Politics Monday: Tenure, Scholarship, and the Humanities

Back when Oklahoma was becoming a state it was evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. Prior to statehood a majority of professors, including OU’s president David Ross Boyd, were Republicans. When Oklahoma’s first governor, the Democrat Charles Haskell, took office he fired many of the Republican professors, including President Boyd. Not because of their poor scholarship, or teaching, but because he didn’t like them.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example. In the era before tenure professors and top administrators could be unceremoniously dumped because of their political or religious allegiances. Not every school did this. Many adhered to the concepts of tenure solely because they valued the security it gave their scholars and researchers. The schools that adopted tenure attracted the best professors, which in turn helped those universities recruit the best students, all of which helped fill classrooms and turn profits.

The schools that allowed politics to control scholarship struggled financially and carried poor reputations. Eventually most colleges and universities decided to adopt the tenure system because it became obvious that politics should not be allowed to trump scholarship. High quality scholarship helped make a successful university. Appointing professors based on the shifting winds of political victory weakened the universities.

OK, high quality scholarship makes a competitive university, but what is scholarship?

Scholarship is the effort to create the best better knowledge possible. [Update: As Zoe correctly points out in the comments, "best" is problematic.]

Scholarship is the effort to improve our body of knowledge.

Scholars use a variety of tools and methods to ensure that the knowledge they’re creating is the best possible. They share arguments and conclusions so everyone has a chance to critique their reasoning. They share the data they collect so others can attempt to reproduce their experiments. They use primary sources when possible, instead of relying on the interpretation of others. They use anonymous peer-review so the quality of work is debated rather than the quality of the researcher.

In the grand scheme of things there’s no single overwhelming reason to strive for the best knowledge possible. People in the United States did it prior to WWII because they wanted to be taken seriously on the world stage. Americans wanted to prove that they should be movers and shakers along with the Europeans. After WWII the US wanted to prove that democracy and capitalism could trump authoritarian rule and communism. To do so, we relied heavily on high-quality scholarship, and placed a significant financial emphasis on research.

It’s possible for a nation to live out its existence without once worrying about the quality of knowledge its citizens produce. Death awaits us all, it just comes a little later to those who invest in medical research.

When Governor Rick Scott attacks tenure he’s saying that politics should trump scholarship. He’s arguing that the might of political office is more important than the right of dedicated researchers.

Tenure isn’t perfect. In fact it’s riddled with flaws. However, the question shouldn’t be whether we keep tenure or not, the question should be how do we keep and improve tenure. We adopted tenure to avoid the tin-pot tyranny of would-be totalitarians.

When Scott dismisses the scholarship of anthropologists and psychologists he’s demonstrating that he doesn’t understand science OR the humanities. Scott says he wants to invest more in science and de-emphasize disciplines like anthropology and psychology. However, both anthropology and psychology rely heavily on the scientific method. They share their data, they rely on anonymous peer-review prior to publication, they require measurable evidence to support their theories, and they test theories with prediction. Science is a method, not an occupation.

What Scott doesn’t like is that anthropology and psychology, along with cultural studies, history, the study of classics, art, and literature, philosophy, communication studies, etc. are part of the humanities.

The humanities, broadly, is the study of the human experience. Scott doesn’t have any curiosity about what it means to be human. He believes he already knows. And, if the meaning of life is so obvious to him, then why should he allow the state to spend so much money on the blatantly obvious?

Unfortunately for Scott the study of humanities permeates every single area of research. The reality is that he doesn’t have the answers, and he should not be allowed to dismiss a structure of supporting research that has been built over centuries.

Areas of study that he wants to emphasize, like economics and technology, are also part of the humanities. And they can’t be studied in isolation. Economic theory has recently been greatly enriched by behavioral economists like Dan Ariely, who rely heavily on psychological research. Anthropological research deeply influences technological research. People who develop new technologies need to understand why people choose some technologies over others. In other words, technologists need to the tools of anthropology to better understand people’s relationship with technology.

If Scott wants Florida to be wealthier and more successful then he needs to invest in the wide spectrum of research and scholarship. Picking and choosing is like trying to make a car go faster by only giving it new tires. It may actually help a little, but your best bet is to improve the whole car. Because no matter how high the quality of the tires, if the engine fails the whole car stops.