Refusal of tenure highlights university's misplaced priorities

By Diana Cahill     11/12/09 6:00pm

Rice is facing a devastating, but ill-publicized, loss. Two assistant professors in the Biochemistry and Cell Biology Department, Mary Ellen Lane and Kevin MacKenzie, are leaving the faculty because they did not receive tenure. Lane, a prominent Baker College associate, studied the development of the nervous system. Additionally, she was part of the Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum, served as an academic adviser and could often be seen dining at Baker. Denied tenure in April, Lane filed an appeal, which went unanswered. She left last month and is now the assistant dean for admissions for the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Heath Science Center.

MacKenzie, who studies membrane protein folding and stability, is even more involved in undergraduate life at Rice. He and his wife, Cory Rogge, an instructor in the Chemistry Department, have been resident associates at Brown College for eight years. They go to all Brown events, drive trucks for Beer Bike and haven't missed a Cabinet meeting in recent memory. MacKenzie, who is renowned for his infamously difficult biochemistry class - a rite of passage for biochemistry students - was denied tenure a second time last year. As a result, MacKenzie and Rogge will be leaving in June.

These occurrences accentuate some pressing concerns. First, four colleges will be conducting searches for new masters this year. Since the position is limited to tenured faculty members, a refusal to grant tenure to members of the Rice community who are already involved in student life serves to further limit this pool.

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Furthermore, their departure will leave the BCB department shorthanded. Professor Richard Gomer is also departing this year, leaving the department short three full-time faculty members while enrollment increases by 30 percent. Lane's development class will not be taught this year, and her position on the curriculum committee has been filled by Alma Novotny, a part-time lecturer. Novotny is great, but a committee that oversees the management and composition of the curriculum should be composed of full-time professors.

What is truly worrisome, however, is the light this affair shines on Rice's perception of its faculty. Lane and MacKenzie were not only great teachers, but highly esteemed by their students. Refusing tenure to people who dedicate so much of their personal time to student life reflects misplaced priorities on behalf of the university.

Of course, Rice does have other things to worry about. National rankings are important, as are producing new technologies, conducting research and publishing papers (to which Lane and MacKenzie did contribute). But the appeal of Rice, for both myself and my fellow students, was its atmosphere. The university provided small classes, a beautiful campus and a collegiate structure devoted to making student life about the students. Recent changes made to improve the appearance of the campus to outsiders have been detrimental to student life.

The small things are adding up. Complaining about parking is a popular habit in the opinion section, and while I don't drive, opening the West Lot spaces that students pay for in order to provide parking for events - and before the other lots are open - reflects a cavalier disregard for students. Enrollment in introductory classes has ballooned, but in some areas new sections have not been added. (Introductory Sociology, for example, has more than doubled, from 55 to 127 students in the only section.) Rice's State of the University address, traditionally open to students, was closed this year. Late registration was eliminated. Two new colleges have recently been completed, drastically inflating the small class sizes Rice was famous for. Furthermore, the architecture at Duncan College and McMurtry College can hardly be said to promote collegiate atmosphere, or really to promote socializing in general - a design failure that could have been at least partially alleviated by considering input from students.

In the same vein, I would have to write an entirely separate column to discuss money, but I'll condense it here. This year, I'm paying $4,010 more for tuition, room and board than I did two years ago as a freshman, and $17,580 more than juniors paid in 2003. That's an increase of 70 percent in six years. Seventy. (Financial records are available online through the Cashier's Office.) According to President David Leebron's slides at the Rice-BCM merger presentation, our tuition money does not contribute to construction costs - but where does it go?

As a result of the recession, department budgets were cut 5 percent across the board and salaries remained untouched, but these actions did not consider the diverse consequences. Most departments dedicate about 90 percent of the budget to staff salaries, and so are left with half the usual operating budget - just 5 percent to cover remaining costs. These effects can be seen in the cannibalization of the Elec labs and the trimming of Information Technology services (and the students who used to work there). These budgets are slated to be cut an additional 5 percent next year.

Right now, the administration has two strong assets in pursuing policy change that are endemic to Rice's culture. The first is that the undergraduate population of Rice turns over every four years, and we don't carry over the institutional memory. For example, only this year's seniors have lived on a campus with no construction, and the furor over construction has seen an exponential decrease in intensity over time. The second is the fact that Rice students, so involved with volunteering, studying and event-organizing, don't usually speak out about the changes that are happening, unless they are complaining to their friends.

While the first problem is a bit difficult to manage, the second can be combated. It's past time to air our grievances - Lane, MacKenzie and Rogge are on their way out the door - but hopefully, we can halt this trend before it goes much further.

Diana Cahill is a Baker College junior.

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