It happened to the professor at the Medical School who chopped a colleague into little bits and hid him all over the Longwood campus. It happened to the professor in the who had a mental breakdown and was unable to satisfy his teaching requirements. It even happened to a few professors who committed sexual harrassment.

Though there are University rules governing the loss of tenure, it happens so rarely-and so quietly-that few people can name a case when it occurred.

"There's a clause in all tenure agreements that deals with the capacity to do your duties," says President Neil L. Rudenstine. "It's a clause that has only been invoked a few times by a few institutions."

"It's a very difficult process, and it's designed to be a difficult process," he says.

The design of tenure is to protect academic freedom-and the difficulty of dismissing a professor based on academic work may be best illustrated by the case of John E. Mack, professor of psychiatry at the Medical School.

Mack, who conducts highly controversial alien abduction research, was investigated in 1995 by his colleagues. The Medical School questioned the nature of his research, in which he interviewed people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, and assumed they were sane and telling the truth.

Despite the inquiry, Mack kept his position. An official release reaffirmed, "Mack's academic freedom to study what he wishes and to state his opinions without impediment." That's exactly the kind of protection tenure is supposed to offer, Faculty members say.

If all research reasons are off limits, what could get you thrown off the Faculty?

"In the case of hard-core sexual harassment by a professor I would want to see that professor dismissed," says Stanley C. Wei '99. "There are other unusual circumstances like embezzlement of University funds that might call for dismissal. But I think that these provisions already exist in tenure contracts."

Causes for dismissal, according to Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles, are violations of the original contract, or "dereliction of duty."

"If the member of the Faculty was not fulfilling their responsibilities [of instruction, research and support of the running of the Faculty], and or was committing "actions against the criminal law.," Knowles says that would be grounds for dismissal.

And Faculty members like Eckehard Simon, chair of the Germanic languages and literatures department, seem to understand where the boundaries are.

"Tenure is not totally safe. You have to conform to the statutes of the University," he says. "[You can be dismissed] if you are academically criminal or [commit] sexual harrassment."

WHY SO RARE?

Faculty dismissals are quite rare, as Faculty and undergraduates alike attest to.