In the wake of a controversial tenure appeal last year, faculty and administrators are beginning to reassess the University's mechanism for appealing tenure decisions.
The discussion is prompted in part by the recent case of former Assistant Professor of Political Science Timothy Lomperis, a teacher highly regarded by his students, who exhausted every step of the tenure appeals process before being denied tenure by the Executive Committee of the Board Of Trustees last April.
Faculty, however, are wary of moving too quickly to revise the appeals process, which is outlined in Appendix M of the Faculty Handbook.
"Nothing is likely to happen before the spring semester," said James Siedow, professor of botany and chair of the Academic Council, the faculty's governing body. The Executive Committee of the Academic Council is responsible for looking at the tenure process and then recommending any changes.
"We're sensitive to the concerns out there," Siedow said, adding that as a result of the complexities of the entire process, "I'm still coming up to speed on what the real questions are."
And because the provost, who plays a tremendous role in the process, is new this year, any changes will require extra care and consideration, Siedow said.
"Provost [John Strohbehn] has said that until he has been through the process for a year, he will not even contemplate action on the tenure process," said Kathleen Smith, vice provost for academic programs.
Siedow, however, did point to one of the more controversial and confusing aspects of Appendix M: the somewhat circular process by which faculty appeal tenure cases. He said that ECAC would consider amending or altering the language of Appendix M to clear up that process.
As it currently stands, the provost makes a recommendation to the Board of Trustees based on department and University-wide reviews in every appointment, promotion or tenure case. A faculty member who believes there was a procedural error in the way the case was handled then can appeal to the Faculty Hearing Committee.
The FHC holds a hearing and then makes a recommendation to the provost concerning whether procedural due process was followed in the tenure decision. The provost can then appeal the decision to the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.
"Those [FHC] recommendations are supposed to be heeded if at all possible," said Carl Anderson, professor emeritus of English and the faculty ombudsman.
But if the provost believes that the FHC overstepped its bounds and discussed issues of substance, which are outside its jurisdiction, then he can set aside the committee's recommendation, a process that has some faculty worried.
"[Some faculty] feel that each stage of the process should come to a different deciding body or officer," said Donald Fluke, professor emeritus of zoology and faculty secretary for the Academic Council.
Fluke said that some of the problems in the provost's role result from the often blurry line between substantive and procedural issues in tenure cases. For example, the FHC can question whether the right people were asked about a faculty member's research, but cannot actually question the research itself. If the provost believes that the FHC crossed this line, he then has the power declare the committee's recommendations null and void.
There is sometimes difference of opinion, though, about what is substance and what is procedure, Fluke said. "The question is, when that difference of opinion arises, what do you do then?"
Robert Mosteller, professor of law and chair of the FHC, has proposed some answers to alleviate the confusion and add more consistency to Appendix M.
In short, Mosteller wants the loser in any appeals decision to be the one to make the appeal to the next level. Currently, if the provost rules an FHC decision null and void because it deals with substantive issues, the faculty member is forced to make the appeal to the executive committee of the board.
Mosteller instead proposes that, if the provost is on the losing side of an FHC recommendation, then he should be required to appeal the decision to the executive committee; that committee would then assess whether the FHC overstepped it bounds.
In the Lomperis case, then-Provost Thomas Langford did not act on the FHC's recommendations, ruling that the committee based its suggestions on substantive issues, rather than procedural ones.
But Mosteller and Anderson, the ombudsman, said they were confident that the current tenure process is generally effective. "My sense of the matter is that we've got a pretty good process already laid out," he said, adding however, that "it may be that some change is required or desired."
Nevertheless, any revisions likely will be minimal.
And Mosteller was quick to point out that even if his suggestions had been implemented earlier, they would not have altered Lomperis' case, pointing out another reason to postpone revising the appeals process.
"Everyone's impression of the tenure process is focused on this one highly controversial [Lomperis] case," Smith said. Because everyone needs to take a "fresh look" at tenure and Appendix M, Smith concluded that there is "no plan to do anything soon."
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