Amid a national controversy over academic freedom, the faculty of Mount St. Mary’s University voted overwhelmingly Friday afternoon to ask President Simon Newman to resign.In an 87-to-3 vote, the faculty in a letter asked Newman to step down by Monday morning. The faculty stopped short of a no-confidence vote, something that had been discussed during the week, choosing to ask for resignation instead.
The resolution came after weeks of turmoil on the Maryland campus, with a heated debate over how to treat new students who are at risk of dropping out — with the school’s president using language that many found brutal — and terminated faculty members who became symbols of free speech to some and disloyalty to others.
The rest of this story.
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ReplyDeleteIts not my job to format the past. Its your job.
DeletePost nit past. Its his job to format it for the page.
DeleteNot not nit. My name is Kevin. I've been reading here all ten years. I tried to update a story that was incomplete. That's all.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteHow does this one work:
DeleteThose who do not format the past are doomed to mis-spell it.
Couldn't agree more. This kind of thing should be happening more often.
ReplyDeleteHow does one just fire a tenured faculty member? Tenure is supposed to protect faculty from this kind of situation.
ReplyDeleteIt just goes to show you that nothing is guaranteed when your president is a douche. At least they were reinstated, but would they have reversed if for an adjunct. I wonder.
DeleteWe need a meme of Sean Bean's character from "The Lord of the Rings" -- Boromir, if memory serves -- saying these words:
DeleteOne does not simply
...
fire a tenured faculty.
(Unless one is a douchebag president.)
I hate that nobody, even in academia, seems to know what tenure means. Here's something from the NEA page that sounds right:
ReplyDeleteTenure is simply a right to due process; it means that a college or university cannot fire a tenured professor without presenting evidence that the professor is incompetent or behaves unprofessionally or that an academic department needs to be closed or the school is in serious financial difficulty. Nationally, about 2 percent of tenured faculty are dismissed in a typical year.
If it is difficult --- purposely difficult --- to fire a tenured professor, it's also very hard to become one. The probationary period averages three years for community colleges and seven years at four-year colleges. This is a period of employment insecurity almost unique among U.S. professions. People denied tenure at the end of this time lose their jobs; tenure is an "up-or-out" process.
During the probationary period, almost all colleges can choose not to renew faculty contracts and terminate faculty without any reason or cause. Throughout this time, senior professors and administrators evaluate the work of new faculty-teaching, research and service before deciding whether or not to recommend tenure. The most recent survey of American faculty shows that, in a typical year, about one in five probationary faculty members was denied tenure and lost his or her job.
Faculty members remain accountable after achieving tenure. Tenured faculty at most colleges and universities are evaluated periodically-among other things, for promotion, salary increases and, in some cases, merit increases. Grant applications and articles for publication are routinely reviewed on their merit by peers in the field. If basic academic tenets and due process rights are observed, this kind of accountability is wholly appropriate. A finding of incompetence or unprofessional conduct can still result in firing.
And I stand by my original statement. Nothing in the linked article (or any other article I can find) shows due process.
DeleteBTW, you are incorrect. Most of us do understand tenure.
You are not correct. All evidence on this blog clearly shows that you believe tenure is guaranteed employment free of review and accountability. It is one of the standard errors of this blog.
DeleteSeriously, go troll elsewhere. 'Nuff said.
DeleteI was glad to see that my understanding of tenure continues to closely align to that of the NEA. IANN, were you similarly unsurprised?
DeleteI think we sometimes joke about the degree of protection tenure involves ("go for it! Why not? You've got tenure!"). I suspect most of us (well I, certainly, and I'm one of the ones who jokes, partly from the grass-is-greener perspective of the untenurable) are fully aware of how tenure actually works.
DeleteFor instance, I can't find the reference, but I doubt that anybody around here is shedding any tears for the tenured asshole who harassed the parents of Sandy Hook victims, insisting that they proved their murdered children existed in the first place. That's research misconduct (or perhaps serious misconduct in the name of alleged research), as well as just plain horrible behavior, and I'm all for that person being fired after a due-process inquiry into the situation (which I believe took place in that case).
On the the other hand, I object to college presidents who think they can act like Donald Trump in The Apprentice. Because that's not how the university, or tenure, works. In fact, I hope I'd be entitled to a degree of due process if accused of misconduct even though I don't have tenure (but I'm not holding my breath).
Yes, OPH, no surprises at all.
DeleteI'm hardly trolling. Ask your colleagues what they think tenure means. Tell me that 20% of them mention post-tenure review and continuing accountability in the first minute and I'll jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.
DeleteCassandra, as usual, is 100% correct.
DeleteAt my joint, annual review and accountability are part of the contract for all employees, tenured or no. Tenure is simply a right to due process; due process may exist by other names for non-faculty employees. Due process in the context of protection from termination is a concept similar to but distinct from that of review and accountability in the context of continued employment, and those who conflate the two may be in error.
To reiterate and elaborate, at my joint, being an employee "means" I will be reviewed and called to task periodically. Having tenure "means" that I have been reviewed repeatedly and favorably, such that some additional trust may be granted for me to push some boundaries, that greater truths might be revealed. Being a full professor "means" that I can occasionally confront my bosses and they will take me seriously (excepting that I've done so frivolously) because of the experience that my position implies. In general, being tenured or tenure-track also means that I am part of governance, a privilege and responsibility I take seriously and I've earned, FFS, by virtue of having suffered rigorous training.
Tenure is nothing like I thought it was. I thought getting through T&P was the hurdle, but my university's post tenure review is every year, and we are made to feel as nervous about it each year as we were for the big event.
DeleteI'm not trying to argue, but I contend with people from my partner's world all the time who tell me what they think tenure means, and it's nothing like what is real for me. I guess I have guarantee of due process if they want to terminate me, but I've been in meetings where VAPs and tenured faculty get judged and re-upped using the same criteria. They can call it what they want, but in my own limited experience tenure is just a word that has proven to be empty.
Bona fides of non-troll status are hardly helped by posting anonymously.
DeleteSimilar to Reg W, my work is evaluated annually, and I can lose my tenure for a range of reasons if due process is followed.
At an instructional level, tenure (to me) means I have a better shot at giving students what they need, rather than what they want. At a departmental level, it helps me make decisions that will benefit future students, for example, by creating a more effective program. Tenure makes a long game possible.
As CC mentioned, there is a certain amount of joking about tenure and its implications, but at least for current professors at my institution, it is no easy ride.
Post-tenure review is standard here, though we do have a union to help things along, the standards have been going up so that some of us are getting nervous.
DeleteAnonymous: don't actually jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. It's dangerous and illegal. Feel free to expunge your sins by whatever method is appropriate in your faith tradition.
"Tenure makes a long game possible."
DeleteEC1, I've never heard a better one-sentence summary of the true significance of tenure.
What the Hell happened here? Reading the comments is like watching Firefly in the incorrect order that Fox aired it in.
ReplyDeleteAnother Mal-content!
DeleteFor the benefit of the readers, I'll summarize the context of the comments I deleted above. You'll note that the URL for this post contains "how-hard-is-it-to-update-story", which is a result of those having been the first few words of the post as submitted. The first paragraph had been a personal note to the RGM, the tone and phrasing of which I had mirrored in my comments. The post having been edited, I edited my comments to match.
Delete