From: merolajs@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu (JOSEPH S. MEROLA DEPT OF CHEMISTRY VPI&SU)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions (Repost #2)
Date: 12 Sep 92 23:10:00 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Sep12.220339.1785@tc.cornell.edu>, bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes...
> 
>Since your asserstion is far from being universally accepted,
>the enthusiasm of senior faculty members for complying 
>with affirmative action directives is based on their political
>convictions rather than on professional grounds. University
>professors were elected to do a professional job and not political.
>If you like to influence political decisions than explain your
>position to the taxpayer and get elected to a political office.
>What I dont like is that members of a professional organisation
>are using their jobs to promote political convictions.
> 

Perhaps we now come to the crux of the discussion.  What 
exactly do you see as the function of the university professor?
What do you mean by a professional job?  Before becoming a
professor in 1987, I worked for 10 years in industry.  I view
my "job" as a university professor in much broader terms than
that I am required to be a good researcher and teach some
chemistry courses.  

In most universities, there are three components to the
evaluation of professors:  research, teaching and service.
I get the feeling that there are some here who feel that the
only thing that counts are the purely technical issues.  But
more and more, the non-technical ones become important.  In
the recent past, the other prominent thread in this newsgroup
(the Fabrikant issue) shows that technical ability alone
does not make for a faculty member who contributes fully
to a department.  If the only thing I had to do in my position
were to supervise research and teach a few classes, then my
job would be a snap. But I have a lot of other responsibilities
with respect to committee duties, student advising, 
college and university service duties.  The list goes on and
on.  The belief that we should hire faculty members solely
on the basis of their technical skills does not take all of
the rest of the faculty member's responsibilities into 
account.

Am I interested in promoting my own political convictions?
Frankly, no.  How anyone in any other department carries out
their hiring is up to them and I really have no desire
to "enlighten" them.  But I am interested in making my own
department the best that it can be.  I happen to believe that
if we hire solely on technical merit, this won't happen. 

I have been involved in hirings where a candidate has come
through who was clearly brilliant and excellent in every
technical sense.  Yet, it was also clear from that person's
letters and their interview that their personality was so
abrasive and their attitude was so divisive that great harm
would be done to the department if he had been hired. 

I have also been involved in hirings where female candidates
were interviewed and were NOT hired because when all things
were considered, we found a male would be best for the 
department.  However, in another case, we found that there 
were female candidates who ranked right up there with any
of the others and then it seemed that here was a good 
opportunity to increase the value of our faculty with 
respect to role modelling and a number of other intangible
issues.  

Underlying many of these posts is that there is some 
objective measure that, if a candidate meets them, then they
are owed the position.  There is nothing farther from
the truth.

Joseph S. Merola
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Tech (aka VPI&SU)