LOSING THAT INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY. Two colleagues at Big Ten universities that have not scheduled a football game with Northern Illinois post some thoughts about external referees for promotion.

Last year an administrator at one of our institutions pushed his glasses down his nose, looked wisely over them, and asked “Is Penn State really a peer institution?” A department at another college had to reject the possibility of using a letter from an internationally renowned sociologist at Louisiana State University because the university was considered no match for his own. Then of course there are the apples and oranges matches: How do you compare a small, distinguished liberal arts college to a megauniversity?

Our own universities are hardly unique in employing such practices. Precisely because they are so common across the academy, the time has come for a national meditation on the procedures commonly associated with promotion and tenure. We begin with letters of recommendation because they are one of the more conspicuous and egregious components of a system in dire need of an overhaul. That’s what we want to advocate here: a reform of the practices associated with awarding tenure and promotion to younger faculty and an equally serious reform of the procedures employed in promoting tenured associate professors to the rank of professor.

The referees are not really the problem. It's what the internal college committees do with the referee reports that is the problem.

In some ways the rampant insanity of the process is even more striking in the latter case, where a lifetime employee is implicitly told: “You’ve done a great job, and we want to promote you. But over the next year we want you to assemble a lengthy dossier about yourself while we seek out poorly paid — or unpaid — experts to prove to us that you’re worth it. Meanwhile, we may raise unpredictable and demeaning doubts about your qualifications. After we’ve finished with a ritual that makes fraternity hazing seem compassionate by comparison,we’ll let you know if you’ve met the grade.”

Maybe there's treasure buried on Mt. Hollywood. An anecdote does not a trend make, but pettifogging obstructionists are out there, if this example from my neighbors generalizes.

After berating the philosophy department head for even proposing the promotion, the college committee voted against promotion. An appeals committee reacted in obvious anger, urging that the dean write a strong letter endorsing the promotion. Another committee is now reviewing the decision.

Why did the college executive committee act with such cruelty and irrationality? Why humiliate a faculty member who already has tenure? Why chip away at a case in which the faculty member has met all objective criteria?

Why, indeed?

The answer may have come from a dean at Indiana, who remarked recently that wholesale retirements over the last few years have made it impossible to appoint a competent college committee. There just aren’t enough sane senior faculty members available to make up a committee with a sense of institutional history, a rational sense of fairness and an in-depth knowledge of campus standards. It is hard to rely on a college executive composed of three chimpanzees, a scorpion, a pit viper, and a coma patient.

Keep this in mind the next time you're tempted to call the Superintendent acerbic. The down side of downsizing in the corporate sphere is a loss of institutional memory; as universities are themselves institutions with institutional memory, the obvious generalization makes sense.

Meanwhile, they are egged on by empty demands from provosts and chancellors to ratchet up “standards.” At some point ratcheting up the standards for outside letters merely means institutionalizing paranoia. For many years we have argued that the scholarly achievements and status of the individual referee should be the basis of comparison. No sale.

But it might make it easier for the same administrators to pull tenure track lines as a way of obtaining greater flexibility with cheap and contingent appointments. Never mind that tenure trackers will see through the plan and adjust their efforts accordingly.

The essay considers a number of reforms to the internal promotion boards and to the responsibilities of external reviewers. The Fundamental Theorem of Economics even surfaces.

External reviewers who are expected to read a substantial amount of work and write detailed letters of evaluation should be compensated financially, as the Modern Language Association recommends. At present, humanities reviewers read much and write detailed letters. Scientists read much less and often write a perfunctory paragraph or two of confirmation.

Our own departments pay about a $100 for an evaluation — far better than not paying, which is unfortunately the option most colleges choose, but still far less than adequate. The University of Minnesota pays $300 and makes it clear that it expects a thorough, detailed report. The University of Notre Dame provides $200 and expects the same.

Chump change, to be sure, but the accomplished professors at peer or better institutions likely have multiple requests for reviews, because everybody within the discipline knows who the accomplished professors are.

There is a bull session in progress.