David, ever judicious, cautions against “over-generalizing” the underlying reasons why Asst. Prof. Amy Bishop allegedly shot three of her colleagues to death at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. In particular, he urges that one not “over-dramatize” academe, that is, not leap to judgment that the murders (in the words of a Chronicle of Higher Education article he cites) are “evidence that academic life today [above all, ‘the high stress of the tenure process’] is a petri dish for madness.”

David D. Perlmutter, in a thoughtful piece (also at the Chronicle), fully acknowledges that the killings do not necessarily have a “cause-and-effect” rapport with promotion and tenure or that “the ’system’” per se is to blame for the “bloodletting.” That said, he argues persuasively, the system is seriously flawed and can cause assistant professors not only considerable “stress” but also ”paranoia” and “obsessive suspicion.”

Both candidates for tenure and the tenured professors who oversee the process suffer the consequences of the flawed system. Most convincingly, Perlmutter unfavorably dissects sloppily (“cursory and mealy-mouthed”) applied elements of the process (such as yearly evaluations, three-year reviews, and mentoring) by “incompetent, rude, fumbling, and oblivious search [as well as promotion-and-tenure] committees.”

The Huntsville deaths and Perlmutter’s analysis can serve to provoke a useful discussion of the current, wretchedly subjective tenure system. His critique of the process, however, is in one respect anodyne: He fails even to consider the extent to which politically and personally motivated academic cliques have corrupted it.