ONE OF THE ISSUES directly involving the faculty during the Hallowell administration which caused much agitation was centered around the desirability of placing a ceiling on the number of tenured members in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. There was considerable thought given in the spring of 1968 by the new president to what appeared to be a growing problem of the ratio between tenured and non-tenured individuals in some departments. He first raised the question with the trustees of whether a quota system should be introduced. It was in part a matter of economics, for the university had entered a period of hard times financially, and approximately 75 percent of operating costs at Tufts involved personnel. Senior faculty, tenured almost without exception, were the most expensive for the university. However, Hallowell stressed the educational rather than the financial advantages of imposing a limit on the number or percentage of tenured faculty. He felt strongly that such a limit was necessary to maintain the "continued vitality of any department." There was, in short, the broader problem of how to provide room for "new blood" from time to time in order to prevent intellectual stagnation and at the same time raise the level of faculty excellence by providing for a reasonable amount of turnover. Could expenses be reduced by freezing or otherwise limiting the proportion of tenured individuals?

Although there was informal discussion from time to time about the necessity or desirability of imposing tenure quotas, it did not become a matter of public debate until after 1970. Up to that time there had been occasional inquiries by individual faculty about their own status in relation to tenure. The provost, who was approached with increasing frequency about the likelihood of establishing a limit, assured them in 1970 that the trustees had made it "absolutely clear" that anyone eligible for tenure consideration would, at the appropriate time, "have their case judged on its merits." When the Committee on Tenure and Promotion drew up its first statement of criteria for tenure and promotion in the spring of 1970, they hinted that quotas might be necessary. There would be variations in application of criteria "because they must also be considered in relation to the distribution of the faculty members of various ranks (and tenure) within each department and within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences."

Debate over tenure ratios was accelerated, beginning in 1970-71, with announcement by the administration that its policy generally was to set an overall limit of about 60 percent. A department-by-department study was made that year which indicated that, of 254 Arts and Sciences faculty, 135 were tenured, with wide variations from one department to another. Of the twenty-seven departments, in only ten did the number of untenured faculty outnumber tenured members.

There was sufficient concern generated by the talk of possible tenure quotas to result in a resolution opposing such a system presented to the faculty in March 1971 and carried by a vote of almost 2 to 1. Hallowell, personally opposed to the stand of the faculty, presented the matter of quotas to the trustee Educational Policy Committee a few weeks later, but it took no action. Because the president still urged a definite limitation on the number of tenured personnel, the question was raised again in the fall of 1972. It was precipitated by the release of an elaborate study by a special committee of the local chapter of the AAUP entitled "Tenure Quotas at

A resolution was passed by a large majority at a specially called faculty meeting asking that "the Tufts administration and Board of Trustees cease applying a tenure quota by any name, in faculty promotion decisions, and make an explicit statement to that effect." (The resolution was adopted by a vote of 84 to 9, with 20 abstentions.) In order to press their case, three representatives of the AAUP appeared before the trustee Educational Policy Committee in January 1973 to urge the complete rejection of a quota system.

The upshot of the debate over the entire question was the adoption by the trustees later in 1973 of a policy statement which was distributed to the entire faculty. The crux of the matter was to be found in the last sentence. "In order to insure the flexibility required to meet changing conditions and needs of the university, consideration should also be given to the ratio of tenured to non-tenured faculty in his/her department [or school]; provided, however, that such ratio shall not preclude the granting of tenure to exceptionally qualified persons." In short, no quota system as such was adopted either for a department or for the institution as a whole. The policy remained unchanged thereafter, although some members of the local AAUP chapter were disappointed that the trustees did not categorically reject the quota system in so many words. A review in 1975 indicated that 55 percent of the Arts and Sciences faculty were tenured - precisely the same percentage at the end of the Hallowell administration as at its beginning. The percentage had edged up slightly by the time Jean Mayer was elected to the presidency in 1976. (In 1976-77, 57 percent of the faculty of the entire university were tenured. In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 59 percent were tenured; 73 percent of the College of Engineering were tenured.) He emphatically insisted that no quota system existed at Tufts.