ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries T he W a y I See It 2 6 / C&RL News Faculty status for librarians? A response By Fred Hill and Robert Hauptman D o n ’t give up fa c u lty status W e were horrified by the perspective ad­ v ocated by Beth J. Shapiro in “The myths surrounding faculty status for librarians” (November 1993). In order to produce a suc­ cinct response, we forego direct rebuttal of each myth and limit ourselves to the following com­ ments. 1) There is little doubt that tenure som e­ times protects the incom petent just as surgery sometimes results in death. But d o n ’t punish everyone for the inadequacies o f a small per­ cen tag e. T en u re exists to p ro te c t th e free thinker, the radical, the person w ho professes unpopular ideas or theories. It is particularly necessary today w hen the politically incorrect can fall prey to more powerful academic forces. Perhaps w hat w e need is tenure in conjunc­ tion with collective bargaining. Shapiro seems to assume that administrators are always car­ ing and correct. History does not bear this out. In any case, those w ho abuse tenure w ould probably abuse any controlling system. But, in a sense, this is all tangential to Shapiro’s real point, since she only mentions the tenure of teaching faculty in order to buttress her argu­ ment that librarians should give up their ten­ ure along with their faculty status. 2) Shapiro is correct w hen she insists that performance is the ultimate valorizing principle. But the abrogation of faculty status, after so many hard-w on battles, simply because it entails ad­ ditional commitments and obligations (and this is the subtext undergirding everything Shapiro says) would be extraordinarily foolhardy as well as psychologically traumatic to those w ho value this professional ho n o r m ore than all other em ployee benefits including salary. 3) Shapiro’s contention that faculty status has not had any beneficial effects on librarians is so w rong-headed that it cries out for com ­ ment. In the academy, status, privilege, and com pensation all redound in greater measure to faculty mem bers than to staff. Here is a sim­ plistic exam ple: Librarians in the Minnesota State University system receive the same com ­ pensation as teaching faculty, and since the salary schedule is fairly equitable, librarians earn a good wage. This is not the case at other insti­ tutions, w here there is a disparity betw een the salary of librarians and the com pensation of teaching faculty. At Shapiro’s hypothetical school, medical professors assuredly earn more than their col­ leagues in the English Department, but one can be sure that everyone is better paid than the untenurable librarians (who undoubtedly would lose their jobs under retrenchm ent long before a tenured neurology professor). Analogously, there was a time w hen people with m aster’s degrees in instructional developm ent attempted to help faculty mem bers improve their courses. It did not work. These professors, w hose doc­ torates, faculty status, and tenure gave them an inflated sense o f self-importance, did not re­ spect the nontenurable helpers. 4) Those academic librarians w ho do not honor faculty status and all of the obligations that accom pany it—including university gov­ ernance, research and publication, teaching (in various forms), and some substantive knowl­ edge in both librarianship and at least one other discipline, should perhaps reconsider their pro­ fessional commitments. Instead o f advocating the abrogation of faculty status for all librar­ ians, they might simply m ove over to a public or special collection. If Shapiro and those w ho agree with her “stop promoting unproductive issues such as faculty status,” they may find themselves unem ployed. ■ Fred Hill is a professor a n d Robert H auptm an is a n associate professor a t St. Cloud State University, Minnesota