Discovery Institute, WA
05-17-07
Science Professor Expresses Astonishment at Iowa State's Denial of Tenure to
Gonzalez, Highlights Citations to Gonzalez's Research
A distinguished science professor at a major American university has weighed in
on Iowa State University's denial of tenure to pro-ID astronomer Guillermo
Gonzalez, expressing astonishment at the result. According to Dr. Robert J.
Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor
University:
I went to the Web of Science citation index which is the authority on citations.
Only journal papers, not conference papers, are indexed. There are lots of Prof.
Gonzalez's papers listed. My jaw dropped when I saw one of his papers has 153
citations and 139 on another. I have sat on oodles of tenure committees at both a
large private university and a state research university, chaired the university
tenure committee, and have seen more tenure cases than the Pope has
Cardinals. This is a LOT of citations for an assistant professor up for tenure. The
number of citations varies with discipline and autocitations are included in the
tally, but this is a LOT of citations for an Assistant Professor. A lot.
The Iowa State U. Astronomy department is here. Their big star is Lee Anne
Willson, University Professor. A University Professor is a rank more
prestigious than a full Professor. She is their star. Her top two papers are cited
99 and 86 times. And she has been at this for 33 years.
And then there's Steven D. Kawaler, a full Professor who is the Current
Program Coordinator for astronomy. He has a nice citation record with tops of
243 and 178.
There may be reasons I don't understand for denying Prof. Gonzalez tenure,
but scholarship is absolutely not one of them.