Is Tenure Reform at Peking University Good For All?
By Liu Yieqing Peking University recently declared the abolishment of lifelong tenure for supervisors of PhD Candidates (SOPC), enabling more qualified associate professors and lecturers to apply for the position. With this reform, we are moving closer to the international practice. But whether this practice will become a nationwide paradigm is still unknown. Supervisor of PhD candidates is seemingly just a title, while actually it represents a higher level than other professors in the academic world. To some extent, it’s a “super professor.” A SOPC enjoys much higher allowances as well as credit. To get this title, a professor has to first submit a formal application and then get through an anonymous critical examination by experts at the university in question and from other universities. In spite of repeated declarations by educational administration departments that SOPC is not a higher academic title than professor, society takes no notice at all. The every-other-year competition
