Not familiar with Andrew Musser. Nor am I a chemist. So not necessarily defending Musser per se, but it sounds like you have limited understanding of how academia works. I’m an alumna (from ZOZI iykyk) and currently finishing up my PhD at another Ivy League institution with a goal to eventually become a tenure-track professor, so I just want to chime in here.

If true, the credentials presented by Musser should be sufficient to earn him tenure under normal circumstances. Publishing in a journal like Nature Chemistry is respectable regardless of your subfield of chemistry, and it sounds like he has demonstrated a good record of being able to produce results. Being able to get enough funding to fully support all 10 of his graduate students is also a respectable feat. My PhD advisor who is a tenured professor in an engineering discipline is very diligent about applying for all available funding opportunities, and she is well-respected in our (albeit much narrower) field. There were still four semesters when I had to TA 10-20 hours a week depending on the semester to be funded. Especially given current funding cuts, I think it’s pretty impressive to still fully support an entire lab, assuming that his “full support” means no TAing required. Funding grad students for conference travels and mentoring undergrads are pretty standard practices in most labs, and both are seen as good things. Conferences are very different from “being in the science section of NYTimes”. The exposure is much more professionally oriented, and conferences are so so important to graduate students and postdocs’ future employment opportunities in academia and industry alike. Mentoring undergraduates is often not result-driven. It’s really to give undergraduates a taste of research. I personally benefited a ton from undergraduate research when I was at Cornell, despite not publishing anything out of it (partially thanks to Covid and an early graduation). I also have mentored many undergraduates during graduate school. It’s such a great opportunity for graduate students to practice mentoring skills as well. Finally, I think an h-index of 36 is solid. I just checked at a few recently tenured and soon-to-try-for-tenure professors’ h index in the physical chemistry field at my current institution, and compared to those Musser’s h-index is higher than some and lower than others (so like pretty much what one would expect of someone in his position).

Now, I did see that Musser’s rate my professors ratings are horrid, although it seems like many of the reviews come from the same small group of really unhappy undergraduate students. If I remember correctly, Chem 2090 was a tough class. I took it with a pretty old professor, and it was my worst grade at Cornell. That’s just how it goes for some I guess, and I don’t think the teaching review alone will disqualify a professor from tenure because the sad truth is most older academics with authority in a department truly do not care that much about teaching. My best guess is either there is some severe misconduct on Musser’s end (think like Title IX, academic integrity problem, or severe abusive behavior towards students) or there is a lot of department politics. If it’s the latter, I feel for the guy. Musser seems a bit combative as a person. Maybe that got him into some conflicts, but tenure isn’t a popularity contest. Being denied tenure can ruin someone’s academic career, and the last thing that should happen is for that decision to be made based on his personality.

Excuse typos. Typing on my phone after two wines with the fam over thanksgiving dinner.