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A Position at Oxford

One bone of contention in the Harrison case has been her position at Oxford University. Harrison maintains that it was a regular, tenured faculty position and that Berkeley should have reviewed her work at the time of the offer and should have considered making her a tenured counteroffer. She also says that Berkeley made counteroffers to other assistant professors, even in cases in which those offers were from universities of considerably less stature than Berkeley or Oxford. Harrison's critics say that her Oxford position was not equivalent to a tenured professorship at Berkeley.

Indeed, it is not an easy matter to compare the two positions because the systems of academic appointments in the US and England differ markedly. In the US, the assumption is that one will rise in the ranks from assistant professor through the tenured positions of associate and full professor. In England, appointments are generally made to the positions of lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, or professor. Until the 1980s, these positions were tenured, sometimes after a probationary period, though there was no tenure review on the scale of what one finds in the US. In addition, unlike the ``up or out'' system in the US, in the English system there is no assumption that if, say, one is hired as a lecturer, one will rise through the ranks to the higher levels of senior lecturer, reader, and professor--indeed, such advancement happens only rarely, since the number of professorships is very limited.

Oxford University is a collegiate university, and the system of appointments there is somewhat different from that at other English universities. There are University Lecturers, Readers, and Professors. These appointments are made by the University, and individuals holding these positions have their primary teaching responsibilities within their departments, not within a college. In mathematics, this means that they teach lecture courses in the Mathematical Institute (which is not an institute like, say, the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge, but is simply Oxford's mathematics department). Such an appointment also entails a fellowship in one of the colleges, and the fellowship may or may not carry teaching responsibilities within the college.

In addition to those faculty holding such University positions are those members of the Mathematics Faculty who hold tutorial fellowships at one of the colleges. These college appointments are made by the college concerned, although representatives of the University mathematics faculty conduct the interviews and state which, if any, of the candidates are of an acceptable standard. Tutorial fellows are also appointed to a CUF (``Common University Fund'') Lecturership as an adjunct to the college position. The primary responsibilities, however, remain within the college (twelve hours per week of tutorial teaching is a typical load). A CUF Lecturership requires two hours per week of university-wide lectures in one of the three terms each year.

Harrison held a tutorial Fellowship at Somerville College and an associated CUF Lecturership. At the time Harrison was appointed in the late 1970s, there were two different tenure systems for the two positions. Fellowships at Somerville were not tenured, but had a five-year term. However, continuation of the fellowship, which required reelection by the other fellows, was routine. CUF Lecturerships were, like all University positions, initially for a five-year period. At the end of that period, there was a review by the University, leading in almost all cases to tenure. Again, this review was not on the scale of a tenure review in the US, and, in particular, did not involve solicitation of evaluation letters. Harrison was not at Oxford long enough to go through reelection to her fellowship or a review for tenure in the lecturership. Her position was therefore not, strictly speaking, tenured, but it was de facto tenured because the reelection and the review have virtually never resulted in a negative decision.

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