Is the PR job tenure-track too?

Abstract

T auren is in her second year as a tenure-track professor at a medium-size university. She survived the J_chaos of her first year, got a grant, and attracted a couple of graduate students. Her duties include both research and teaching (graduate and undergraduate) in evolutionary ecology. Her grad student, Jim, showed her a letter to the editor from the local paper a long creationist diatribe, rife with factual and logical errors. Jim and the other students passed it around, chuckling at the obvious fallacies. Lauren found the letter more unsettling than funny, but assumed someone from the local scientific community would reply. Days passed with no response, so she decided 1 to do it herself. She typed a letter to the editor, being especially careful with its tone. She didn't wish to sound dismissive or high-handed, but she wanted to make it crystal clear that the creationist's views were scientifically unfounded. When the paper ran Lauren's letter, Jim and other students congratulated her for taking a stand, and other faculty members echoed the sentiments. Lauren felt good she had done . her part to educate the public. The glow was ephemeral, however. The creationist subi; mitted a vitriolic rebuttal in which, Lauren felt sadly, he had either misunderstood or disregarded her arguments. In the following days, letters from two other local creationists appeared. Jim urged Lauren to write another letter: If scientists don't take a stand here, no one will! Reluctantly, Lauren wrote a second letter to the editor, trying to make the differences between science and anti-science even clearer than before. Given the response to her first letter, she put a considerable amount of time and worry into the second one. Letters from creationists began to appear almost daily in the paper. None of Lauren's peers commented on her second letter. She began to feel overwhelmed and didn't have the time or energy to respond to the flood of letters. She suggested that Jim take up the pen, but he begged off, arguing that he was too busy. Some of the later creationist letters called for action at the next local school board meeting, when science education guidelines were to be reviewed. Other stories in the local paper reported that the school board was deeply divided over the controversy, and that public comment and attendance at the next meeting could be critical. Lauren read these letters and stories with mounting frustration and anxiety. Speaking in front of the school board would require careful preparation. Furthermore, when Lauren checked the date on her calendar, she saw that the timing was a problem. She had managed to get several undergraduates from her evolution course interested in research, and they were due to spend most of that week with her at a remote field site, collecting data for their project. The plant population they planned to study would only bloom for a short time, so delaying their field trip might seriously damage the project. Lauren decided to discuss the situation with two tenured members of the department whom she trusted. Milton, the department chair, had direct and unhesitating advice: Lauren, dig through your files and reread your contract. Your duties here are research, teaching, college service, and community service, in vastly descending order of importance. The more time you spend debating creationists, the less time you will have for research. Forget about influencing the school board. Let the voters sort ^^^^^^^^^E t~ ^that out at the next election. Focus on the things that you're being paid by this university to do: research and teach. Stanley had been in the department for 15 years, and Lauren knew him as a careful and dedicated scientist. They met once a week for coffee. His advice was different: As professional members of an academic discipline, we have a duty to interpret knowledge from our field to the public. The public pays taxes that support this university, and they have a right to expect more from us than journal articles that no one outside the field would ever think of reading. You teach our ^^^~^ tIsK ~classes in evolution, you are up to speed on the issues involved in the debate, and you're a great public speaker, articulate and persuasive. No one else in the department would have as strong an impact on the board as you would. You have a duty to science see this thing through.