No Tenure for War Supporter

WISH TV . com ^ | 6/23/05 | Mary McDermott

[popdonnelly]

People do not have to pass some sort of leftist "litmus test". His opponent has expressed her opinion, and now she should shut up, because her opinion doesn't count more than anyone else's. If she doesn't like her colleagues at the University, she can go somewhere else. How many careers have to be ruined by left-wing bozos at the universities? I'm looking forward to the day when the left wingers who think they run our universities either die or retire.

[Kimmers]

Sad but true....my husband is on his way to another position where they are interested in doing the right thing for medicine, support good research and actually like and understand outcome studies

[kanawa]

"Florence Roisman's trying to allege that because I have viewpoints that are different from hers in terms of the war on terror - she thinks it's an aggressive war; I think it's a just war, to liberate the people there and help enhance our security.
Because of that difference of opinion, I am a bad person. I am an uncollegial person. I need to be politically cleansed,” said Bradford.

She obviously lives by her 'princples' only when it suits her...

"Freedom of discussion is one of the greatest glories of the United States, and it can be devoted to no more important task than reconciliation of different opinions about how to achieve both inclusiveness and freedom of belief."

[rbg81]

Depends on the field. Its good that he loves to teach, but you also want someone who will stay current in the field and not sit on their laurels (intellectually speaking). Universities tend to want heavyweights who publish--those who just teach theories espoused by others are looked down on.

[rbg81]

BTW--going public with the "they're not going to give me tenure" whine is the kiss of death (regardless of whether he is good or not). Its the academic equivalent of whistleblowing.

[untenured]

The administration at IUPUI says Bradford will get a "fair shake….because there are many levels to the tenure process.” "So there will be a number of people looking at it and a number of people beyond the law school that will be involved in the decision,” said Richard Schneider, IUPUI spokesperson.

That's being surprisingly blunt about his poor chances at the law-school level of the process.

[LS]

I'm sure his views don't help, but the bottom line in university "teaching" is publications. DOES HE HAVE THEM?

Forget his popularity with students.

Everyone knows this game going in, and it's a little hypocritical of conservatives to complain about "bias" if they DON'T have the pubs---and I speak from experience: if you have the pubs, they CANNOT keep you out.

[LS]

I know this seems difficult, but the fact is that if you do NOT do research, you do not keep up with the latest scholarship, and pretty soon, you are teaching "flat earth" or the equivalent thereof.

We had a great teacher (he related well to students) but he didn't know the literature, and just sitting in on his classes, it was clear that he was not preparing his students by at least exposing them to recent theories, completely disproven ideas, or new discoveries. So your research in fact DOES inform your teaching. I bring my research into the classroom all the time.

[LS]

I agree, but at my school, the full-timers teach ALL the entry level history courses; and at Harvard, I knew a TA who suggested he might be allowed to lecture just once. The prof scornfully said, "That's MY class." So in your better schools, you don't have this grad student stuff.

[dk/coro]

I can relate to the posts in here.

With substantial experience in the Middle East; and a Masters in International Relations from GWU, I thought it desirable following 9/11 to study the Islamist threat closely.

I read Huntington, Gaddis, Pipes, Lewis, Fukuyama. Johnson, Armstrong, etc -- and put together a graduate level seminar on "Civilizations in Conflict -- the threat to Western Democracy".

The local college was reluctantly supportive after I challenged the administration to "fault the proposal". And, the credential committee spread its holy water on the seminar -- and formally designated it a three credit course.

The seminar turned out to exceed all expectations; and the participants wanted to continue the studies even after conclusion of the formal sessions last year.

However, the administration changed; became increasingly liberal; and I could not even get 15 minutes of the new Dean's time to formally brief her on the Course Outline and Objectives.

Further, she was stridently anti-military -- and, as I was a retired NAVY 0-6, I was dead in the water.

I picked up my marbles; rode off into the sunset; and am currently corresponding with Senator Kyl in an attempt to cut off all federal grants to the institution until the rampant liberal bias that permeates the college is exposed for all to examine.

I am in my late 70's -- and would have taken more forceful action had I not been conducting the seminar essentially pro-bono as a community service.

But, this is just another example of what we are up against in presenting a balanced educational product to the populace. Big trouble, folks !!!

[Axenolith]

Florence Roisman = POS...

[The_Reader_David]

Yes, evidently you've forgotten that universities are not just schools. The point of having a professoriate rather than teachers is to put students in touch with people at the forefront of human knowledge in their field, and that means research.

If we erased all the research that university professors have done, we'd have no CAT, PET or MRI scans (opps, Prof. Radon, whose mathematics drives the imaging would have been devoting himself to teaching back in the 1930's); we'd have no internet (gee, those ARPA grants to university professors to develop the software for file exchange and e-mail wouldn't have anyone to collect because the professors would just have been teaching); Chile wouldn't have a model pension system for us to point to in attempting to reform Social Security because Milton Freedman would have been tied down in the classroom. (I could go on.)

Teaching constitutes about 1/3 of a professor's job. The rest is research and helping to run the university: we run our own job searches, course and program development (analogous to product development in the commerical sector), program evaluaion, the first (and arduous) part of promotion decisions, advise students, raise money (at least by grant applications, sometimes by other means), and a whole lot of other stuff teachers don't do.

And no, we wouldn't like to have some stuffed suit, who thinks of the university as a business, take over that administrative stuff from us so we devote ourselves more to either teaching or research. Universities aren't businesses because students aren't customers: the customer is always right. If the student is always right he or she is ineducable.

[macrahanish #1]

The worst and the dullest?

[Tidbit]

"Is this possibly a preemptive strike to cloud the issue because he is not publishing?"

Not in the least. Check out his CV, as well as his list of publications. He is literally being drummed out of the school by Roisman and another kooky superlib, Mary Mitchell.

http://indylaw.indiana.edu/people/profile.cfm?Id=126

This is all about Bradford's politics, and probably to a lesser extent, his gender.

Here's a link to a local column on the matter. http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050626/COLUMNISTS02/506260414&SearchID=73212666700884

The liberal professors and administration at the IU School of Law in Indianapolis have a longstanding animosity toward conservatives. Dean Emeritus Norman Lefstein installed every liberal he could find before retiring. When Lefty Lefstein couldn't find another deanship he returned to the law school, trashed his successor, Tony Tarr, then made an unsuccessful bid to move into the deanship.

What really chaps the asses of the professors at IU School of Law is that the conservative professors are held in such high esteem by the students. I know, I received my J.D. from there, and married the son of the most beloved former Dean & Professor that school has known in recent past--and not coincidentally most reviled by his liberal peers. I've had box seats for the blood letting that conservative professors at the IU School of Law get at the hands of the libs.

Professor Bradford is a family friend. He is one of the most impressive people you could ever hope to meet.

[Tidbit]

"I speak from experience: if you have the pubs, they CANNOT keep you out."

I am glad that your experience was different, but I am sorry to inform you that you are wrong. They can most certainly keep you out by withholding their tenure vote, by smearing your reputation, and by making your job so difficult to do that there is no reason to stay.

[The Grammarian]

IU...conservative

Two words that I never thought I'd see in the same sentence.

[LS]

They can't make your job difficult if you don't let them. There are rules as to how much anyone can teach, etc. So what if you have all 8:00 classes? I could care less.

Again, it's all pubs. If you have the pubs, you have the clout at any university.

[Tidbit]

Your experience is not universal. Making one's job difficult is about much more than class load and getting 8:00 classes. It is to create a working environment so replete with vitriol that only a masochist would stay. To be an as yet untenured conservative at the IU School of Law in Indianapolis is to have the liberals coming at you guns blazing 24-7. You could be one of the Framers, and if the Tenure Committee doesn't want you, you won't get tenure.

Check out Roisman's list of publications.

http://indylaw.indiana.edu/people/profile.cfm?Id=47

She was most recently published by the IU-Indianapolis Law Review. It is considered extremely poor form to ask your students to publish your article for the reason that your students have no real editorial choice in the matter. As a former articles editor I can assure you that no law review passes on an article written by one of the school's own professors.

She had to take a sabbatical semester to get the article written. Prior to that, she hadn't been published since 2002. Not exactly what I would call a prolific researcher. Clout is about politics, not about the pubs.

[LS]

Huh? You just gave clear evidence that this person did NOT have publications.

Except for Harvard, who doesn't tenure anyone, I've yet to see any conservative with truly solid pubs be denied tenure. As for "working climate," bah humbug. It's what you make it. Sometimes conservatives need to stop being shrinking violets and tell people up front they won't put up with bull. When little snide comments started in faculty meetings, I let it be known very clearly that I would not tolerate such junk in a professional setting, and I fired back when I heard one. The comments stopped.