Ms Kerry Evans
Academic Staff Association
University of Western Australia
Nedland, WA, 6009 AUSTRALIA
26 March 1993

I am writing about the inexplicable suggestion that tenure should not be given to Dr David Rindos. Dr Rindos is an extremely well respected scholar in our discipline, with a highly original mind and a zealous desire to communicate all that is best in his discipline. I find it intolerable that there is even a suggestion that there are sound academic grounds for not granting tenure.

I have been in this Department since 1974 and have been proud that, with a brief hiccup in the late 1970s, we have grown steadily in size and now stand as one of the leading Archaeology Departments in the country. I have a full career of administrative experience, including service on the University's promotions committee and am now Deputy Chair of the Academic Board.

I have also been subjected to a campaign of personal and professional abuse and denigration almost identical to that suffered by Dr Rindos, and I can testify to the debilitating effect it has on research productivity. Yet Dr Rindos' productivity has not been as slight as to justify a decision not to grant tenure.

My experience with tenure has been in our own Department, where Dr Bowdler was denied tenure at the first attempt, not on grounds of lack of productivity, though she would surely have failed on that ground had we sought to apply your tests. She was later granted tenure, though her research productivity at the time was very low. And lest you think this is due to some lower standards at this University, let me remind you that there is a case of a person denied a promotion at this University who was awarded a Chair in yours only a couple of years later.

My other relevant experiences were not in the Archaeology Department. Two lecturers were given tenure after being given an opportunity to show that they could publish, though there was no record of a consistent pattern of publishing. By these arguments Dr Rindos would deserve tenure without any shadow of doubt, even if there were not the mitigating circumstances of the appalling situations in the Department he was appointed to.

Dr Rindos is a first class scholar who will enhance the reputation of your University if granted tenure. To deny him tenure would bring dishonour on the reputation of your University even greater than the international scandal already associated with it.

Yours sincerely

/signed/
Iain Davidson

cc. Prof F. Gale, Vice-Chancellor
Dr David Rindos
Prof Neville Bruce.
Prof Charles Oxnard