The Collegian Wednesday, March 15 Behrend Briefs Good Friday Service An ecumenical Good Friday worship service, with a readking of the Passion according to St. John and slides and music, with be held on March 24 at 9 am in "the Reed Lecture Hall. Sponsored by Campus Ministry. Seniors Caps and gowns must be ordered at the Bookstore by Fri., Mar. 17. The cost is $l4. Zoo Volunteers The Erie Zoological Society will be hosting an informative meeting about their Volunteer Program on Tues., Mar. 21 at 6:30 pm in the Zoo's Education Room. The meeting will be free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information call Patty Bellucci at 864-409.1. - Elementary Education Majors Elementary Ed. majors are needed for student helpers at Diehl Elementar) . l . School on Tuesdays or Thursdays for one-hour sessions from 9-10 am or 1-2 pm. For more information contact Brenda at 864-5088 or M.C. at 898-6693. - . UP Housing If you are looking for off-campus housing at University Park there are packets available in the Office of Student Services. Ask for John Downey. Amnesty International Amnesty International meetings are held every Tuesday in the upper Winter Green lobby from 4-5 pm. Theater Tickets Tickets for Behrend's Studio Theatre's production of Christopher Durang's comedy, "The Marriage of Betty and Boo," will be on sale Monday, Feb. 20 through Feb. 24. Tickets will also be available from Monday, March 6 until the last performance. Tickets are $2.50 for students, S 4 for senior citizens and non-Behrend students, and $5 for the general public. The play will run from Tuesday, March 14 through Sunday, March 19. For more information or reservations, call 6331. Photography Scholarship New Photographers Association of Greater Pittsburgh is offering a scholarship for students from Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Bedford, Blair, Butler, Cambria, Clarion, Crawford, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Jefferson, Lawrence, Mercer, Somerset, Venango, Washington, and Westmorland counties. Students must submit a poitfolio of ten original photographs. Applications are available in the Financial Aid Office, 221 Glenhill. The deadline is March 31. Learning Assistance The Learning Assistance Center offers free tutoring in subjects including math, English, and physics. Check the appointment board outside of the Center, Turnbull 205, for details. Fashion The Association of Black Collegians will hold their annual spring fshion show at 7 pm on April 22. Persons seeking more information should contact any club member. Computer Seminars The Computer Center is offering training sessions on a variety of software packages on both the PC's and the mainframe computer. Introductory sessions are available for CMS/XEDIT, MS-DOS, WRITING ASSISTANT, WORDPERFECT, MACWRITE, MACPAINT, and MACDRAW. Since enrollments are limited for each session, those interested in attending any session should stop by or call the Computer Center (898-6415) to make a reservation. Freshmen The Alpha Eta Chapter of Lambda Sigma at Behrend is beginning its selection process for membership in next year's society. Membership is limited to the most select members of the freshman class. Students must meet academic criteria determined by the organization, be a full-time student, have leadership capabilities, and must have had previous involvement in extracurricular activities both in and out of school.lFor more information, contact M.C. Restifo at 898-6693, Dr: Carolyn Spies at 898-6206, or Mrs. Cathy Mester at 898-6207. Counseling Personal counseling and support groups are available. Stop in at 213 Glenhill Farmhouse Monday through Friday from 9 am to 5 pm or call 898-6203. Appointments can be made in the Financial Aid Office. Tenure Process Complex One... Contd. from page 1 made. Tenure, according to Dr. Jim Seroka, head of the division of humanities and social sciences, is "protection for faculty members to be able to conduct research or teaching without political or idealogical interference from the university of outside public." Faculty members would appear to benefit most by the tenure system, since they are entitled to break a tenure contract simply by giving notice, while the employer may break the tenure contract only under extreme circumstances. There are underlying benefits for the institution which is able to determine criteria to attract individuals conducive to the charges of that particular institution. Tenure is generally seen as a way of rewarding and retaining the most capable people. Because it is a land grant institution, Behrend's charges are teaching, research, scholarship, and service. Typical weight attached to these for research faculty at Behrend are 40% teaching, 30% research, 20% scholarship and 10% service. These are the criteria on which tenure - os based and granted. Dr. Robert Tauber, chairperson of this years' tenure committee, emphasizes the weight Behrend gives to teaching: "People simply will not get tenure at Behrend college if they do not perform well with teaching," said Tauber. Counseling, advising and service to students are also included in this category. Competence is History of Tenure Process by Cindy Craig Collegian Staff Writer The concept of tenure originated in the 13th century at the University of Paris when the master scholars sucessfully established a guild. The motivations; political, social, economic and religious, are so integrated that it is impossible to distinctly discern one from another. Nonetheless, if the motives are not discernable, actual historical events are. Around the 13th century there was a terrific influx of previously unknown works which were being translated to western languages. These include works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid, Hippocrates and other Greek thinkers. These had been preserved and expanded upon by the Arabs when they took over Syria and North Africa in the 7th and 3th centuries. Prior to this knowledge, an education meant studying established texts with the Bible being the ultimate, last word. judged through syllabi and tests that are used for a particular course and also by student and peer evaluations. Student evaluations carry considerable weight in evaluating faculty. According to Dr. Carl Kallgren who currently holds a "tenure-eligible" position, "(student) evaluations are taken extrememly seriously at Penn State." They are one of the main inputs to judging teaching criteria for the tenure process. According to Tauber, "people committed to this institution realize that we do value teaching. This is why you don't have graduate assistants teaching your classes. You have real live faculty for better or worse." The second criteria is research of creative accomplishment. Behrend faculty must demonstrate competence to carry out research and the ability to train students in research methods. This is demonstrated through publication, exhibition, or performance. Research is not a requirement at all institutions for tenure. Many schools do not stress research so strongly. "Overall it may mean occasionally we (Behrend) may lose a good teacher because they don't do research, or we may lose a good researcher because they don't teach well,' hut- that's the price you pay," said Tauber. There are faculty at other institutions in Pennsylvania and the entire cwntry for that matter, who have never written an article or delivered a conference, who are tenured at their institution. At "Learning" meant investigation, commentary and disputation of accepted sources of "truth". In other words; education entailed the rehashing of the same bodies of knowledge over and over again. Medieval attitude was that knowledge was supernatural and that discussion and commentary could only clarify what had already been revealed by faith and dogma. This sudden influx of ne-w material inspired questioning and with this new theories and disciplines appeared. European scholars prior to this studied "pure" disciplines of law, medicine and science, while the Arabs had combined the pursuit of philosophy with each discipline to inspire new tremendous growth. These sudden changes were stimulating to some and of course threatening to others. This new body of knowledge actually challenged the authority of the Bible and accepted Christian values. There was another obvious Page is a Behrend, research faculty are expected to work to move their disciplines forward. Research criteria at Behrend is based mostly on publication in reputable journals. According to Kallgren, "the turn around time for publication can easily be two years." Though this seems long, compared to other options to satisfy the research criteria, such as grants and books, publication in journals is the much wiser course to steer. Grants are very often turned down and books can take several years. If the idea is to demonstrate competence through successes in a short period of time then it is understandable why tenure eligible faculty avoid long term projects. Scholarly performance and mastery of subject matter is the third criteria. The faculty member must demonstrate thorough understanding of the field, must maintain high levels of academic performance, must establish a recognized reputation in the discipline and show evidence of continued professional growth. Tauber, "as another faculty member told me `you've got to be good enough to go (get another position) and good, filial- to . The final - criteria is' service•to the university, the public and the profession. Defined as participation in the university, college, departmental and unit affairs must show in competence in extending specialized knowledge the the university and to the public, active contribution to professional organizations. force at work which necessitated the establishment of guilds. Prior to the 13th century, the University of Paris owned no property. It rented space_ When there was an unresolvable conflict with outside powers they used the threat or act of dispersion. Simply put, the scholars would leave the city and commence working at another location. When the University began to acquire property, dispersion was no longer a legitimate threat, so they had to develop other ways to protect themselves. This, combined with the atmosphere of constriction being applied by the church and the state, mandated a guild and hence tenure. While the technicalities of the medieval tenure system and the tenure system of the 20th century may be different, the purpose is still the same. To guarantee the integrity of knowledge by protecting the rights of scholars to engage in research of teaching, regardless of the social, political or religious implications, for or against.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers