The Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: December 2, 1992
Section: Personal & Professional
Page: A18
A new Cornell University policy says tenure candidates must be evaluated as thoroughly for their teaching as they are for their research.
University officials say they won't even consider the cases of tenure candidates whose teaching records don't receive such scrutiny at the departmental level.
The new policy grew out of recommendations from a campus committee that had studied ways to evaluate and reward teaching. The committee looked at the files of recent tenure candidates to see how -- and whether -- Cornell's departments had evaluated teaching. A committee report praised Cornell's law school and chemistry department, but said that, in general, peer review of teaching was "the exception." The report said many tenure files lacked materials like syllabi and assignments that could illustrate teaching abilities.
Like many universities, Cornell is debating how to evaluate teaching. Cornell's individual colleges will be allowed to develop their own guidelines as long as they define them clearly and follow them, says Walter Lynn, dean of the faculty and a professor of engineering. While the idea is to evaluate both teaching and research rigorously, the two will not necessarily be weighted the same in tenure decisions, he says. Nor will a strong teacher automatically get tenure.
That was apparent in the case of a popular Cornell professor recently denied tenure. Students have protested the decision involving Ronald Beckman, who teaches design and has been nominated for teaching awards. Cornell says he was fairly reviewed.
Meanwhile, Stephen H. Weiss, chairman of Cornell's governing board, has pledged $2-million to an endowment that will give professors named as teaching fellows a $5,000 annual stipend for five years.