Eugene Volokh has an interesting piece about a legal battle between a CSU prof and the university regarding being denied tenure. What is interesting to me is not the legal issues, but Volokh’s conclusion that publication is and should remain a vital part of establishing a basis for tenure.

While I agree that research can be important, and I also agree that a faculty member should work “full-time” like anyone else, I don’t understand why publication has to be so important. The point of a university is not just research, and it is not just there to generate publication-worthy ideas… it is also there to educate its students, right? If a faculty member is an outstanding teacher, and complements their teaching with all the other political and administrative duties that go along with that, why should they not be granted tenure and given the same benefits and respect?

Let’s be honest here: many of the best researchers and most published scholars are the worst when it comes to actually teaching what they know to someone else. Being brilliant in a discipline does not make one a brilliant teacher. Consider that there is no requirement to learn how to teach before taking a position at a University, but you have to have at least a year of training– and often more– to teach kindergartners! With all of that, why is publication given such prominence in every case?

I have been fortunate enough to learn from some stellar faculty. That some of them were “under-published” shouldn’t even be part of the equation. And, in fact, Universities ought to do a lot more to protect their student body from the criminally negligent teaching perpetrated by tenure-seeking academicians who not only have no understanding how to impart information from others, but who see their teaching duties as a distasteful obligation betweem themselves and the academic pursuits they love.