Needless to say: the letter-writer, a person who had been promoted to full professor at a respectable institution, had published but one book with a university press, and that a version of the dissertation, and in the distant past.

As for the scandalous bias involved in having a candidate for tenure’s original PhD mentor write about the file: I have heard from very senior and experienced colleagues at my university that the absence of such a letter in a tenure file (for which we do tend to gather about 8 letters) would be a serious lacuna. After all, if the PhD mentor is not willing to write, and not willing to explain to everyone how far the candidate has come since completing his or her dissertation, that could be a warning sign. And of course: review committees up the ladder are fully aware that a PhD mentor’s letter must be read with appropriate doses of salt — as must every letter.

The result, it is true, requires reading attentively (and exactly for what is not there as well as for what is there), and requires experience in the fine art of making distinctions. But then again, is that not what academics do: make distinctions, unwrap seemingly subtle differences into a clearer and more comprehensive picture?

In fact, it is Dr. Chance’s metaphor of the scientific method that seems utterly misplaced in discussing the decision whether or not to tenure a junior faculty member. Does he truly believe that what is involved is “stating a testable hypothesis, collecting data, analyzing those data, and drawing a conclusion with the admission that we could be wrong”??

What a bizarre way of thinking about one’s colleagues’ lives!

This is in many ways one of the most disappointing aspects of academic life: many of the old timers in the field have decided to take on the mantle of gatekeepers. I am very lucky to have great mentors at my institution, but I have many friends who do not. They have senior colleagues who have no idea how much more competitive fellowships and publications are. They have no idea what adjunct life is like. They still think that everyone’s spouse is at home taking care of children. And many have very thin publication records of their own, yet apply insanely rigorous and skeptical standards to cases that come before them.

As you rightly point out, it wouldn’t matter if Chance got 5 or 10 or 15 letters so long as the only ones he believed were the negative ones. What a sad commentary on the failure of senior faculty to recognize their common cause with junior colleagues.

These guys are looking down from the roof and pushing the ladder off the side of the building.

For a few years after college, I worked in a bookstore that did a very large number of author events; at the time (I was told) we hosted the most of any bookstore in America. The people who were at the top of their respective fields — Jimmy Carter, Ginger Rogers, Carl Sagan and Anne Rice, to name four — were all delightful to work with and for. They were personable and great with the public, too. Sagan, in particular, stands out in my memory. In private, before the event, he was entranced by a math book I had set out to catch his eye. In public, he showed great grace as a truly astonishing number of people said, “You changed my life for the better.”

The problematic ones were in the middle: somewhat well known, with decent but not stellar work. Not everyone in that range was a pain to deal with, but the converse was nearly universal; if someone was difficult, he or she was not, as you say, top-rate.