Up or Out: South Oranges Become North Trifoliate Oranges - Starting from Greenhouse Cultivation

Editor's Note: This article is reprinted from Yidu EDU with official reprint authorization. The author is Professor Ke Bingsheng, former president of China Agricultural University, and it is included in the author's collection "Your Youth, My White Hair" (Higher Education Press). "Our university" in the text below refers to China Agricultural University. The article was written on July 31, 2014. The copyright of this article belongs to Higher Education Press and the author.

Up or out is a faculty appointment system commonly practiced in foreign universities, especially North American universities.Several domestic universities have experimented with it, and a number of individual cases have emerged, causing some response. Some teachers at our university have also periodically proposed introducing this system.What are the pros and cons of up or out? What factors need to be considered when introducing it to China? Does our university have the conditions to implement it?Learning, drawing lessons, and reforming are all good things, but if one does not think thrice before acting, does not think through and understand clearly all the factors involved, and blindly copies things mechanically, the result may be that south oranges become north trifoliate oranges.

The Position of Up or Out in University Personnel Systems

The foundation of running a good university lies in having good teachers, and in those good teachers having full work enthusiasm. That is to say, if there can be a large group of highly capable teachers who all work diligently, then the university's level will certainly be very high. How can such an ideal state be achieved? University administrators need measures such as the following:

First, attract people with high ability or great potential to apply. This requires that the university's faculty positions be highly attractive, mainly for two reasons: the school's reputation is great, and the compensation level is high. Such universities usually also have good working conditions. Second, reject the inclusion of mediocre people, which requires strict and scientific recruitment procedures and processes. Third, make the people who are recruited (including all those already on the job) work hard and achieve outstanding results. This requires a certain incentive system.

Up or out is one of the measures belonging to the third aspect, and its target is newly recruited young teachers. The specific rules of up or out may differ, butthe basic principleis:You must, within a certain period of time (a number of years), show outstanding academic performance, thereby being promoted to associate professor (at a few universities, professor), and obtain an iron rice bowl (unless there is major misconduct or a criminal offense, the university cannot dismiss you).

As for the up or out system, I think there are mainly two aspects of itssignificanceandfunction：

First, there is a problem with recruitment, the person was not accurately judged, and a mediocre talent was hired. After coming in, within several years there is no outstanding performance, and no potential for continued development can be seen, so the person should be dismissed.

Second, there is no problem with recruitment, and the person hired has sufficient ability, but after coming in does not work hard and performs mediocrely. Such a person should also be made to leave through this system. In fact, such situations should be rare, because under normal circumstances, even without external pressure, young teachers of high ability will certainly not be content with mediocrity and will certainly strive actively to improve. They themselves have internal motivation to become associate professors and full professors.

To sum up,the up or out policy is mainly meant to solve the problem of lax and inaccurate gatekeeping during recruitment. Objectively, young teachers are in a period of development, and their academic potential and so on are indeed difficult to see clearly and accurately in every case during the recruitment process. Therefore, although the up or out system is closely related to the recruitment system and the incentive system, it mainly serves to compensate for the deficiencies of the recruitment system.The importance of this system should not be exaggerated。

The Special Conditions for Implementing Up or Out Abroad

Foreign universities implement the up or out system because they have certain special conditions. By "special," I mainly mean in comparison with China's situation.

First, foreign countries do not have a household registrationsystem. Thus, whether to leave or not is very free. China has a household registration system, which has many direct effects. For example, without Beijing household registration, it is difficult for children to attend school in Beijing and they cannot take the college entrance examination in Beijing. In addition, there are restrictions in various aspects such as housing, medical care, social security, and buying a car. Therefore, with respect to "leaving," too many factors are involved, and it is quite complex.

Second, there is the issue of public institutionstaffing. Within public institution staffing, there is one set of social welfare arrangements; outside public institution staffing (or without public institution staffing), there is another set of welfare arrangements. According to China's current legal provisions, once a person enters public institution staffing, unless there is major misconduct or criminal punishment, it is difficult to dismiss them. Therefore,at present, universities that have piloted "up or out" are more often practicing "up or transfer", changing position types within the university, from teaching and research positions to other positions. This one word "leave" versus one word "transfer" already represents a very big difference.

Third, the issue of promotion quotas. North American universities that generally implementup or out have no promotion quota limits; as long as applicants meet the promotion standards, in principle they can be promoted.Countries such as Germany and Japan actually do not have an "up or out" policy, but rather one radish to one hole; professor and associate professor positions are fixed and attached to the post. If the current professors and associate professors do not retire or transfer away, then no matter how well you perform, you cannot be promoted. If a vacancy appears, it is openly advertised to the whole society, not merely filled internally. China's situation lies between the two: each unit is allocated a certain number of promotion quotas each year, and people within the unit compete internally. Thus, whether you can be promoted depends not only on your own level, but also on how many promotion quotas there are, how strong the people competing with you in the unit are, and so on. This is clearly different from North American universities.

Fourth, the promotion review process.At North American universities, peer review plays an important role, and personal connections also play a role, but relatively much less. Personal connections in China are more complicated. Peer review often becomes largely a formality, with many favors done, and it is difficult to use as a reliable basis. Therefore, whether one can obtain promotion mainly depends decisively on the review committee of the college or department. Yet within the same college or the same department, people from different specialties often compete for limited quotas, and it is very difficult to measure people from different specialties by the same standard. As a result,the review process often becomes a balancing act among different specialties. It is relatively difficult to apply promotion standards. Those who were not promoted this year because of quota limits or disputes among specialties can still hope for next year, the year after, or the year after that, but if not being promoted means having to leave, then the situation is entirely different.

Fifth, thetarget groupof up or out. The target group of up or out at North American universities is teachers who want to obtain tenure (tenure track). In fact, this is only a portion of university teachers. According to statistics, among full-time teachers at American universities, those who had already obtained tenure (that is, tenured professor positions) and those in the up or out (tenure-tracked) stage accounted for 81% in 1975 and 71% in 2005. The proportion of non-tenure-track teachers (equivalent to our contract employment system) rose from 19% to 29%. In 2008, New York University had 2,092 full-time teachers (excluding the medical school), of whom 65% were on the tenure track and 35% were not.

The basic function of non-tenure-track teachers is undergraduate teaching, especially the teaching of basic courses and general courses. These teaching tasks are very important for cultivating students, and yet they cannot be completed by those teachers who are on the tenure track. Non-tenure-track teachers sign employment contracts according to the work needs of undergraduate teaching and their teaching performance. Contract terms vary, from 1 year to several years, and can be continuously renewed. These teachers do not have the so-called up or out problem.

In fact,the target group of up or out is those teachers in the university's mainstream disciplines who undertake both teaching and research work. This group of teachers determines the university's characteristics and strengths, and through the tenure system, that is, the lifetime position system, they need to be given a stable teaching and research environment so that they will not be dismissed for non-academic reasons. Before obtaining this lifetime position, they need to go through a period of testing and verification to prove that they have indeed reached a certain required academic level. This process is up or out.

Sixth, theworking conditionsof up or out teachers. Teachers in the up or out stage at North American universities are usually assistant professors.Assistant professors and China's lecturers appear to correspond, but in fact they are very different: assistant professors, like professors, can independently apply for research projects and can independently recruit doctoral students.On these two points, in China to date perhaps no university's lecturers can do this (at many universities, lecturers cannot even independently recruit master's students). This is due to systemic reasons. Without these two conditions, lecturers' independent research work is greatly restricted, especially in science and engineering disciplines that require experiments. To do even a bit of research work of important significance, the vast majority of lecturers can only attach themselves to some team. Whether important results can be achieved depends to a large extent on the team's level and working conditions.

In addition,not only the mobility of young teachers, but also the mobility of professors and associate professors, is a normal phenomenon at North American universities. Quite a few universities, especially famous ones, directly recruit professors and associate professors from other schools. China has long lacked such a tradition and culture. Without a broader background of free talent mobility, the mobility of young teachers is even more difficult, and the "out" in up or out becomes even harder.

The Main Considerations for Our University Not Implementing Up or Out for the Time Being

In summary,the feasibility of the up or out system in China, and especially at our university, is subject to various restrictions. And its necessity, at least at the present stage, is not so obvious。

First, if the up or out system were implemented, what recruitment method would be adopted?

If a contract employment method were adopted (not solving household registration or not including the person in public institution staffing), would it be possible to recruit outstanding young teachers? Because household registration and public institution staffing involve various welfare issues, especially children's schooling, the outstanding teachers we hope to hire would very likely turn to other units to seek employment, to those units that can solve household registration and public institution staffing. There are many such units in Beijing. If household registration were solved and the person were included in public institution staffing, then, according to current public institution personnel policy, it would actually be difficult to achieve up or out, and only up or transfer would be possible.

In addition to factors related to the household registration system and public institution staffing, up or out also requires a mature social environment in which the market allocates resources, as well as changes in other national policies, including: the qualifications of young teachers to apply for research projects, doctoral student recruitment quotas, professional title promotion quotas, and so on. If universities alone advance on a single front, the difficulties are very great and numerous.

Second, if up or transfer were implemented, what problems would arise?

If it is only a very small number of individuals, the problem is not great; if it is batches of people, then where to transfer them is also a problem. However, if up or transfer involves only a very small number of individuals, then the system does not have much significance either. In addition, whether it is up or out or up or transfer, the implementation of the policy occurs many years after the policy is issued (6-9 years). This means that in most cases the previous university leadership formulates the policy and the subsequent university leadership implements it.If those who formulate policy do not handle implementation, it is difficult to guarantee the scientific nature of the policy, and problems left over from history easily arise.

Third, can conditions be created to implement up or out?

My answer is yes: through "greenhouse cultivation," oranges in the north can also be oranges. The so-called "greenhouse" means special policies. First, give teachers who enter the up or out track a high salary, high enough to be equivalent to the level of assistant professors at North American universities, so that people can be attracted; second, give them special qualifications to recruit doctoral students. These two points are within the scope of the university's autonomy. As for channels for applying for research funding, apart from international, corporate, and university channels, perhaps the only option is to apply for Young Scientists Fund projects.

The biggest problem with greenhouse cultivation is: it is difficult to scale up. Moreover, there is also the problem of balance between inside and outside the greenhouse:The salary level of these young teachers inside the greenhouse may be much higher than the salary level of our university's existing professors (including academicians, Changjiang Scholars, and Distinguished Young Scholars Fund recipients), let alone associate professors. Then, after they are promoted to associate professor, what kind of salary will be implemented? The answer can only be: continue to stay in the greenhouse. In other words, one university would have to operate two systems. This involves the overall issue of fairness and efficiency at the university. Young teachers inside the greenhouse may be more capable than some professors and associate professors outside the greenhouse, but they may still not catch up with the outstanding members among the teachers outside the greenhouse.

Fourth, what exactly is the goal of up or out?

This is the most critical question.If the goal is to put pressure on young teachers so that they produce more research results, then the difference may not be very great. Because even without up or out, young teachers will still work very hard; after all, they want to become associate professors and professors. Important scientific discoveries are not achieved under external pressure, but rather through researchers' internal interests and thirst for knowledge. In addition, the proportion of young teachers at the lecturer level is now becoming smaller and smaller. If the aim is to promote research work through pressure, then how should pressure be applied to associate professors and professors? Such a concept of pressure is incompatible with the spirit of academic freedom.

In fact, as I understand it, the North American tenure track system was originally not intended to put pressure on young teachers, but was a byproduct of implementing the tenure system.The fundamental purpose of this system is to allow associate professors and professors to be free from utilitarianism or other pressures and to conduct academic research freely.Many of us, when talking about up or out, usually overlook this basic purpose. In fact,in stimulating work vitality, up or out is not the only path, is not necessarily the most effective path, and is even less a path aimed at all teachers.

Fifth, compared with up or out, which measures are more feasible?

First, strictly control recruitment as much as possible.Doing this well can save all kinds of trouble associated with up or out (or up or transfer). Since our university's "two-level interview" system was implemented 6 years ago, although there are still imperfections, on the whole it has fairly well achieved the role of strictly controlling recruitment, and in particular has fairly well avoided interference from personal connections.

Second, implement classified management of teachers so that everyone can fully use their talents.For our university's mainstream and advantageous disciplines, the positions established should mainly be teaching-and-research positions; for those non-mainstream specialties, especially those disciplines mainly teaching basic courses and general courses (such as foreign languages), mainly teaching-type positions should be established. These two categories should be the main body of our university's faculty positions, and in addition there should be a very small number of research-type positions.

Different positions should implement different professional title promotion standards and requirements. For example, foreign language teachers at a comprehensive university perhaps should place equal emphasis on teaching and research, whereas at our university, teaching should be the main focus, and their evaluation should mainly be based on teaching level and effectiveness. If such classification is not made and a one-size-fits-all professional title promotion standard is applied to all teachers, the result will often damage teachers' enthusiasm for teaching. Teachers who focus mainly on teaching do not lack the need for research; all teachers with excellent lecture effectiveness must spend a great deal of effort studying how to teach well, explain profound things in simple terms, make the class lively and wonderful, and make students not want to skip class. They may simply lack research funded by external projects and may not have published professional academic papers. Classified management of teachers is reform work that we are preparing to do.

Finally, with an eye to major innovative achievements, give teachers sufficient academic freedom and autonomy.What determines a university's level are major achievements with outstanding academic value and social value, and none of these achievements are forced out by high-pressure policies. Our university's long-standing lenient research assessment policy does not stipulate how many projects, how much research funding, how many papers, and how many patents each teacher must obtain each year, but merely requires an account of actual work at the end of the year in the college or department. This enables each teacher to freely choose research topics and independently decide research progress, and allows each teacher to fully give play to their strengths, devote themselves to research, and "sharpen a sword in ten years."

The practical results over the years show that the overall effect of such a system is very good: our university's number of full-time teachers ranks at the low end among 985 universities, while in recent years the cumulative number of national science and technology awards received and high-level papers published in Nature/Science both rank around 6th among universities nationwide.

Conclusion

In summary, starting from the basic laws and characteristics of university teacher management, and combining China's special national conditions with our university's own circumstances, formulating a realistic internal personnel management system is the rational and pragmatic appropriate choice. Only when we have broadly acquired external conditions like those of North American universities will the general implementation of the up or out system become a matter of course.

Under the current constraints of specific national conditions and university circumstances, it is difficult for our university to implement an up or out policy, whilestrict recruitment policies, classified teacher management policies, and academic freedom policies are more realistic, feasible, and effective approaches.

(The views in this article represent only the author's personal views.)