UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH POLICY 02-02-03

CATEGORY:              ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
SECTION:                  Faculty Appointment and Tenure
SUBJECT:                 Tenure: Obligations and Responsibilities

EFFECTIVE DATE:   July 5, 1988

PAGE(S):                   2

I.    SCOPE

      This policy affirms the special obligations and responsibilities of those who are awarded

      tenure.  The following is excerpted from the University of Pittsburgh BYLAWS.  (See

      Appendix A.)

II.   POLICY

      The primary responsibility of the tenured, one that devolves upon them throughout their

      careers, is to:

      -     Cultivate their respective fields of learning and research, and

      -     Initiate others into these fields through creative and effective teaching.

      Secondly, tenured appointment imposes stringent concern for the quality of the faculty.  It

      is the duty of all members of the faculty to seek the best-qualified persons for appointment. 

      But this duty weighs most heavily on the tenured in their service on those bodies entrusted

      with responsibilities for retentions and promotions.

      -     When none of the available candidates meets the standards of excellence, only an

            explicitly temporary appointment should be made in order to prevent permanent

            appointments of less than fully qualified faculty.

      Thirdly, those who accept the rights and immunities of tenured appointment owe it to their

      colleagues unfailingly and unflinchingly to defend independence and freedom of mind in

      their field of competence.

      -     The tenured faculty should create and sustain an intellectual ambience in which their

            non-tenured colleagues can think, investigate, speak, write, and teach secure in the

            knowledge that their intellectual vitality is both essential and welcome.

      Fourthly, it falls to all, but again most stringently to the tenured, to see that no improper

      consideration enters into the appointive process.

      -     Academic freedom, no less than academic excellence, requires that academic

            appointments be made on academic grounds alone.

      And lastly, appointment, whether for a term or permanently, implies a commitment to the

      University as an intellectual community.  The right to membership on the faculty and

      academic freedom carry with them the correlative obligations:

      -     To uphold academic freedom against invasion or abuse,

      -     To not violate the academic freedom of others, and

      -     To perform in a productive professional fashion so as to deserve membership on the

            faculty.

      It is equally a responsibility of the officers of the University administration and of the Board

      of Trustees to assure, to protect, and to defend academic freedom.  The tenured faculty

      and those officers and Board members should work together to that end.

      Thus, the tenure system entails not only the maintenance of the highest standards by which

      the merits of alternative candidates are to be appraised, but also the special obligations and

      responsibilities of those who are awarded tenure.

III.  REFERENCE

      University of Pittsburgh of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education - BYLAWS,

      Chapter II, Article II, Section I, "Academic Tenure: Purposes and Obligations."  Adopted by

      the Board of Trustees, January 14, 1969, and as amended thereafter.