Editor's Note:
After the murder of Wang Yongzhen, the party secretary, by Jiang Wenhua, a teacher in the mathematics department of Fudan University, there was a heated discussion in the media about the "no rise, no rise, go" system. Zhang Weiying, the author of this article, was the main drafter of the 2003 Peking University teacher system reform plan, and "no rise is to go" is one of the main contents of the reform plan. Why do universities need a "go away without rising" system? Zhang Weiying explained in this article.
Whether it is imparting knowledge or creating knowledge, the role of professors is dominant. Whether a university is good or bad, the composition of the professor team is very important, and the power of professors is also very important. If the professor team of a university is not composed of scholars with a real sense of responsibility and mission, and if professors do not take academic research and teaching and educating people as their vocation, it is impossible for this university to create value for society, and it is impossible to truly care for and love its reputation. The selection and incentive system of professors is a key link in the governance of universities.
Why do you need to "go without rising"
Choosing a professor is very difficult. Where are the difficulties? Just in our economics, the information asymmetry. A good scholar must not only have a strong preference for learning, but also be well trained, talented, and have some kind of pressure. Many conditions combined are a good professor. When we are faced with a young job seeker, how do we judge whether this person is a good seedling or a bad seedling? For example, when selecting gymnasts, like Li Ning, when the coach is selected, he has to go to his hometown to see what his parents look like, how his parents are in shape, and what is the proportion of the length of his thighs and calves, and then all these considerations can be combined to see if he is likely to win the world championship in the future. Choosing a professor is different from selecting a gymnast, but it is not easier because there is currently no physiological indicator that can measure a good professor. Some people are ugly, but they do a good job of learning; some people are beautiful, but their knowledge is not necessarily good. There is no clear physiological criterion for selecting professors.
In order to select qualified professors, the University prescribes a number of generally recognized qualifications. For example, to be qualified to be a teacher, generally speaking, you must have a good professional training and systematic education. "Class origin" is very important, but on the other hand, the class origin is also problematic, not all class origins are excellent talents, nor are they not bound to be good professors without training in class. We know that many excellent scholars, such as Qian Mu, are not from the class but as a primary school teacher, and Hua Luogeng is not from the class, but a big mathematician.
Then, everyone has to ask, why do you still need to be born in the class? It's a statistical question of what kind of mistakes we want to make. There are two types of errors statistically, the first is the possibility of rejecting a correct choice, and the second is the possibility of accepting a wrong choice. The key is to see which kind of mistakes we want to avoid, if we require every applicant to have a doctorate, we may reject an excellent candidate when choosing; but if this condition is not required, all people, such as primary school graduates, can apply to teach at Peking University, and we may make the second type of mistake, that is, to hire a lot of people who should not be hired. We see which type of error is more likely to occur, and then we decide which method is better. Science has developed to this day, and we have reason to believe that people without doctoral training are unlikely to become a qualified professor in the future, so when we recruit new faculty members, we require that the candidates should have a doctorate.
Because of the difficulty of selection, the choice may make mistakes, so when selecting professors, it is absolutely impossible to set a lifetime on one side. University professors must have a probationary period. Just like there is also a process of falling in love, you can't say that you have to get married when you meet, then the family is too unstable. Of course, some people may be more anxious, three months to talk about love and marriage, we will all feel that these people have problems. Choosing a professor is similar to falling in love, after meeting and choosing someone, interviewing for an hour or two hours, or a day, reading an article, how can you be sure that he will have great achievements in the future? It can only be said that it is possible, but it cannot be guaranteed, so it can be tried first, and if it is not suitable, it can also be dismissed. This is what "up-or-out" means.
In general, it takes five or six years to try a person in a university, or six or seven years, which is also the particularity of the university personnel system. How long does it take to try a porter? Two days a day, or even an hour, let him carry a two-hundred-pound sack to see if he could take a few steps. How long does it take to try out a babysitter? A day or two is definitely not enough, because she has to be familiar with your family environment and familiar with your living habits. Okay, give her a month. After a month, if you still feel that this person is not suitable, or you can't learn anything, then you have to send her away. If you hire a secretary, you'll have to try it out for about half a year. Hiring a university professor gets a six- or seven-year probationary period. Why is it so long? After a person gets a doctorate and graduates, there is no way to show it without six or seven years. Of course there are some people who may be quick, good or bad, and manifest themselves in two or three years. For example, I just talked about trying to be a secretary for half a year, but if she came to work the next day and stole a hundred yuan from you, then you know that he can't do it, why do you have to try it for another five months and twenty-nine days? Then there is no need. Try the babysitter, and if you can make him do everything very well in ten days, then there is no need to try it again. On average, university professors have six or seven years, which is experience, but some people are late in their careers and can't try it out in six or seven years.
Of course, the system is designed for the vast majority of people. If you are really a late bloomer, it doesn't matter, you will succeed after you leave. In fact, there are many such things, including some schools in foreign countries, such as doing six or seven years, this person has not produced any results, the school said that it is not okay you have to leave, and the results have come out after three or four years, ten years without a sound, a blockbuster. But it doesn't matter, you can come back; even if you don't come back, you work at other universities and have no loss to society. Some principals and deans judged him to be a great talent, and although he did not have any results, he still used him for two more years under pressure. After two years, the results proved successful. But in this case, ordinary people can not say it casually, I am a person who has become a late bloomer, you give me another chance. If you haven't shown it in six or seven years, I think it's hard to think about it. Even if you don't write an academic paper for official publication, at least prove that you are very thoughtful and different. It's a matter of choosing people, and it's difficult.
On the reward of asceticism or on the reward of merit?
As faculty members, the products we produce have a problem of input-output relationship. Do we spend time doing research that will produce results? not necessarily! So, are we talking about merit or asceticism? On the reward of asceticism, that is, to see whether you can do it by your investment, you are a very hard person, you work in the office all night without sleeping, although you do not achieve achievements, you are also promoted to professor. This brings us back to the question: What exactly is the goal of our university? If college is to give everyone a job, then he is so hard of course should be mentioned. But if our goal is to create knowledge, and our goal is to cultivate talent, then you can't say that it is because he has worked hard and has survived to give him a professor at the end of his life. In the university, a person should be evaluated mainly based on his output, not his input, which is determined by the function of the university.
The reward for merit is measured according to output, and sometimes there are certain problems. The United States has this problem, and even more so in our country, because there is a problem with the evaluation criteria for academic achievements. Later I will talk about what is output and under what circumstances we count as output. But in any case, I think it is better than the measurement investment. I say this very simple truth, but we often make such mistakes, such as you have to apply for a job title promotion or a scientific research project, how much money you have spent in the past, what research funds you have received, which has become a standard. This should not be a standard. Applying for a professor is to see how much you have made, and you can't talk about output but only input. Whoever spends more money in the past will get easier to get the project later, which is ridiculous. Some people don't spend the state's money and don't bother to apply for those research funds, but they have produced good scientific research results. Some people apply for any fund, spend a lot of money from the state, and don't make decent academic achievements, but it's getting easier and easier to find money, which is ridiculous. To evaluate a professor, we have to really motivate him, that is, to follow his output, not his input. Spending too much money should be discounted for research results.
But there is also a problem with output, which is contingency. Sometimes there is luck in research, sometimes it is good luck, just like planting land, the wind and rain are smooth, the seeds are sown, and the wheat and rice are sprouted. Some people are unlucky, they just can't get results. This is the case with many natural science studies, especially experimental disciplines. Nowadays, people generally think that the natural sciences are sciences, and the social sciences are not sciences, and natural scientists often look down on social scientists. Because the object of study in the social sciences is too complex, it must be some extremely intelligent people who have made great achievements; but also because it is complex, anyone can fish in muddy waters, which has ruined the reputation of social scientists. In the social sciences, the distribution of talent is a very wide band, from very stupid people to extremely intelligent people. The distribution of intelligence in the natural sciences is relatively narrow, too stupid, without rigorous scientific training is certainly not enough, but to make some achievements do not necessarily require the most intelligent people. There are a lot of experiments, and you can keep trying, dozens of times, hundreds of times. When I was in Oxford, I had some friends who were experimenting, engaged in crystals, planted and then traveled, and when they came back and found that they grew out, they were very happy, and they didn't grow out, and they had to be redone. There may be this situation, which has to do with luck, for example, if you write a topic on international terrorism, it will be popular immediately after 9/11. But these are all unattainable, and everyone can only do what they should do seriously.
How can universities prevent "Wu Dalang from opening a shop"?
The work of selecting professors can only be done by peers, and it is impossible to rely on laymen. Whether your research is done well or not, only people in the same or similar field as you can tell, so what is the biggest threat we face in the selection of professors? It is five words - "Wu Dalang opens a shop". From the perspective of human nature, everyone does not want others to surpass themselves and be better than themselves. Of course, I don't want others to be too far behind myself. For example, if you are a good scholar, you don't want your colleagues to be too low than yourself, because if you are too low, there is no way to talk. The same is true of the rich, he wants others to be less rich than himself, but he also does not want the poor to be too poor, because after being poor to a certain extent, the rich are in danger. So the ideal is that others can live well but they are better than others, such as others driving a Santana, he can drive an Audi car, instead of him driving a Mercedes, others take a carriage. The new faculty of the school is selected by the existing professors. How could I be willing to pick someone better than me, someone who surpassed me in academic standing and prestige? If I think that some people may replace me after they are better, and I will have no place, then I will not be able to select such a person. How does the system solve this problem, and how to let everyone avoid Wu Dalang from opening a shop?
This is the problem I want to talk about the elimination of tenure positions and disciplines in universities after the probationary period, that is, the problem of the tenure system. Tenure is generally considered to guarantee academic freedom, and it was originally associated with it — a professor at Stanford University was fired for making remarks that were disliked by the school board, and the National Association of Professors established the tenure system. But its most important role is not here, and whether the tenure system can guarantee academic freedom is difficult to say in itself. If only professors who get tenure have academic freedom, does that mean that there is no academic freedom before tenure? Obviously that cannot be said.
The tenure system is not the same as the iron rice bowl of our past. Professor Tenure is strictly selected after a probationary period, and the iron rice bowl is as long as you get the rice bowl. In fact, our iron rice bowl has not played a role in protecting academic freedom. What I value more is the positive role of this lifelong system in preventing Wu Dalang from opening a shop in the selection of talents. If I'm a professor, and there are already ten professors in the department, and if we choose another person who is better than me, the next time I'm eliminated, then of course I don't want to choose him. But if my position itself is stable, no matter how good the person is selected, his academic status exceeds mine, I will not be eliminated, and there will be a job bowl, my enthusiasm for opening a shop will be less, because I am less threatened. So there must be some professors who get such a stable position so that they are not too afraid when evaluating new people. If every professor's position is quite unstable and may be eliminated, then what do you think will be the result? Every professor is afraid to think about how to maintain his position all the time! And the best way to maintain your seat is not to hire people who are better than you. Now we reassure some people that his position will not waver, and even if excellent people come in and his position will not change, then he will have no worries. That's why the decision to choose a lifelong or general professor should be made by a professor with tenure, and people without tenure have a conflict of interest, and if you go up, I can't go up, which is not appropriate.
But even with tenure, I probably don't like others overtaking myself. Although there is no problem with my survival, what about my academic status? Recruit a person who is greater than me, and the student feels that I am inferior to him after listening to the class, then I am also uncomfortable. Obviously, without the worries of work, there must be a spur, a constraint, so that he has to choose the best. This is the "last-place elimination" of the discipline I am talking about. If you don't choose well, you are always the authority in the department, and others are far worse than you, then the ranking of your department in the national academic community continues to decline, and your department may be dissolved. The so-called lifelong professor is like this, just like you are a nail nailed to the wall, as long as the wall does not fall your nail will not move, but if the wall falls, you will have no status. This pushes you to keep picking good people, and the better the new people are, the more stable your position will be. Because all disciplines are constantly improving, if you always choose the same person as yourself, then you will definitely be finished in the future! You only feel safe if the new people come in are the most innovative and the best trained people. I will make a simple analogy, "end elimination" means that you want Wu Dalang to open a store, I have to smash this shop for you, see if you dare to open a store! There is a lifetime employment system after the probationary period and the elimination of the last place in the discipline, which is the most important selection system and an incentive mechanism in the selection system.
Of course, maybe I'm taking things too seriously. As I said later, good scholars not only want to be better than others, but also need to communicate with people of similar level, otherwise the space void is too lonely. But this requires that the person who chooses people is excellent in himself, and if he is not excellent himself, does not know where the frontier of the discipline is, and does not have enough judgment, you cannot expect him to choose excellent people. If he is Takejiro and is 1.8 meters tall, even if he likes to choose people shorter than himself, he will not be shorter there. On the contrary, if he is Wu Dalang, even if he reluctantly chooses to be taller than himself, he will not be able to go there.
Motivational issues for tenured faculty
One concern about tenure is that people who get tenured positions can sit back and work hard without pressure. Now you can see that some professors abroad have gone on vacation after getting tenured positions. This is as it should be, people have been tired for six or seven years, these six or seven years can not get married, do not care about having children, no night to work, even the wife is divorced, it is natural to take a relaxing time after getting a lifetime, and it is certainly not as hard as before - if you are always so hard, then the life expectancy will certainly not be long. But it is really tiring before getting a lifetime qualification. So, how to ensure this incentive after obtaining a lifetime qualification?
First, after a professor rises to a certain position in academia, he will have a self-driven force, which is a bit of a "no need to whip yourself up". So very few really good professors stop after getting tenure. Professor Xi Kaiyuan of the University of Chicago once said to me: To see if a person is a true scholar, it depends on whether he continues to do research after he gets tenure. It may not be as hard as it used to be, but it will definitely not stop moving forward. That is, his preferences are changing in themselves. It's like smoking, I trained you to smoke for six years, and then I don't train you, you will find yourself to smoke, and even if you want to quit, it will be difficult, because it will be addictive. The probationary period for teachers is also a process of cultivating academic preferences. If he can't get addicted after six or seven years of training, then he should be fired.
Second, once a scholar has established a certain academic status, he will pay special attention to his academic reputation. A very important way to restrain a famous person is his reputation. Nobody, you steal someone else's article, and no one knows, who cares about that thing! But if you are a famous person, you do not have your own ideas, do not publish new results, and copy others, then you are not discredited! So this constraint can prompt you to constantly improve and innovate, and this pressure is very large. I myself have this feeling, such as when I go to a new occasion to make an academic report, I see that there are similar people in the audience, even if there are one-third or less than one-fifth of the students, I hope that every time I talk about it, there is new content and new ideas, and I can't repeat what I said originally. One of the expectations that everyone gave me was that after listening to my report, they would comment that Zhang Weiying would have something new every time he reported. It's a lot of pressure on me. I can't talk about something new, so that pushes me to keep learning and improving. This is a certain thing, because you have to maintain your own restoration. This incentive is a constraint on professors who have received tenure.
Third, there is also an assessment for the person who has received a tenured teaching position, and if the assessment is not qualified, even if he does not need to leave, it will have some impact on his salary increase. It's also a constraint for those who are too unconscious.
Now everyone has a lot of worries about the professors who will sit back and relax after getting their lifetime qualifications. It's just that we are now a work iron rice bowl. The addiction process I just talked about is not, nor is there a credibility constraint, because he is not famous in himself. We cannot understand the current iron rice bowl system as a lifelong system. Man is like this, how society treats him, he will treat this society. When I mention professors, it is very easy, it is difficult to be strict with others; on the other hand, if I am in great pain after five levels and six will be miserable to get this tenured professorship, then I will do the same to young lads in the future. I mentioned the professor, it took so many years, so hard, you want to run around my house, invite me to a meal and let me vote for you, impossible! In this way, the academic standards at the time of promotion will be very strict. For many years, the daughter-in-law became a mother-in-law, and he especially hated the mother-in-law when he was a daughter-in-law, and when he became a mother-in-law, he had experience, and he knew how the mother-in-law treated her, and she treated her daughter-in-law how she treated her daughter-in-law. This is a good thing in academia. Foreign academia is not without corruption problems, but relatively speaking, when a person sitting in the professorship asks him to evaluate another person, he has a basic conscience, whether this person is excellent or not, he knows in his heart, and he is unlikely to say good things about that bad person. This is already a cultural constraint. I used to work at the China Economic Research Center of Peking University, and I don't know what the problem is, for example, at the beginning we recruited two doctoral students, and one of them called us out after the first year, which is impossible in other departments, how dare you eliminate the doctor of the head of the department? But in the center it is very natural, because everyone is also so miserable in the first place, so they can understand this. This is what I mean by the selection system.
"Go without rising" is also a promise
The system of not rising and going is also a guarantee made by the school to the teachers, and it does not bury the commitment of excellent talents. Why? For example, there are three people, one is relatively young, I will be promoted two years later, first mention not very good but older, older, and I have a good relationship, but in this case, excellent people will leave. It's because he's leaving that you can't help but mention him, so I'll just say it's a commition. With such a system, you can't let go of the excellent and promote the not excellent, and the standard of improvement will change. This is the superiority of the up-or-out system. It turns out that I am excellent, you don't mention me, I still stay here, wait a few years. Everyone can do this, it doesn't matter if you mention it first and mention it later, the teacher's self-motivation will be gone, and it will last for many years. But now that I am excellent, you don't mention me, I have to go, which will cause the loss of excellent talents. So if you want to really run a good university, you have to put a good person up. This commition is for the leadership, a restriction on the leadership of the academy. There is a good person, either you let the family go, or you have to mention, if you are still stubborn, or insist on not mentioning good, there is a problem with the management of your university. If a university cannot elect an impartial dean, it is doomed. The new system places very high demands on the entire management and on the behavior of the dean and department heads. In the past, anyone could be mixed up as dean and head of the department, but it will not be after that. We're just going to change that.
I would also like to add that there is a view that I can't be a lecturer all my life? Why should I be promoted to professor, and if I can't get promoted, I have to leave? This view is wrong. Why? Because he didn't understand the purpose of the university. When we choose a teacher, the purpose is to select an excellent scholar, and the lecturer and associate professor are just a transition and a trial stage. If a person comes in and has been a lecturer for five or six years and is not qualified to be an associate professor or professor, it means that we have chosen the wrong person. This is not the same as the administrative position, the nature of the administrative position is fixed, the secretary is the secretary, I can't say that the secretary is not promoted and he will not be the secretary, because what I want is a secretary. Someone asked a question that shows the superficiality of his understanding of the positions in our university. He didn't know what his purpose was in that position, what the mission of the university was, what exactly it was to be a qualified college professor. Why would I recruit you if you could only be a lecturer? I recruit you to look forward to making you an excellent professor, an excellent scholar. Now that you've proven to be a failure, there's no need to stay in that position. That's the philosophy of a university.
This article is from the third edition of The Logic of Universities, pp. 21-31, Peking University Press, 2012.
(Xinzhuang Classroom)