Despite the relatively rare public invocation of the process, much hoopla has been made of late over the University of Wisconsin administration's use of so-called back-up positions. The jobs, veritable fall-back posts for certain employees who lose their discretionary positions for one reason or another, offer some modicum of job security and guaranteed income to those who otherwise might find their names gracing the unemployment rolls on a whim.
For the most part, we find this process to be troubling. Those administrators who take vulnerable positions do so at their own peril and just as the townhouses adorning much of Washington, D.C., may change hands with the outcome of a single election or official's change of heart, we don't see a convincing reason why so many of those holding office atop Bascom Hill or elsewhere should have career assurances not privy to many of the nation's finest minds.
However, there are circumstances where such does seem rather reasonable. Particularly, we look to the many tenured professors about campus who might one day solidly fill administrative posts. To provide these individuals with a promise of return to the status quo they depart in answering to a higher office seems wholly legitimate. If someone was qualified and respected as a history professor in the first place, we see no harm in returning them to that office when their stint elsewhere on campus comes to an end for any number of reasons. The very nature of tenure is such an assurance and they should not be naked to its protections merely because they are asked to serve their school in a different capacity for some period of time.
However, the many career administrators who hopscotch their ways from school to school ought to be afforded no such guarantees. We trust that whoever the chancellor of this university may be at any point in time will have the good sense to treat dignified employees with just that — dignity. There is no statute or rule prohibiting someone from moving from an administrative post to a different position and, when this is appropriate, it seems that it should be simple enough to follow through upon. But to make guarantees of such, regardless of the rationale behind someone's departure from an appointed post, is stubborn at best.
Paul Barrows has provided a very high-profile example of the dangers back-up positions may present. And while it is heartening to realize this instance is rare — and perhaps over-obsessed upon — the time still seems ripe to address the potential ramifications of what appears to be a very dangerous and costly form of job security that simply doesn't exist outside the ivory tower.
