Produce or Perish

Squeezed by shrinking budgets and surpluses of teachers, school boards and college trustees have sought ways in recent years to get around tenure rules that make it difficult--if not impossible --to fire incompetent teachers. Now the trend toward "accountability" has reached the presidential suites of the nation's largest system of higher education, the State University of New York.

S.U.N.Y.'S trustees voted last week to give its 29 college and graduate school presidents five-year appointments, instead of the indefinite terms they have been serving. According to Chancellor Ernest L. Boyer, that should be time enough for a president "to establish goals, demonstrate his style of leadership and build a record of his own." At the end of that term, his performance will be reviewed, and he will be reappointed for another five years--or fired.

"While we're insisting on evaluation of faculty, students and everybody else, we might as well use the same ground rules on ourselves," Boyer said. Eventually, S.U.N.Y. hopes to put the presidents of its 38 community colleges on five-year appointments also, but that will necessitate a change in state law.

No opposition to the change came from S.U.N.Y.'s presidents, perhaps because a cashiered president will not have to hunt for a new job. Under the new system, he will automatically be kept on as a teacher.

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