(With three slight updates on June 25– see below):
Susan Moeller sent around an email yesterday about a rather strange development coming out of the Board of Regents from their recent meeting; she wrote:
It was a very sad day today at Eastern Michigan University. For the first time in our history, the Board of Regents denied two faculty members, who were approved for tenure by their departments, their deans, and the Provost, tenure.
I thought Moeller was a little vague about it all in her email. So I went to look at the documents from the Board of Regents meeting, and while I didn’t spend a lot of time with it, I couldn’t find anything about folks being denied tenure. I did find some kind of weird documents though. Check the link above and you’ll see the “Faculty Tenure Appointments (Sections A and B)” (a PDF). Page 1 is boiler-plate language on tenuring 30 faculty and is dated (handwritten) June 10, and page 2 is the list of 30 faculty. Page 3 is the same boiler-plate language for 2 faculty, and page four lists those two faculty. Perhaps those are the ones who didn’t get tenure and promotion?
This is all very strange. I was on campus today, and I heard some rumors about all this that, if true, strike me as extremely problematic to say the least.
So, what do folks know? Any more rumors or theories? Feel free to post in the comments or to drop me an email.
Let me back up/stop a moment and summarize how this usually works to those not in the loop/not faculty at EMU (and at most other universities):
When a professor is hired, usually as an assistant professor, he or she serves in a “probationary” appointment. After five years (longer at some other universities), the probationary assistant professor puts together a case for tenure and promotion to associate professor. This process varies from department to department, but basically, the tenure/promotion-seeking assistant professor puts together a case for why they should get tenure and promotion, based on scholarship, teaching, and service. Back when I went up for tenure, I put together two binders worth of stuff, I am sure over 1000 pages, and wrote a narrative/explanation that was probably about 25 pages long.
Now, every academic department at EMU has a faculty committee– the personnel committee– that reviews all of this material and makes a recommendation to the department head about tenure and promotion for each probationary assistant professor. Then the department head writes up a little report or letter, and sends the whole mess on to the dean. And then the dean reviews everything, writes up another little report or letter, and sends it on to the Provost. Then it all goes to the President’s office for the same sort of thing (slight update– see below). And then, and only then, does the case go to the Board of Regents, and I believe it reaches them in summary form.
Oh, and by the way, all of this is spelled out in extensive detail in the faculty contract. And if anyone along the line wants to stop the tenure and promotion from going forward, they have to give some kind of reason as to why.
The point is this: by the time these things get to the Board of Regents, they have been reviewed and approved by a lot of people who have spent hours and hours evaluating the cases for tenure and promotion. So for the BoR to stop the process now is, well, weird.
Among the rumors I heard today was that even the Academic Human Relations office was surprised by this, and you would think they would know what’s going on. So, what’s going on? Well, one of the reasons I’m posting here is to find out if anyone out there in EMUTalk.org-land knows anything. I think it boils down to one of two possibilities:
- #1: There was some sort of weird paperwork snafu and it isn’t that these two faculty were denied tenure so much as the Board couldn’t vote on it today. Or….
- #2: Something bad surfaced about these two faculty (for example, a sexual harassment case or some other kind of offense worthy of dismissal) and the Board was advised by someone (Martin? Ken McKanders? someone else?) to deny them tenure.
I suppose it’s possible that the Board came to this decision independently, but I have a hard time believing that they reviewed the paperwork that was approved by everyone else at the university and disagreed with it. I suppose it’s possible that there is some kind of political game being played here, but with an assistant professor? That seems dubious too.
#2 seems the most likely reason for all this, and if some version of this is true, that’s a problem. The union contract lays out all kinds of rules, procedures, and due process policies for dealing with faculty who behave badly. But one thing the administration can’t do is just deny tenure or fire a faculty person because they did something bad without getting the union involved, and, given that Moeller is obviously not too happy about this, I don’t think the EMU-AAUP was consulted.
Slight update #1, June 25:
A loyal and regular EMUTalk.org reader sent me the following email:
I was reading your piece on the emutalk regarding the recent board decision to deny tenure to two professors. As part of your explanation of the tenure process, you mention that the president signs off on someone’s tenure case. I don’t believe that to be true at Eastern, and in this case it’s a crucial piece of the puzzle.
So, does the president ultimately sign off on these things, or does it go from the Provost to the board? I’m not sure about the answer to that now, but I would agree with this emailer that it is a crucial piece of the puzzle. Anyone know?
Slight update #2, June 25:
That same loyal EMUTalk.org reader sent me another email with what I think is some very interesting contract language:
602a.Applications for Reappointment /Tenure
603The Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs shall review the Full Evaluations for reappointment and tenure and on or before March 15, advise the applicant of the results of his/her review and forward his/her recommendations to the President for his/her approval of reappointments and recommendation to the Board of Regents for granting of tenure. If notice of non-reappointment or of final denial of tenure is not given by March 15, a Faculty Member’s appointment shall be extended for an additional year, during which time a decision to reappoint or to grant or deny tenure, whichever is applicable, shall be made.
So, if I’m understanding this correctly, the contract says that a) the President does indeed pass on this information to the Board of Regents, and b) these folks have to get an additional year of employment– that is, they can’t just be cut loose.
Slight update #3, June 25:
Just to make this all the more weird, an alert EMUTalk.org reader sent me a link to the official EMU press release on this: EMU regents approve 47 faculty promotions, grant tenure to 30. This list has faculty who were granted both tenure and promotion; those who were only granted promotion but not tenure; and those granted only tenure.
Now, the folks who were promoted to professor as being listed as “promotions only” makes sense. But why would EMU only promote someone who was going up for both tenure and promotion?
I have no information about why tenure was denied to these 2 individuals. I would imagine the reasons had to be serious. I believe you are correct that 2 separate documents were prepared for those who received and did not receive tenure. Another area of discussion on this site would be the tenure process here at EMU. You may disagree with me but I have always believed it is greatly flawed. There are dozens of individuals throughout campus who never should have been awarded tenure based on the criteria set. This is a shame for the many great faculty who really have deservedly earned tenure. I can easily name 3 in my own department who never should have been tenured. Personnel committees, department heads and Deans routinely neglect their responsibilities so as to avoid confrontation. It is easier to just grant tenure and not deal with the hassle of denial. Of course programs must now figure out where to hide these people so they do as little damage as possible. Faculty want the right to evaluate their own, but until we demonstrate that we really can evaluate fairly then decisions like this by the Board will continue.
In terms of the flawed nature of EMU’s tenure system: I personally have had mixed feelings about this over the years and largely for some of the reasons that Brad mentions and/or hints at. But I think that lots of people who shouldn’t get tenure manage to do so at other universities as well.
The best part of our system at EMU, IMO, is the fact that it is all spelled out in the DED and other documents. At many other (most?) universities, the tenure process is mysterious at best; at EMU, it’s all spelled out, and it is an issue the union has worked for decades to make as clear as it is.
This is part of what makes all this all the more disturbing: essentially, the BoR seems to be doing something to get around the contract, and they seem to be doing so in a clumsy fashion that is probably going to get the administration sued and that is likely to rile up faculty right before contract negotiations get rolling. That’s pretty dumb, if you ask me.
BTW, I want to mention a couple other things in response to someone who emailed me privately about all this:
Finally, the main reason I’m bringing this up here is to raise some questions, get some answers, support the folks who were denied, and to help make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen again.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: one of the privileges that comes with tenure and rank is the ability to speak one’s mind. But I’d also say that it is one of the responsibilities for those of us with the protection of tenure and rank to raise difficult questions at times like these, particularly on behalf of colleagues who are not tenured and who are more vulnerable.
Speaking for myself, I’m finding this whole episode confusing and demoralizing. I am going up for tenure in the fall (along with probably 70 others in my cohort that were hired along with me). If the reasons for the denial are budgetary, we need to know, so that we may plan adequately for the future. If the BoR has decided to start second-guessing their provost, deans and departments, we need to know, so that we may act accordingly in our tenure casebooks. If this is an “isolated incident”, we need to know, so that the union can do whatever is appropriate.
Plain and simple, we need information.
Another update was sent out today by Susan Moeller. However, I still find it odd that nothing has been mentioned about why the decision was made. I feel as though we are being asked to support “x” without the facts. As a researcher, I like facts.
Sociology of Sport raises a good point — facts are useful for reaching conclusions. The rub here is that many of the facts relevant to these denial of tenure actions by the BOR, presumably, involve personnel matters that are normally confidential. What facts should be disclosed by people involved in handling the dispute? The fewer the better at this stage, if you hope for a resolution to be achieved by means short of all out war.
What’s apparently beyond dispute is that the BOR acted on its own, and rejected the recommendations of the Administration that these two faculty members be awarded tenure. Also, strangely, the Board promoted these two faculty members while denying them tenure! At EMU, to be tenured while being denied promotion is not unheard of, but to be promoted while being denied tenure is without precedent. (Of course, some promotions are made without awarding tenure….but only for professors who already have tenure; for example, a tenured associate professor is promoted to full professor). It appears that the Board of Regents, collectively, lacks any comprehension of how the tenure system works at EMU, and feels free to arbitrarily intervene in it, regardless of the requirements of law or contract or national standards.
Where will this all fall out? Who knows. Most likely, in arbitration, and then in court; and quite possibly it could result in national publicity for EMU. EMU may be headed for national sanctions for conduct unbecoming to an American university.
This much is clear: The Regents acted outside of the established EMU contractual procedures and without any valid due process investigation of the relevant facts; therefore, the denial of tenure constitute a violation of academic freedom as defined and established in the United States during the last 90 years. The cardinal principle underlying tenure is that there must be fair processes by which it is awarded or denied; otherwise, mere rumor or any petty factor can be enough to violate a scholar’s academic freedom by denial of tenure on arbitrary grounds, or on grounds of secret and thus easily fabricated allegations. No university that acts on such a basis can sustain a reputation of excellence among higher education professionals in the United States.
What is exceedingly odd is that the Regents opted to act publicly on these two tenure applicants. But a wiser Board, if convinced of the need to deny tenure for these individuals, would simply have, prior to the meeting, directed that it wanted these two candidates entirely omitted from the public agenda. This would have allowed matters to proceed in private, and perhaps to be resolved privately. Instead, the Board opted for a course of action that is exceedingly alarming to all EMU community members who value academic freedom. It is the most alarming event at EMU during the last 18 months, and it’s a bad sign for the next 14 months. There is no reason to assume that the denial of tenure actions are reasonable or would be sustained by an investigation into the facts.
I agree with the EMU Patriot mostly, but I just want to add two thoughts: