What is Hoover's Connection to Stanford?

Details:

Hoover is officially a part of Stanford, like Stanford Linear Accelerator.

Hoover Fellows are officially classed as "academic staff". They are employees of the university -- not officially part of the professoriate. The director answers to President Hennessey, and indirectly to the Board of Trustees through the Hoover Institution Board of Overseers. Raisian is in the unofficial University Cabinet (along with the deans of all the schools); Hennessey is on the board of overseers. Most of the people on the Board of Overseers have some other Stanford connection (alumni, donors, etc.)

In financial terms, all of Hoover's money is Stanford's money. Checks are written

to "Hoover institution, Stanford university." The Hoover account is a Stanford account; the Hoover endowment ($60 million) is a Stanford endowment; Stanford owns everything in the Hoover Institution buildings.

$1.15 million of tuition money goes to the Hoover libraries and archives, which are a tremendous and often used resource for the Stanford community. The overall cost of the libraries are about $6 million and the overall operating budget is probably $30 million.

There is significant involvement in the Stanford community. Of the 100 fellows, nearly 60 did some teaching or advising for Stanford students, many of these are as courtesy appointments in which Hoover fellows teach classes for lower pay than a Stanford professor.

Joint appointments. In addition, many Hoover fellows hold joint appointments as professors of certain departments at Stanford. This means that fellow is both a Hoover fellow and a Stanford professor. The institution and the department split the salary costs of the professor/fellow. There have been many instances in which a prominent professor has considered leaving Stanford for another university, and a joint appointment permitted the retention of the scholar at Stanford because a more lucrative salary was offered.

Currently, there seem to be 9 currently teaching in the Poli Sci department: 6 out of 23 professors; 1 of 3 associate professors; 0 of 8 assistant professors; 2 of 12 courtesy professors.

In 1992, a Hoover fellow received a joint appointment to the political science department. The appointment of this scholar, who previously been denied a departmental position, appears to have been in exchange for a similar offer to a political science professor by the Institution. Although Terry Moe, the professor offered the Hoover appointment deal, denied that either appointment was inappropriate given the merit the candidates, critics such as Political Science Professor John Manley believe that such a barter of teaching positions challenges the integrity of academic appointments and therefore a Stanford education.

The impact of joint appointments on department orientation is still being studied; however, an emeritus professor of political science has criticized the practice: "having a Hoover with its money and agenda helps skew department appointments. Hoover will not be interested in a joint appointment with overly liberal or leftist professors. Also, such appointments set up a two-class professoriat: some with plush offices and research support, others who do more teaching and university work. Nice for Hooverites, but divisive for the department."

The overall issue is the question of whether any department should be so closely affiliated with an institution with overt political goals. This would seem especially an issue for the political science department.

Governance and Appointments: The appointment of the Director of the Hoover Institute follows the procedure outlined by the Board of Trustees on May 20. 1959 and amended on May 17, 1962: "after Mr. [Herbert] Hoover's decease [the director shall be approved] by the Trustees of The Hoover Foundation, Inc., a New York Corporation."

"The Director must be a man who reflects the purposes of the institution. He should be of an age which gives him a substantial period of service before the retirement age of 65 years….The Director shall have tenure as long as he satisfactorily discharges his responsibilities. This is administrative tenure, comparable to that of the President of the University, and not academic tenure…"

Because the director possesses administrative tenure, the Director is exempt from scrutiny by the Advisory Board. Thus, the director's appointment is never reviewed by another member of the faculty.

The Director controls the budget and the Institution sponsored research initiatives.

The appointment of Senior Fellows is recommended by the Director of the Hoover Institution to the president of Stanford University, who frequently delegates evaluation of the candidate to the provost and an ad hoc faculty committee. The Advisory Board, which approves the appointment of all campus faculty, is not involved in the appointment of Senior Fellows. Senior Fellows are employed without date of termination -- not quite like tenure, more accurately described as indefinite employment. Any fellow who holds an appointment in a university department is approved by the Advisory Board to hold that appointment. The rest of the senior fellows thus are not reviewed by any member of the faculty prior to appointment. Senior research fellow and Research Fellow appointments occur without reference to the President -- the final hiring authority resides in the Director.

"It is impossible to find an analogue in the rest of the university for this procedure and extremely hard to invent one. I can only compare the Director's appointment of a senior fellow to a dean's appointment of someone to a department with a review by an ad hoc faculty committee appointed by a public affairs officer but without a review of the appointment by the Provost or the Advisory Board. The Director's appointment of a Senior Research Fellow or Research Fellow I can only compare to a dean's bypassing even the president." -- Ron Rebholz, prof. Emeritus of English