An alert EMUTalk.org reader sent me an email complementing me on posting about the “hiring/nonhiring” for the EMU government position, but then pointing out that I had missed the fact that EMU has posted an ad for University General Counsel. “Does this mean that Ken McKanders is gone or being forced out?”
Well, this pointed me to a little internal research: according the news briefs section of Focus EMU, “McKanders (is) leaving EMU in Februrary.” The article doesn’t say why he’s leaving, but it suggests he will be “pursing other professional opportunities.” I don’t know if that means he’s being forced out, but you would think that if he was taking a better job that this would be mentioned.
Mr. McKanders was an avid participant in the cover up of the murder of EMU student Laura Dickinson. He claimed after her murderer was arrested that EMU officials could not have informed the public, or her parents, that her death was being investigated as a homicide without compromising the investigation. That bald faced lie revealed an amazing degree of lack of moral integrity on the part of the University Counsel — and it was also wrong on the requirements of the law. Indeed, it was so wrong that the county’s assistant prosecutor handling the prosecution of the killer publicly admitted that it was extraordinarily rare, perhaps entirely unheard of, for officials to deny that a major crime had been committed while actively investigating it. Ken McKanders also failed, over a period of a decade and more, to take steps to ensure that university officials knew what common sense, ethics, and the Clery Act required. For his role in the murder cover up, he was reprimanded by the Board of Regents. He may be the sole in-house consul in the country to be reprimanded publicly but not fired.
Mr. McKanders should have been fired in early 2007, and every penny he’s been paid since then was unearned.
In addition to his central role in the greatest scandal in the history of higher education in the state of Michigan, other measures of his incompetence abound, including his all too frequent hiring of outside consul to handle routine university legal business. Why pay an in-house lawyer $130,000 per year when his main duty is to hire outside lawyers at fat hourly rates? You don’t need an expensive on staff lawyer to hire expensive outside lawyers.
McKanders has been here for over 20 years, in the same job. Twenty years too long.
Wow, tough crowd…..well, I guess it’s not much of a crowd. I had a class with Mr. McKanders and the man is brilliant. I don’t know why when faculty leave the university, their dirty laundry is never aired via this blog. I’ve had a few professors here and there that had no business continuing to be in the classroom, but nobody is shouting their misdeeds from the rooftop. We hired some outside lawyers, probably because the items they were litigating had to do with the University House, a murder cover up, and any number of other items that would cause the university legal counsel to be biased.
I know of at least one professor making over 100k and in my opinion, they should also have been fired in 2007 and every penny they’ve made since then was, and continues to be, unearned. But in reality, it is earned because he/she does do some work, it’s just really, really terrible. Too bad administrators can’t hide behind tenure to keep their jobs.
Math Geek,
Nothing I’ve said here about Mr. McKanders is private information and his job performance is a matter of public record. He may be brilliant as you say, but many, many EMU officials have complained for years about his inability to provide reliable legal advice, and about his expensive tendency to hire outside counsel.
That he was reprimanded by the Board of Regents is a well known fact, and his role in the former EMU administration’s cover up of a student’s murder was documented in the local press, in a specialized magazine for inside counsel lawyers, and in the Butzel Long report. His record in this regard is rather infamous. No serious case can be made that Mr. McKanders did a good job protecting the university’s best interests – and no such attempt has ever been made publicly, as far as I know.
No doubt some profs are poor at their jobs. Are such profs setting university policy? Don’t think so. In contrast, Mr. McKanders has been a top level EMU official for longer than anyone else, and with those public responsibilities and high salaries there should also come some measure of accountability. (And few professors here have 100 K salaries, and most of those who do are former administrators who “took” their management salary with them when they joined the faculty.) Mr. McKanders’ shortcomings and participation in the Dickinson murder cover up alone contributed massive damages to EMU’s reputation, along with considerable financial damages.
And can anybody in EMUTalk land recall Mr. McKanders’ decision to argue against a plain application of the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to an EMU run program? A prize to anyone who can cite the case, in which EMU lawyers made a stupid and losing argument that no other university had ever been so foolish as to bring to court.
I mostly agree with Mark on this one. I don’t think I’ve met McKanders– I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen him– and I do not know if he was “forced out” or if he has a better offer someplace else. But I do know that McKanders has been involved indirectly or directly in a number of problematic situations at EMU over the years. He really did get reprimanded over the Dickenson murder cover-up.
And I guess the thing about being a senior administrator at a large institution is you open yourself up for criticism and public scrutiny at a different level. If you’re going to have a “big job” like McKanders (or anyone else at the cabinet level of the administration), you’re going to be held accountable at a different level than a professor. Though I will say that if a faculty member had been implicated in the Dickenson murder cover-up, I suspect that person would have been publicly scrutinized, reprimanded, and/or fired.
I’m not saying that what he did with the cover up wasn’t a “fireable” offense, just that there seems to be a huge double standard in the way faculty are disciplined, compared to that of administrators…..and scrutinized through “the talk” (emutalk).
Clearly the one or two faculty that were denied tenure, rightly or wrongly, did something. I’m know it wasn’t a murder cover up, but they aren’t being slung through the mud either. I read the posts, and to be quite honest, I could care less what they did, it’s between them, their students and the BOR. I just don’t see anyone running them out on a rail.
The faculty member that I had in mind when I spoke of the 100k salary, was a former administrator and did keep their chunk of change…..and they continue to teach, if you can even call it that.
Oh, I see where you are going with this, MathGeek.
This is perhaps a more nuanced discussion than we can really have here, but basically, it goes like this:
* the faculty who are being denied tenure were being denied tenure for all the wrong reasons– that is, it had nothing to do with their scholarship, teaching, or service, but it had to do with something that they did that was “bad.” Or so the rumor goes. The other thing that is kind of sad about all this is we don’t really know.
If a faculty person does something bad and ought to be fired for it, that’s a different matter entirely. For example (and I am in no way talking about the faculty whose issues of tenure are being disputed right now): suppose a tenured full professor were implicated in the cover-up of the murder of a student on campus, and suppose that the administration wanted to fire that person “for cause” because of that cover-up. The EMU-AAUP might weigh in on that issue, but the firing or not of that professor would have nothing to do with tenure.
What I’m getting at is I don’t think tenure is “automatic job security” in the sense that a professor can do literally anything. Rather, I think tenure means a professor can’t get fired for intellectual disagreements or disputes over what should or shouldn’t be taught. It doesn’t mean that if a professor does something bad– e.g., cover up a murder– that they are immune from being fired.
Mark, are you talking about the equal pay case in 2000? Or another one? I’d be interested to read it.
Amy –
Nope, I’m not talking about the equal pay case, but that’s a very good guess. If I recall right, that was an EEOC case. The one I’m thinking of, the one that no other university counsel in the country ever was so foolish enough to litigate, was directly from the ’64 Civil Rights Act’s banning of discriminatory practices by higher education institutions that receive federal funds, and it was heard in US District Court. The attorneys that Mr. McKanders hired to litigate this case laughed all the way to the bank, collecting their high fees as they fought on, profitably, to the inevitable defeat of their client – EMU – before a Federal Judge who read the law and found that the law gave no protection to EMU for the behavior Ken McKanders and his lawyer pals found to be beyond lawful sanction of the nation’s civil rights laws.
I’ll wait a few more days, Amy, for others to possibly venture answers to this question, on this blog or privately to me, and then I’ll post more on the case.
MathGeek,
I appreciate your follow up comment, but now I’m confused about your first point. You concede that Mr. McKanders’ conduct in the murder cover up may have been worth firing him over, but you object to him being criticized for that conduct? You have a complaint about a former administrator turned professor who is a poor teacher? If the facts are you stipulate, isn’t the problem there a result of mismanagement (allowing failed administrators to join the faculty)? Please keep in mind that Mr. McKanders has been the chief defender of mismanagement at EMU for two decades.
I can understand why Jim Vick lost his job. But I can’t understand if the Board of Regents singled out four culprits in the matter, three of whom to be fired, why Jim Vick lost his job and McKanders kept his.
I’m not saying that the faculty was a failed administrator. I think they voluntarily returned to being faculty. I’m saying that tenure protects faculty in a way that administrators are not privy. Granted, covering up a murder is more serious than any thing the faculty member I was referring to has done, or could ever do.
My second point was, I don’t think I’ve ever read a post on here about an administrator leaving EMU, voluntarily or otherwise, and anyone from the faculty saying, “You know what, they did a really great job. EMU is going to miss their service.”
Oh, I don’t know about that, MathGeek. I think you’ll generally see positive things here about Loppnow, though anyone who has been around as long as Don will have ruffled some feathers/made some enemies. I think that Craig “presidential temp” Willis was pretty universally praised, though it’s because he was a temp, I suppose. And generally, I think Martin is praised.
Its a bit of the nature of the forum though, too. People tend to notice/get riled up by “bad” things, which is why the news tends to be not about what a great job some politician or whatever.
MathGeek has a point. It is not that tenured faculty cannot be dismissed, it is that this happens very rarely. One reason is because it is so time consuming to dismiss a faculty member who has tenure. If it is an issue of incompetence, several layers of “proof” must be presented. If it is “moral turpitude,” well that is not provided for in the contract. Getting rid of tenured professors can be done, but only if someone really wants to undertake a long, time consuming task of demonstrating the “cause” for action. In the instance of an untenured faculty member, the process is far less complicated. The contract clearly states that only the BOR can grant tenure. Therefore, it seems reasonable to expect that only the BOR can deny tenure. Going through the process to obtain tenure is no guarantee it will be granted. I believe that is the point of this issue. The union is arguing that this person went through all of the steps and now the BOR must grant tenure. The union will not win this one.
On the other hand, administrators can be “at willed” more readily. Look at most recent “leaving.” You probably don’t know who it is because unless it is a cause celebe it is done very quietly.
We’ll see how the union arbitration works out. I don’t think the contract is as clear on the BOR’s role in the process as you might think, EMU Supporter, but I’m not a lawyer and I’m not really involved in the process.
I agree that it is hard to dismiss a faculty member for cause, but quite frankly, it’s hard to fire anyone in a job like that– people who are “vested” and work for the state, for example.
In theory, faculty are tenured because they have put in five years of probationary service and have proven themselves worthy, and getting a tenure-track job in most fields (certainly in my field) is competitive. I guess what I’m saying is we don’t just hire anyone into these jobs and we don’t keep people who don’t do what they need to do to prove themselves. So, it might be hard to fire tenured faculty, but we don’t exactly pass out tenure-track jobs as if they were candy.
Keep mind too that many administrators– and I’d assume all the academic ones– are tenured. We’ve got plenty of ex-deans and even ex-provost around here who have been “sent back” to the faculty. I believe that Susan Martin and Jack Kay are both tenured. In a sense, tenure is a bigger safety net for them than it is for the likes of me.
Tenure exists to protect academic freedom. Tenured faculty can and are dismissed – rarely, true, but it happens. The system works pretty well. Mr. McKanders, I know from first hand experience, neither understands nor protects academic freedom — although at most universities, protecting academic freedom is a top priority for the university counsel.
>> We’ve got plenty of ex-deans and even ex-provost around here who have been “sent back” to the faculty. <<
We also have plenty of ex administration who chose to go back to faculty. Disagreement with policy, sick of working administration, missed teaching, want to finish out retirement with less stress than administration, etc.
In some of these cases, we get damn fine experienced instructors back in the teaching pool.
“I guess what I’m saying is we don’t just hire anyone into these jobs and we don’t keep people who don’t do what they need to do to prove themselves. So, it might be hard to fire tenured faculty, but we don’t exactly pass out tenure-track jobs as if they were candy.”
Sitedad – Are you !@#$%^& kidding me ! At EMU? Come on buddy get with reality…I would sure like to know exactly how many faculty get denied tenure at EMU. How many get a terminal contract after their third year review? How does Eastern compare with other University’s in EMU’s peer group (also those unionized vs. non-unionized)? My bet, very few faculty per year are denied at Eastern….probably none. Yea Yea….two were just recently denied…I know….and everyone freaked out because this is an extremely rare occurrence. Bottom line for me….if you have a pulse, your getting tenure at EMU. Your basically getting tenure the day your hired….unless you do something extremely stupid. The bar is so low it might as well be buried underground. Self evident from administrative structure and problems at EMU. Quite a few administrators at EMU came from the faculty ranks (internal). Yes…not all…but most. These people would have never received tenure anywhere else…and it shows….believe me….it shows. This is why EMU has so many problems and why it will only be one step above WCC.
JHC, I don’t really think you know what you’re talking about and a lot of this has already been covered. But I’ll try to respond to a few key points:
* What I meant in the passage that you quote is we don’t hire people into tenure-track jobs unless we are confident that we will be able to tenure them– at least that’s the case in my department. In other words, we are hiring people who are really REALLY qualified at the get-go. New faculty in my department have PhDs and/or years and years of experience in academia, publications and presentations, they have lots of recommendations and have been subjected to lots of interviews, and all this only after conducting a national (and in some cases, international) search. We don’t put up a flier or a “help wanted” sign in the window, and faculty typically don’t get tenure-track jobs simply by being in the right place at the right time.
* If someone is in danger of not getting tenure for one reason or another (and at EMU, I think that’s usually because of service and/or teaching), then they tend to get a “heads up” about in the third year. I know of at least one case where this happened in my department, and I suspect it happens a lot around the university.
* I think if you compared EMU to comparable institutions (the WMUs and CMUs of the world), you would find similar rates of tenure. At most “tier 2,” regional universities– especially those that have faculty unions– the vast majority of faculty who are hired get tenure. The same is not necessarily true at the most prestigious universities in this country– places like Harvard or Stanford or Princeton, to a lesser extent at places like U of M. But the thing those tenure-seeking candidates have going from them is that the experience of working for one of these fancy schools can help with the next job. This is just an unsubstantiated guess on my part, but I’ll bet you that a lot of the faculty in fields like mine in Big Ten-type universities worked for a few years first in the tenure-track at a fancier school.
My point is this: at all the places where I’ve worked as a professor and graduate assistant (and this is in the midwest, west coast, and southeast in this country, and this is at tier 1, 2, and less than colleges and universities), a very high percentage of tenure-seeking faculty were granted tenure. The situation at EMU is not at all unusual.
* I would agree that not every tenure decision turns out to be the right one, and unfortunately, it’s usually too late to do anything about it when you find out that someone shouldn’t have been tenured. But in this “Dilbert-like” work world of ours, you show me any enterprise that has more than 10 employees (especially if that enterprise has something to do with government work or a large corporation), and I will show you at least 10% of the work force who shouldn’t be there but who are nearly impossible to fire.
* Finally, the reason why everyone is “freaked out” by two faculty being denied tenure by the BOR is because a) this seems to be in violation of the protocol set up by the union and the administration, b) this is the first time this has ever happened, and c) we still don’t know why this has happened (though rumors of course abound).
Actually, I kind of wonder if this wasn’t part of McKanders decision to leave EMU….
I think there may be some misunderstanding about the differences between “flagship” universities (some call these tier 1, but they are essentially the major state school (s) and many of the private schools) and some of the others. The first difference is that at “flagship” school, tenure come with rank. You don’t get tenure until you get to be an associate professor. Typically, a new hire has 6 or 7 years to get promoted. If not, that person generally leaves because there really is a message there. At schools like EMU (Tier 2), tenure comes with time. Thus, after so many years (and evaluations) tenure MAY BE granted. While I think it is true that schools like EMU hire people we think will make it to tenure, our emphasis is different than that of the Tier 1 schools. Here, the major function and emphasis is on teaching and serving students. At Tier 1, it may be research and getting grants.
People do get denied tenure at EMU, but more commonly those faculty members who don’t fulfill the professional requirements are made aware of that shortcoming in pre-tenure review years, and they leave the university on their own timing.
Point is, EMU faculty members get evaluated for their job performance.
Many EMU administrators are top notch and very good in all respects.
Other EMU administrators are really poor, and they benefit from the lack of any real internal system of evaluation for EMU administrators.
The contrast in accountability and evaluation between the 2 groups, faculty and administrators, is striking, and more so at EMU than at most schools.