Three lecture-track faculty members are disputing the University’s termination of their contracts resulting from the department changes announced last fall. The faculty claim bylaw violations and unjustified employment policy revisions in several appeals and other documents obtained by the Wheel.
In a Sept. 16 letter to the College Governance Committee (GovCom), a group of 10 faculty claim that a policy provision was secretly added, without a faculty vote, to the document that governs lecture-track faculty employment. They say the change takes the decision of whether to renew the faculty members’ employment out of the hands of that person’s department or program and gives it to the College.
But those responsible for the revision say it was added to clarify already existing practices and did not require a faculty vote. They say the decision to implement the policy provision change occurred in 2011 before the announcement of the cuts – though it did not become a part of the official “Appointment and Review of Lecture-Track Faculty” (ARLTF) document until last summer, and was not changed online until after the cuts were announced.
“With all of these documents, we try to wait until we have a series of such changes and then update them periodically,” Michael Elliott, senior associate dean of faculty, told the Wheel.
More than a dozen non-tenured faculty members will lose their jobs as a result of elimination of the Journalism program, Division of Educational Studies and the Department of Visual Arts. Other faculty members will be reassigned to other departments.
The policy at the heart of the controversy, available online in the ARLTF document, reads: “The department or program will be asked by the College early in the fall of the reappointment year whether the position should continue to be supported. If the answer is affirmative, and if the College plans to continue supporting the position, the review of the faculty member proceeds over the academic year, concluding by or near April 1.”
The Lecture Track Faculty Promotion Committee rejected a lecture-track faculty appeal, filed in the spring, over their position cuts based, in part, on this provision. The three lecture-track faculty who will be losing their jobs and filed the appeal include David Armstrong and Sheila Tefft, senior lecturers in the Journalism program; and Vera Proskurina, senior lecturer in the Department of Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Those three lecture-track faculty and seven petitioners said in the statement to GovCom that two new paragraphs were added to that policy without a faculty vote. Specifically, the phrase “and if the College plans to continue supporting the position” was not in the ARLTF document at the time the lecture-track faculty signed their employment contracts in 2010, nor when the cuts were decided upon, according to the statement to GovCom.
The faculty said in its letter to GovCom, “Certainly, neither the appellants nor any other lecture track faculty should be bound by provisions that were secretly added to the terms of their employment without faculty knowledge or approval.”
In contrast, Senior Lecturer of Music Theory Kristin Wendland, who was a member of the committee from fall 2010 until spring 2013, wrote in an email to the Wheel, “I think it is important to understand that nothing changed in policy or practice, but rather the whole process became more clear and specific.” For that reason, Elliott said, a vote did not have to take place.
Elliott said the addition of the new language was needed when some lecture-track faculty approached him after the College decided to not renew the contracts of faculty in the Department of Physical Education and Health in 2010. He said faculty requested clarification on the employment procedures used at that time.
“What was not clear in the previous version was when that support needed to be expressed,” Elliott said, adding that there’s “nothing to hide.” “By adding this wording, nothing has changed about how lecture-track faculty are reappointed and promoted.”
In addition, GovCom decided at a Sept. 11 meeting that appeals of the Lecture Track Faculty Promotion Committee decisions are “specifically excluded by the bylaws,” according to a Sept. 13 letter from GovCom to the appellants.
GovCom Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Physics Keith Berland told the Wheel that, under the bylaws, appeals of certain “standing committees” such as the Lecture-Track Promotion Committee are not allowable.
Section 3e of the Faculty Bylaws does exclude faculty votes regarding the actions of the Lecture Track Faculty Promotion Committee “on matters of promotion.” Berland said that based on that section of the bylaws, the committee only handles matters of promotion.
“The intent of the bylaws seems clear that what the lecture track promotion committee does is not appealable,” Berland said.
Armstrong said the faculty are not appealing promotion matters. Rather, he said, they are appealing the non-renewal of their contracts, which are “entirely different things.”
“The [Promotion Committee] itself, in its response to our appeal, affirmed that it was the correct committee to handle such issues,” he said. “Moreover, despite GovCom’s contention, the Lecture Track Faculty Promotion Committee does more than just review promotions, including such things as developing the language that was properly added to the ALRTF last year by faculty vote, and those things are appealable.”
“The bottom line is that this is not GovCom’s issue to decide,” Armstrong added. “It’s only responsibility in this matter is to put the appeal on the agenda for the full faculty to review. By failing to do so, GovCom is in violation of the bylaws.”
Meanwhile, the three tenure-track faculty who will be losing their jobs met with GovCom during a meeting Wednesday to state their case. In addition, they gave a presentation at a lecture-track faculty meeting Tuesday, in which they showed documents to allege that the University violated bylaws in terminating their contracts.
GovCom is in the process of deciding whether faculty will vote on the appeal at a future faculty meeting, according to Berland.
“The Governance Committee is committed to properly handling the appeals of Standing Committee actions, in a manner consistent with the College Bylaws, as expeditiously as possible,” Berland told the Wheel. “The Governance Committee also looks forward to working with the college faculty to address the many important issues facing the College.”
A full version of the story will be available in Tuesday’s issue.
– By Jordan Friedman
Asst. News Editor Dustin Slade contributed reporting.
UPDATED: Sept. 21 at 7:31 p.m.
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