The Chronicle: Tenure Shrugged: A Scholar’s Affinity for the Philosophy of Ayn Rand Cost Him His Job
Scholars who adhere to the objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand receive an unfair degree of hostility from both left and right, says a historian who lost his job at Ashland University because of his views.
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Posted in Academic freedom, Academics, Tenure & Promotion
The Chronicle News Blog: Scientist in Tenure Fight With MIT Is Locked Out of his Lab
James L. Sherley, a stem-cell biologist who went on a 12-day hunger strike in February to protest his tenure denial at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reached the end of his term of employment at the institute on Friday — and met the scheduled event with more protest.
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The Chronicle News Blog: Students Will Begin Hunger Strike in Support of DePaul Professors Denied Tenure
Students who staged a sit-in this month at DePaul University on behalf of two professors denied tenure said today they would begin a fast this afternoon to bring renewed attention to their cause. During two weeks of protest, the students have demanded that the university grant tenure to Norman G. Finkelstein, an assistant professor of political science, and Mehrene A. Larudee, an assistant professor of international studies.
On Friday the Illinois Conference of the American Association of University Professors sent a letter to the university’s president, the Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, echoing the students’ demands. In the two-page letter, Leo Welch, the chapter’s president, says the decision to deny tenure to the two assistant professors violated both the association’s standards and those of DePaul’s own Faculty Handbook.
Mr. Finkelstein’s alleged lack of “collegiality” appears to have been the “sole basis” for denying him tenure, Mr. Welch writes. “It is entirely illegitimate for a university to deny tenure to a professor out of fear that his published research … might hurt a college’s reputation,” he says. The association has explicitly rejected collegiality as an appropriate criterion for evaluating faculty members, and has criticized it as “ensuring homogeneity” and undermining the leadership role of colleges and universities, according to the letter. —Sierra Millman
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Posted in Protests, Students, Tenure & Promotion
The Chronicle News Blog: Debate at DePaul Over Whether 2 Professors Can Appeal Tenure Denials
A week after DePaul University caused an uproar by denying tenure to two professors, administrators and faculty members are arguing over whether the two can appeal the decisions.
Norman G. Finkelstein, an assistant professor of political science, and Mehrene E. Larudee, an assistant professor of international studies, say they are following the faculty handbook in seeking independent reviews of their tenure cases, but administrators disagree. “It’s the university’s position that there is no appeal,” a spokeswoman said this afternoon.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Norman G. Finkelstein’s web site includes articles regarding DePaul’s decision on his tenure as well as links to his research and writing.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
The Chronicle News Blog: DePaul U. Students and Alumni Stage Sit-In to Protest 2 Tenure Denials
A group of students and alumni of DePaul University have spent more than 24 hours in a conference room near the president’s office and say they won’t leave until he agrees to grant tenure to two professors.
“We don’t have anything specific planned yet,” said Matt P. Muchowski, who graduated last June from DePaul with a degree in political science. “At some point, we’ll have to meet with the president again, and, you know, quite frankly, we hope that it will be to accept his retraction of the denial of tenure and to offer tenure.” Mr. Muchowski said he was one of about a dozen students in the conference room now.
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Posted in Protests, Tenure & Promotion
The Chronicle: DePaul Professor Who Supported Finkelstein Also Was Denied Tenure
Another professor at DePaul University was rejected for tenure at the same time as Norman G. Finkelstein, and she believes her advocacy for the embattled political scientist may have derailed her career.
“There is no good explanation for why I was denied tenure,” Mehrene E. Larudee, an assistant professor of international studies, said in an interview on Monday. “So one has to look elsewhere.”
Praised as “outstanding” by the dean of her college and recommended unanimously by distinguished faculty peers during the tenure process, Ms. Larudee was 19 days away from becoming director of DePaul’s program in international studies when she learned on Friday of the decision against her.
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The Chronicle: DePaul U. Turns Norman Finkelstein Down for Tenure
Norman G. Finkelstein, the controversial political scientist who has been engaged in a public battle for tenure at DePaul University, learned on Friday that he had lost that fight. In a written statement, the university confirmed that Mr. Finkelstein had been denied tenure.
Mr. Finkelstein has inspired heated debate with his writings and commentary on such highly charged topics as the Israel-Palestine conflict and what he has termed “the Holocaust industry,” and has sparred publicly over such issues with Alan M. Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard University. Last fall, Mr. Dershowitz sent members of DePaul’s law and political-science faculties what he described as “a dossier of Norman Finkelstein’s most egregious academic sins, and especially his outright lies, misquotations, and distortions” (The Chronicle, April 5).
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Chicago Sun-Times: DePaul denies tenure for controversial professor
For a man who has just lost his job after a highly public battle, DePaul University assistant political science Professor Norman Finkelstein is calm and accepting.
That’s because Finkelstein, whose tenure bid drew widespread interest because of the Jewish professor’s blunt criticism of Jews and the state of Israel — and the attack on those views waged by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz — stands firmly on the beliefs that may have got him fired.
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Clarion Ledger: 2 profs critical of leader lose jobs
Two Mississippi Valley State University professors were fired weeks after they served on a faculty committee pressing for the ouster of President Lester Newman.
Losing their jobs effective immediately were professors Vickie Curry and Orian Cathey, who were among 10 on the panel slamming Newman’s “micromanagement” leadership style.
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Posted in Governance, Tenure & Promotion
The Chronicle: Professor at MIT Resigns, Criticizing Its Dealings With a Colleague Who Was Denied Tenure
A prominent professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has resigned, saying the university breached an agreement to reconsider allegations that racism played a role in the decision to deny tenure to his colleague, James L. Sherley.
“I leave because I would neither be able to advise young blacks about their prospects of flourishing in the current environment, nor about avenues available to effect change when agreements or promises are transgressed,” Frank L. Douglas, executive director of the university’s Center for Biomedical Innovation, wrote in an e-mail message on Friday to MIT’s president and provost, among other officials. Mr. Douglas and Mr. Sherley are both black.
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The Boston Globe: MIT center director resigns in protest of tenure decision
A prominent Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and pharmaceutical researcher has resigned in protest over the case of James L. Sherley , an MIT colleague who held a 12-day hunger strike in February after he did not receive tenure, faculty members and school officials said.
Frank L. Douglas , executive director of the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation , wrote in an e-mail obtained by the Globe that he will leave the university at the end of the month because of MIT’s refusal to reconsider its decision not to grant Sherley tenure.
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The Chronicle News Blog: Advocate of Intelligent Design Loses Appeal in Tenure Fight
Iowa State University’s president, Gregory L. Geoffroy, has denied a tenure appeal from Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of astronomy. Mr. Gonzalez’s tenure case has generated controversy because of his performance and his personal beliefs: He had a strong publishing record when first hired, and he has been an outspoken advocate of intelligent design. He has published a book on the concept, which holds that some form of intelligence has helped shape the universe and life within it.
However, Mr. Gonzalez’s publication record has dropped off considerably since he was hired at Iowa State. In a written statement, Mr. Geoffroy referred to that record as part of his reason for denying the tenure appeal. “I independently concluded that [Mr. Gonzalez] simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy — one of our strongest academic programs,” Mr. Geoffroy wrote.
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Inside Higher Ed: The Ward Churchill Endgame
When a faculty panel at the University of Colorado at Boulder last year found Ward Churchill guilty of repeated and intentional instances of research misconduct, the committee included in its report a metaphor for the way many people view the Churchill case:
If a police officer doesn’t like the bumper sticker on a driver’s car and so stops the driver for speeding, is a ticket justified as long as the driver was really speeding?
Hank Brown, president of the University of Colorado System, gave his answer on Friday and it’s clear that to Brown, speeding is speeding. He formally recommended that Churchill, who has tenure as an ethnic studies professor at Boulder, be fired. In a detailed letter to the Board of Regents, Brown said that Churchill’s violations of academic research norms were too serious and too numerous to ignore — regardless of the circumstances that led to all the scrutiny.
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Posted in Academic freedom, Free speech, Tenure & Promotion
The Chronicle News Blog: Leading Advocate of Intelligent Design Is Denied Tenure at Iowa State U.
Iowa State University has denied tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy who has been a prominent supporter of the idea of intelligent design. Mr. Gonzalez is appealing the university’s decision, according to an unusual news release issued by the university to explain its action. The release states that every level of review, from the departmental committee to the provost, determined that Mr. Gonzalez should not be awarded tenure.
In August 2005, 120 faculty members at Iowa State issued a statement denouncing intelligent design, in part as a reaction to Mr. Gonzalez’s work in the area. Intelligent-design advocates believe that some biological systems are so complex that they could have arisen only through the action of an intelligent force and not simply through Darwinian evolution, the theory of life that has overwhelming support from scientists.
The Discovery Institute, a leading backer of the intelligent-design movement, issued a news release on Monday that denounced the decision, saying that Mr. Gonzalez had written 68 peer-reviewed publications, far more than his department requires for tenure. But some comments on science blogs have questioned the worth of many of those publications and of Mr. Gonzalez’s scholarship in general. —Richard Monastersky
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Posted in Academics, Tenure & Promotion
Inside Higher Ed: Promotion Decision Questioned
Less than two weeks after a prominent Massachusetts Institute of Technology admissions dean resigned amid allegations that she had claimed three degrees she’d never earned, the University of New Mexico is facing scrutiny for promoting an unidentified professor who has since been accused of misrepresenting his/her publication history — and for letting that promotion decision stand after an elected faculty committee unearthed evidence to that effect.
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Posted in Tenure & Promotion
Inside Higher Ed: Threat to Tenure at Law Schools
ABA is being pushed by some deans to stop regulating terms of employment as part of accreditation.
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Academic Freedom and Tenure: Bastyr University
This report is concerned with the actions taken in 2005 by the administration of Bastyr University against three faculty members, Professor Suzzanne Myer in the School of Nutrition and Professors William (Bill) Roedel and Steven R. Kubacki in the Department of Counseling and Health Psychology. On June 22, the administration informed Professor Myer that she was being placed on administrative leave until her contract expired on August 31 and that her contract would not be renewed. On August 29, the administration notified Professors Roedel and Kubacki that their contracts, also set to expire on August 31, would not be renewed. The three had served continuously at Bastyr for twelve, nine, and four years, respectively. In all cases, their computer access was immediately terminated, and they were given no more than an hour to clear out their offices while the director of human resources remained outside their doors.
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Posted in Academic freedom, Tenure & Promotion
Inside Higher Ed: Promoting the Converted
The complaint is familiar: A professor is denied tenure or passed over for a promotion because of his or her right-leaning politics. The professor goes public, often to outlets such as FrontPageMag.com. Depending on one’s views — because these situations tend to be based chiefly on conflicting verbal accounts — the accusations are either part of a larger liberal bias in academe or represent trumped-up charges by unqualified or overly outspoken faculty members.
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Yale Daily Press: Tenure changes accepted
A report recommending significant changes to the University’s system of tenure and appointments was officially accepted yesterday, following unanimous faculty approval and a vote by the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
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