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Essential Fields Losing Out To Money Makers
Judith S. Weis
To the Editor:I was disappointed that none of the articles in the July–August issue covered a matter that has been threatening shared governance in research universities, particularly science departments. In the Legal Watch column about the rising publication hurdle for tenure, Donna Euben comes close, but does not focus on the problem that, in many cases, it is no longer the number of publications that counts, but the amount of money (read “overhead”) brought in by grants. Thus it is not one’s productivity (output) that is evaluated, but the amount of income generated.
This trend puts research universities clearly under the “corporate model” discussed and decried in Joan Scott’s article, although Scott does not discuss this perversion of academic values either. She states that faculty should decide on curriculum and tenure since they have the proper background to make such decisions. However, by holding the purse strings, the university administration can easily usurp faculty roles by supporting the hiring and promotion of only those whose fields are likely to bring in the most money.
Hence we see many biology departments getting skewed toward cell and molecular biology and losing faculty in ecology and evolution, because the former fields are supported by large grants from the National Institutes of Health, and faculty in those areas will bring in more money. This results in the loss of important areas in biology in these universities, and subsequent losses of these essential fields in the curriculum. It is disappointing that this disturbing shift toward corporate values and devaluation of faculty in research institutions was not addressed in the articles.
Judith S. Weis
(Biology)
Rutgers University
Past President, American Institute of Biological Sciences
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