An increasingly vocal group of academics say the Dutch professorial system needs to be reformed. The academic career path from post-doc, assitant/associate professor, to a full professorship is too unclear, demoralizing, and, in some areas, fundamentally unfair.
Can the ‘old’ Dutch professorial system still satisfy the competitive needs of a modern university?
If revolutions start from within, there’s enough grumbling coming from inside Dutch academia to cause the university establishment to at least take notice%if not yet to man the barricades. Many university academics want the Dutch professorial system to be reformed, arguing that for Dutch universities to stay competitive in an international marketplace, and be places where bright young scholars want to build their academic careers, the system must be more flexible and offer more opportunities for associate professors to promote to professorships.
Ostensibly, there are two main issues. Firstly, the Dutch professorial system, which is a formation (formatie) system, is too hierarchical and impedes normal career advancement. Professors, all-powerful, sit atop pyramidal-shaped units composed of post-docs and assitant/associate professors. This rigid formation limits the number of professorship positions available, and professorial chairs only become vacant when professors retire, die, or quit. Associate professors, therefore, often remain associates for their entire careers.
In this worst-case, Kafkaesque scenario, ambitious associate professors get stuck in the system; they have nowhere to go in Holland’s relatively small university pool. Their career paths hit a brick wall, or ceiling. Never to become professors in Holland, they must either accept their demoralizing fate, seek jobs abroad, or%poison their professor’s coffee.
Secondly, only professors are allowed to promote PhD candidates. Associate professors write PhD proposals, raises funds, appoint and closely supervise PhDs for years, but they don’t receive full credit for their successful PhD projects. Instead, the professor-promoter, often having played a very minor role, receives the credit. The associate, who has done all the work, merely receives a co-promoter acknowledgement
Critics contend that because this lower class of assistants/associates has few career advancement possibilities and is denied PhD promoter powers, they often become dissatisfied and less productive than they should be. In response, there are calls for Dutch universities to adopt a variation of the US tenure-based system, in which individuals are solely responsible for their output%not the system. Proponents say it’s a more egalitarian, competitive system, wherein academics are promoted strictly on merit, regardless of whether there’s a vacancy; moreover, the clearly defined tenure-based career path, from post-doc to professor, takes approximately 8-10 years.
Flexible
TU Delft’s Professor Majid Hassanizadeh is an outspoken critic of the current system. He believes professors are too powerful, too elitist. This creates an unproductive academic underclass. “Associates/assistants are second-class citizens,” he says. “They have few rights, don’t sit on committees, and their input isn’t sought on, for instance, strategic matters that effect the entire university.”
Hassanizadeh calls the promoter issue “absurd, indefensible”, and sees it as a question of fairness: “As academics, we don%t do this job for money, we do it for academic recognition. If associate professors deserve full credit, they should get it. That’s fair.”
Professor Rob van der Hilst of Utrecht University is very familiar with the two opposing systems. Educated in the Dutch system, he recently returned to Holland from a successful academic sojourn abroad, first in England and Australia, and most recently at MIT, where he worked for the past six years. While working in Australia, Utrecht offered Van der Hilst an associate professorship, but he turned it down, partly, he says, “because the professor was relatively young and I was afraid of getting stuck as an associate forever.” A wise decision. One year later MIT hired him, and, on merit, he was promoted from post-doc to professor within four years.
“The US tenure-system is more flexible, open, transparent, better for career development,” says Van der Hilst. “In Holland, information doesn’t flow effectively from the top down, and consequently the lower ranks feel left out. In the US, everyone talks to department heads, information flows; it’s a very stimulating, motivating and egalitarian working environment.”
Cosmetic
The Dutch government and universities tacitly acknowledge that problems exist, that top academics must be promoted regardless of vacancies, and that Holland loses homegrown academic talent to foreign universities. Some special programs now exist to help, in a sense, circumvent the Dutch professorial system, such as Antonie Leeuwenhoek Professorships.
Bijzonder (Special) Professorships exist for similar reasons; however, in the past, these professorships were sometimes awarded to executives of company’s that had generously donated funds. Of some bijzonder professors, the joke is that their only published academic works are their business cards. “They might be great engineers, managers, but they’re not great academic researchers or educators, and that’s what universities are for,” says Remko Uijlenhoet, an assistant professor at Wateringen University who has a 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NWO).
Many people regard these various programs as merely cosmetic, not as real solutions. Uijenhoet wants real structural change, and, in a sense, his career depends on it. “I know who the professors are in positions above me and it doesn’t look like they’ll be any openings anytime soon.”
In the mid-1980s the IO (Assitant Researcher) and Phd programs blossomed in Holland, the trend has continued, and there are now many ambitious young academics eager to progress. Uijenhoet: “All those people who came through the PhD system are now knocking on the door of the establishment, saying ‘We want in!'”
If reform occurs, it’s likely to be a Dutch variation of the US system. What’s certain is that any structural change will be a slow, gradual process, as is compromise-seeking Holland’s way. “Financial pressure on the system will continue to force more decisions to be taken on the basis of quality,” Professor Chris Spiers of Utrecht University says. “Inevitably, that’ll bring about change.”
Continued globalization of the university system is also a factor. Internationally-minded academics must be enticed to stay here, rather than go abroad, and Van der Hilst says “that can only be done by creating better career paths and promoting people based on merit.”
The first step of reform is likely to be promoter rights for assitant/associate professors. Certainly, the push for reform will continue to come from an increasingly powerful younger generation of academics, like Van der Hilst. Revolution in Dutch academia? Associate professors storming the Rector’s office, pitchforks in hand? Probably not. That’s not the Dutch style, and besides, as one academic quipped, “no one would want to be first in line.”
An increasingly vocal group of academics say the Dutch professorial system needs to be reformed. The academic career path from post-doc, assitant/associate professor, to a full professorship is too unclear, demoralizing, and, in some areas, fundamentally unfair. Can the ‘old’ Dutch professorial system still satisfy the competitive needs of a modern university?
If revolutions start from within, there’s enough grumbling coming from inside Dutch academia to cause the university establishment to at least take notice%if not yet to man the barricades. Many university academics want the Dutch professorial system to be reformed, arguing that for Dutch universities to stay competitive in an international marketplace, and be places where bright young scholars want to build their academic careers, the system must be more flexible and offer more opportunities for associate professors to promote to professorships.
Ostensibly, there are two main issues. Firstly, the Dutch professorial system, which is a formation (formatie) system, is too hierarchical and impedes normal career advancement. Professors, all-powerful, sit atop pyramidal-shaped units composed of post-docs and assitant/associate professors. This rigid formation limits the number of professorship positions available, and professorial chairs only become vacant when professors retire, die, or quit. Associate professors, therefore, often remain associates for their entire careers.
In this worst-case, Kafkaesque scenario, ambitious associate professors get stuck in the system; they have nowhere to go in Holland’s relatively small university pool. Their career paths hit a brick wall, or ceiling. Never to become professors in Holland, they must either accept their demoralizing fate, seek jobs abroad, or%poison their professor’s coffee.
Secondly, only professors are allowed to promote PhD candidates. Associate professors write PhD proposals, raises funds, appoint and closely supervise PhDs for years, but they don’t receive full credit for their successful PhD projects. Instead, the professor-promoter, often having played a very minor role, receives the credit. The associate, who has done all the work, merely receives a co-promoter acknowledgement
Critics contend that because this lower class of assistants/associates has few career advancement possibilities and is denied PhD promoter powers, they often become dissatisfied and less productive than they should be. In response, there are calls for Dutch universities to adopt a variation of the US tenure-based system, in which individuals are solely responsible for their output%not the system. Proponents say it’s a more egalitarian, competitive system, wherein academics are promoted strictly on merit, regardless of whether there’s a vacancy; moreover, the clearly defined tenure-based career path, from post-doc to professor, takes approximately 8-10 years.
Flexible
TU Delft’s Professor Majid Hassanizadeh is an outspoken critic of the current system. He believes professors are too powerful, too elitist. This creates an unproductive academic underclass. “Associates/assistants are second-class citizens,” he says. “They have few rights, don’t sit on committees, and their input isn’t sought on, for instance, strategic matters that effect the entire university.”
Hassanizadeh calls the promoter issue “absurd, indefensible”, and sees it as a question of fairness: “As academics, we don%t do this job for money, we do it for academic recognition. If associate professors deserve full credit, they should get it. That’s fair.”
Professor Rob van der Hilst of Utrecht University is very familiar with the two opposing systems. Educated in the Dutch system, he recently returned to Holland from a successful academic sojourn abroad, first in England and Australia, and most recently at MIT, where he worked for the past six years. While working in Australia, Utrecht offered Van der Hilst an associate professorship, but he turned it down, partly, he says, “because the professor was relatively young and I was afraid of getting stuck as an associate forever.” A wise decision. One year later MIT hired him, and, on merit, he was promoted from post-doc to professor within four years.
“The US tenure-system is more flexible, open, transparent, better for career development,” says Van der Hilst. “In Holland, information doesn’t flow effectively from the top down, and consequently the lower ranks feel left out. In the US, everyone talks to department heads, information flows; it’s a very stimulating, motivating and egalitarian working environment.”
Cosmetic
The Dutch government and universities tacitly acknowledge that problems exist, that top academics must be promoted regardless of vacancies, and that Holland loses homegrown academic talent to foreign universities. Some special programs now exist to help, in a sense, circumvent the Dutch professorial system, such as Antonie Leeuwenhoek Professorships.
Bijzonder (Special) Professorships exist for similar reasons; however, in the past, these professorships were sometimes awarded to executives of company’s that had generously donated funds. Of some bijzonder professors, the joke is that their only published academic works are their business cards. “They might be great engineers, managers, but they’re not great academic researchers or educators, and that’s what universities are for,” says Remko Uijlenhoet, an assistant professor at Wateringen University who has a 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NWO).
Many people regard these various programs as merely cosmetic, not as real solutions. Uijenhoet wants real structural change, and, in a sense, his career depends on it. “I know who the professors are in positions above me and it doesn’t look like they’ll be any openings anytime soon.”
In the mid-1980s the IO (Assitant Researcher) and Phd programs blossomed in Holland, the trend has continued, and there are now many ambitious young academics eager to progress. Uijenhoet: “All those people who came through the PhD system are now knocking on the door of the establishment, saying ‘We want in!'”
If reform occurs, it’s likely to be a Dutch variation of the US system. What’s certain is that any structural change will be a slow, gradual process, as is compromise-seeking Holland’s way. “Financial pressure on the system will continue to force more decisions to be taken on the basis of quality,” Professor Chris Spiers of Utrecht University says. “Inevitably, that’ll bring about change.”
Continued globalization of the university system is also a factor. Internationally-minded academics must be enticed to stay here, rather than go abroad, and Van der Hilst says “that can only be done by creating better career paths and promoting people based on merit.”
The first step of reform is likely to be promoter rights for assitant/associate professors. Certainly, the push for reform will continue to come from an increasingly powerful younger generation of academics, like Van der Hilst. Revolution in Dutch academia? Associate professors storming the Rector’s office, pitchforks in hand? Probably not. That’s not the Dutch style, and besides, as one academic quipped, “no one would want to be first in line.”
Comments are closed.