Word: graustein
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Dates: during 1972-1972
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...young historian of modern Europe. For several years I have been working on a brilliant book which, alas, is still in manuscript. Now my contract is up for renewal and my department informs me that it wants a book, not a manuscript. The chairman keeps adumbrating something called the Graustein formula which, coupled with the implications of the Dunlop Report, means (or so he says) that there is no longer a place for me at Harvard. Is he telling the truth? What is this Graustein formula, and what does it want from me? UNAPPRECIATED...
...Graustein formula is a rule. Harvard has many rules. When they don't want to give you something, they cite a rule. When they want to give you something, they find a way to bypass the rule. You wanted something that they didn't want to give...
NAMED AFTER the Harvard mathematician who did the statistical work, the Graustein formula was given to Harvard by the influential Committee of Eight in 1938. Professor Graustein estimated that the average tenured Faculty member stays at Harvard for 34 years. He then computed the number of annual appointments each department must make to remain at its current size. That figure--"the Graustein number"--more or less determines the frequency of appointments in each department. For example, if a department had 17 tenured members in 1938, it would be entitled to appoint a new member every other year...
Because new departments and new fields within departments have developed since 1938, and because life in general does not always conform to written rules, the Dean of the Faculty must, in his words, apply the Graustein formula "flexibly." If a department has a chance to pick up a hotshot professor, it can borrow ahead on its Graustein number and get him while he's available, even if the next scheduled appointment in the department is several months or years hence. If a patron donates endowed chairs to a specific department, or if a particular field grows rapidly, the Dean...
...Graustein number is also a good figure for a department chairman to have ready when a disappointed assistant professor asks why he was not rehired. But this institutionalized mystification fools no one. "The Graustein is simply a clothesline to hang appointments on," quipped one assistant professor...