RE: [asa] DI Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute

1)Faculty members are hired with tenure, which means what you have done prior to the present appointment does indeed count and it should.

3) To me the main thing is to do scientific work and not necessarily bring in money. I would rather have a faculty member who does good research without getting grants rather than have someone that may get grants but administers them or gets little accomplished with that grant support. Of course, I am a practicing scientist and not a greedy university administrator.

 
Moorad

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From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of SteamDoc@aol.com
Sent: Sat 7/14/2007 9:44 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] DI Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute

It is sad (but not surprising) to see the Discovery Institute (and World Net Daily) continue to put out misleading propaganda like this.
I say this as someone who *agrees* with them that "viewpoint discrimination" probably played at least some role in the denial of tenure to Gonzalez. But it does not help the cause to present a slanted view like this article does. The flaws have been discussed before on this list; let me highlight three things:
 
1) The "68" publications. Tenure is primarily based on what a person has done *after* starting the faculty position. The *correct* number to use here would be the publications from work done at Iowa State, after Gonzalez was the one responsible for intellectual leadership of research. Earlier publications as a grad student or postdoc, under somebody else's research leadership, carry little weight in tenure. Tenure at a research university is not primarily about the ability to DO good research (as might be evidenced by grad student or postdoc publications) -- it is about the ability to LEAD good research.
 
2) The "91%" tenure number, implying that anybody denied tenure is being unusually singled out. Using a campus-wide number like this is misleading and nearly meaningless. At a mid-level university like ISU, there will be some departments that set the bar pretty high for tenure, and others that give tenure to any warm body who is not grossly incompetent. The *correct* comparison would be the rate at which tenure has historically been granted (maybe in the past 10 or 20 years) in Gonzalez' particular department. I believe that number came out in these discussions at some point, and it was significantly less than 91% (I seem to recall 75%, but don't hold me to that).
 
3) It fails to mention the important factor that Gonzalez apparently brought in *no* external funding for his research at ISU. At a mid-level research university, in a science or engineering department, bringing in external funding is an important component of tenure decisions (whether it is in the official criteria or not).
 
Again, I am somewhat sympathetic to the overall claim that Gonzalez did not get a fair deal because of his religious viewpoint. But if he cares about fairness, maybe he should distance himself from these "defenders" of his cause. With friends like these ...
 
Allan (ASA member)
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Dr. Allan H. Harvey, Boulder, Colorado | SteamDoc@aol.com
"Any opinions expressed here are mine, and should not be
attributed to my employer, my wife, or my cat"

        
        Professor: 'Religion' behind tenure dispute
        World Net Daily ^ | Friday, July 13, 2007 | Staff Writer
        Posted on 07/13/2007 11:27:37 AM EDT by Turret Gunner A20
        http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1865407/posts [refresh
        browser to get the latest on-going comments]
        
        Intelligent Design scientist faults university evolution ideology
        
        A scientist who believes the theory of intelligent design helps
        explain life's origins is appealing to state officials to save his
        job at Iowa State University, where his tenure was rejected because
        of his "personal religious and ideological beliefs."
        
        snip
        
        John West, associate director of the Discovery Institute's Center for
        Science & Culture, where Gonzalez is a senior fellow, said the tenure
        denial is "clearly a result of the vicious attacks he's had to endure
        from Darwinists and various atheists for presenting a scientific
        argument for the intelligent design of the universe based on the
        empirical evidence from physics and astronomy."
        
        Gonzalez, who will be out of his job at ISU after the 2007-2008 year
        if the decision is not changed, was rejected by officials despite his
        publication of 68 peer-reviewed scientific articles, nearly four
        times what his own department suggests as a standard for "excellence."
        
        His articles also have the highest normalized citation count among
        all of the astronomers in his department, a standard used to evaluate
        the work of professors.
        
        "Incredibly, ISU's President Geoffroy denied tenure to Gonzalez while
        approving 91 percent of those applying for tenure this year," said
        West. "Geoffroy even promoted to full professor one of Gonzalez's
        chief persecutors at ISU, atheist religion professor Hector Avaloz,
        who believes that the Bible is worse than Hitler's Mein Kampf."
        
        The day after ISU's president announced his rejection of Gonzalez's
        first appeal, a member of ISU's department of physics and astronomy
        published an article in the Des Moines Register openly admitting that
        Gonzalez's support for intelligent design was the only reason he
        voted against tenure for Gonzalez.
        
        snip
        
        Gonzalez has said he does not teach intelligent design at the school.
        
        

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Received on Sat Jul 14 23:40:51 2007