California Universities

Your attention to, and support of, issues affecting California higher education have been noted and appreciated by many of us. Thus we hasten to save so valued an ally from egregious error (“The Studies and the Students,” editorial, July 20).

A casual review of CSU personnel guidelines would clearly indicate that research represents a significant element in determining faculty retention, tenure and promotion. As early as 1975 a systemwide policy, implemented on all campuses, stipulated that evaluative criteria should include scholarly and creative achievement.

In the 1980s, recognizing the intrinsic relationship between ongoing research and effective teaching, the Legislature provided specific budgetary support for CSU faculty development. Research was also endorsed in the 1987 report of the Commission for the Review of California’s Master Plan of Higher Education.

In my own academic department the research component represents 35% of a faculty member’s personnel evaluation. That may explain why over a period of two years a department with a dozen historians has produced seven books.

GLORIA RICCI LOTHROP, Department of History, Cal Poly Pomona