The University Senate and University administration are butting heads again — this time over faculty promotion information.
A motion has been introduced to the University Senate by biology professor emeritus Frank Stahl. The motion, to be heard at the Jan. 13 Senate meeting, demands that Senior Vice President and Provost Jim Bean share information regarding recent faculty promotions with the Faculty Personnel Committee of the Senate.
The committee, which consists of 10 tenured professors, reviews prospective faculty and advises the provost on promotion and tenure. In past years, the provost openly shared the results, including letters to the faculty candidates, with the committee.
However, that practice was changed several years ago, and this year Bean refused to share the results with the committee, aside from giving the number of faculty members who were given promotions and tenure.
In its annual report for the 2008-09 school year, the committee decried the change.
“The provost did not advise the FPC of his final decisions on these cases, nor did he share his letters to the candidates with the chair of the FPC, as has been customary in past years,” the report reads. “We believe this oversight constitutes a breakdown in the overall integrity of the process. We urge the provost to reconsider this practice next year.”
In a November memo, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Russell Tomlin wrote that the policy was changed in spring 2007 to better fit the Oregon Administrative Rules regarding faculty records. Specifically, he cited OAR 571-030-0025, which reads:
“Personal records … shall be available only to University personnel such as faculty administrators, students and others serving on official institutional committees or in other official institutional capacities who have a demonstrably legitimate need for particular information in order to fulfill their official, professional responsibilities.”
Tomlin went on to write that “prior practice exceeded the letter and intent of the OAR, largely for collegial reasons one can be sympathetic to.”
Bean said in a phone interview that the dispute is mostly “a communication problem.”
“I think once we talk through the goals here we will come to a good resolution,” he said. “We just can’t be sharing letters from peoples’ personal files all over the place.”
However, Stahl said the information was important to ensure academic integrity
and transparency.
“The important thing is that the provost share his decision on each separate case,” Stahl said. “I’ve been to schools where these sorts of things happened: a professor being given tenure, even when his academic performance was pitiful, but he secured a lot of grant money. There’s also the worry that a good scholar doesn’t get tenure because grant agencies chose not to accept his grant application.”
“A more general concern is that effective faculty governance, which is what the state charter requires, necessitates that there be transparency from the administration,” Stahl said.
Bean, who worked on the tenure and promotion process at his previous position at the University of Michigan, defended the University’s system and said the administration is on the same page when it comes to transparency.
“What (the FPC) is going for is a transparent process, and we can communicate that,” Bean said. “There’s also an entire appeal process in place. It’s a well oversighted process.”
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