department, quite a few have been denied tenure
who would never have been fired.  More than half of assistant
professors don't get tenure, and very few of those would actually
have been fired.

	 The decision to either
deny tenure or keep a person for another 30 years concentrates
the mind.  Moreover, the people we ask about tenure cases put
an amount of effort into their letters that they would never
put into helping us decide whether to keep a person for (say)
another five years.

	A five year at a time rule, provided any reasonable
fraction of professors were actually laid off, would also give to
much power to deans and would lead to continual politicking to
survive.

	I believe that the British system amounts to instant
tenure as soon as a person gets on the academic ladder.  The
letters I have received are only about promotion to Reader
or to professorships.  They are never about retention.  That's
not good.

	What was your personal experience with tenure decisions
in your department?  Were a significant number denied tenure
after six or seven years?  Did the people you gave tenure to
turn out significantly better than the people to whom you
denied it?

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Sincerely,
John McCarthy
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