Nobody has even accused Persiflage of being afraid to speak truth to power. After Chicago made their announcement that they were extending tenure by one year for all (qualified) faculty, I thought that, as a good local citizen of Evanston, I should put the pressure on Northwestern to do this same. Naturally, I first considered tweeting the official Northwestern account, or even better, the twitter feed of Morty Schapiro (Northwestern’s President). Alas, he didn’t seem to have a twitter feed, so I looked up the email address instead. The best I could find was nu-president@northwestern.edu, which I presumed would just be read by a staff member in the president’s office. Still, it was the best I could find, so I forwarded the email announcement from the University of Chicago’s provost to this address, adding a few choice words: Your turn, Northwestern! Surely you’re not going to let the *University of Chicago* (and Harvard, and etc.) outdo you here? There is no better way to persuade a university to do something than to point out the bold actions of “peer institutions.” Then, less than 10 minutes later, I got a response:
And now, the very same week, Northwestern has gone ahead an taken up my suggestion and extended the tenure clock. Naturally, I am too modest to take 100% of the credit; I will give Morty Schapiro at least 10% for listening and then another 10% for being gracious enough to reply immediately to an email which was written in a manner somewhat more casual than (I imagine) the usual letter to a university president. Of course, Morty is very well known amongst the students for being far more approachable than the average university president. I think that if I had written and sent a similar email to Bob Zimmer’s office, I would have phrased it slightly more politely.
Thank you, Persiflage!