# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S1033
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

SEMINARIES AND COLLEGES 835

a ‘leges reporting, fully 32 do not rank their teaching staff (Bosley,

y

s Howard. Elmer, Ph. D., The Administration of Faculty Personnel in
. State Teachers Colleges, p. 21). We submit that 32 out of 111 con-
. stitute a very respectable minority. The plan adopted in 1947 ad-
. mittedly does not agree with established American practice. We
- know of no junior college and of no high school that ranks its
E- teachers.

III. Many objections against ranking of professors are enu-

4 merated in the study made by the American Association of Teachers

Colleges. We mention the following: (1) Presidents of 10 large
schools and 16 small schools saw the system of academic ranks
as an unnecessary cause of jealousy, friction; and dissension.
(2) Three expressed the belief that ranking is discouraging to good

f teachers when for any reason the upper ranks are closed to them.

(3) It is not at all essential for good functioning of the college.
(4) A constant source of rivalry and jealousy and a headache for

4 administrators. (Bosley, Howard Elmer, Ph. D., The Administration
p of Faculty Personnel in State Teachers Colleges, p. 20.)

IV. Even those in favor of ranking state:

“A well-planned program of promotions based upon care-
fully established criteria which are made known to faculty
members provides effective guidance to individuals for the
direction of their professional efforts. A carefully designed
promotion plan will not leave faculty members in the dark
concerning teaching performance, research efforts, professional
growth, professional and community services, ete., upon which
recognition and promotion will be based.” (Bosley, Howard
Elmer, Ph.D., The Administration of Faculty Personnel in
State Teachers Colleges, p. 16.)

While the 1947 resolutions enumerate the criteria for ranking,

they are so vague that their application must be largely sub-

jective.

V. While the system of ranking has the purpose to give an
incentive for greater efficiency in teaching, subsequent resolutions
of the Board for Higher Education entirely take away such in-
centive. The faculty of St. Paul Concordia College has been lim-

< ited to two professorships. After those appointments are made,
. the other teachers have no prospect for advancement in rank, Their

loyalty to God and the Church will always be an incentive for
faithful work, but the impossibility of gaining recognition is bound
to have a bad influence on their morale.

VI. The local board of our school has appointed no one to a

4 full professorship. In some of our schools where the plan has been

put into effect, the result has been distinctly unfavorable. The
objections against the plan are very similar to those contained in

* the survey of the teachers’ colleges and quoted above in Section III.