Tag Archives: Tenure & Promotion

Legal battle ends, “larger struggle continues” for professor denied tenure because of her politics

Legal battle ends, “larger struggle continues” for professor denied tenure because of her politics

The North Carolina Supreme Court won’t consider a petition of discretionary review by professor Terri Ginsberg, who was denied tenure several years ago after her outspoken criticism of Israeli policies.

Ginsberg, a film scholar, has said that following her public criticism of Israeli policies, she endured immediate retaliation from the administration of North Carolina State University, where she was a professor of film studies. As I reported in January 2010, she was “punished with partial removal from — and interference in — duty, non-renewal of contract and rejection from a tenure-track position” in 2008.

Student News on Chan v UBC Racial Discrimination Case

The Managing Editor for the Ubyssey, UBC’s student newspaper, reported in a feature article in this morning’s issue on the Chan v UBC and others racial discrimination case to be heard by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) this summer. Jonny Wakefield reports:

The threshold to dismiss a complaint at the BCHRT is low. Since 2006, it appears that no cases against UBC have gone to a full judicial hearing. But one professor’s complaint has survived numerous attempts by the university to have it thrown out. The hearing, scheduled this summer, will be one of the very few times that the university has had to deal with a complainant in a public forum.

That discrimination complaint came from Jennifer Chan. Chan is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education. In May 2010, she filed a complaint of racial discrimination with the BCHRT, naming the university and four employees—among them senior administrators—as respondents. Chan, who is Chinese Canadian, alleges she was not selected for a prestigious research chair in part because of her race.

That appointment was to the Lam Research Chair in Multicultural Education. Chan was shortlisted for the chair in October 2009 and when it was announced that another candidate—a white woman—was given the appointment, Chan started to make complaints about bias in the process.

In short, Chan said the search committee of five members from the Faculty of Education broke every hiring rule in the book. It failed to keep any records of its procedures, including how the search was conducted and what criteria were used to determine merit. The committee also failed to consult Chan’s references, which included former Lam Chair holders. The Ubyssey contacted Chan’s references independently and confirmed that they had not been contacted regarding her application.

“A lot of my students would ask for references for their part-time summer jobs,” she said. “This endowment chair is a very prestigious position. Why were external references not contacted? Was it because the candidate was predetermined? Or was it because of some other factor?”

One of those factors, she argues, was her race.

See Ubyssey 15 March 2012 pp. 6-7 for more, and BCHRT for decision to hear the Chan v UBC and others [Beth Haverkamp, David Farrar, Jon Shapiro, Rob Tierney] case.

AAUP to Universities: Tenure Is Not Just for Researchers

The Chronicle: AAUP to Universities: Tenure Is Not Just for Researchers

In a new report, the Association of American University Professors continues to push for a tenure system that includes contingent faculty members—both full-time and part-time—who are the backbone of the professoriate.

Court Denies Conservative Pundit-Professor’s Bias Claim Against University

The Chronicle: Court Denies Conservative Pundit-Professor’s Bias Claim Against University

A federal court has rejected a claim that the University of North Carolina at Wilmington committed viewpoint discrimination against Michael S. Adams, a prominent conservative commentator and associate professor of criminology, by denying him a promotion based partly on its review of online columns and other expressions of opinion that he included in his application to move up the ranks.

Idaho Faculty Members Fear That New State Policies Will Undermine Tenure

The Chronicle: Idaho Faculty Members Fear That New State Policies Will Undermine Tenure

Faculty members at Idaho’s public colleges and even some campus leaders fear that policy changes approved last week by the State Board of Education will allow administrators to furlough and cut salaries of tenured professors without having to declare a financial crisis.

The state board, however, disputes that interpretation. The changes are meant to give campus presidents more authority to temporarily furlough employees to balance their budgets during an economic

Ohio U Faculty Challenge Tenure Denial

Inside Higher Ed: Faculty Challenge Tenure Denial

In denying a qualified Ohio University journalism professor tenure, university administrators violated principles of due process and failed to produce sufficient evidence to justify their opposition, a faculty committee has found.

An ad hoc committee of Ohio’s Faculty Senate on Sunday issued a report recommending that Bill Reader be granted tenure status and labeling the process up to this point as “tainted” and “compromised” by a variety of administrative missteps.

Pedagogy a poor second in promotions

Times Higher Education: Pedagogy a poor second in promotions

Study finds ‘hypocritical’ sector fails to practise what it preaches. Rebecca Attwood reports

Universities stand accused of hypocrisy this week over their claims to value teaching, after a major study of promotions policy and practice found that many are still failing to reward academics for leadership in pedagogy.

Research by the Higher Education Academy and the University of Leicester’s “Genie” Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning examines the promotion policies of 104 UK universities.

30-Minute Chat to Tenure

Inside Higher Ed: 30-Minute Chat to Tenure

Lloyd A. Jacobs announced last week that in his role as president of the University of Toledo, he plans to interview every faculty member who comes up for tenure before making a recommendation to the board on whether to approve the bid.

While many faculty members are angry about the idea that an academic career can be evaluated in a short conversation, Jacobs said he finds it odd that people expect a president to urge trustees to grant tenure to someone without the president having talked to the person and formed an independent judgment. “I think that the concept of university presidents being relegated to a rubber stamp role is one of the downsides of our current higher education,” he said.

Female professors lose appeals on tenure at DePaul

Chicago Tribune: Female professors lose appeals on tenure at DePaul
The women say the system flawed

While dust-ups over professors denied tenure are normally part of the ivory tower’s spring-term rhythms, this year the sit-ins and picketing at DePaul University have continued into the fall.

Students and faculty have marched in support of Melissa Bradshaw, a professor of women’s and gender studies who didn’t get tenure — higher education’s equivalent of a lifetime job guarantee.

Cramming for Tenure, Earlier Than Planned

The Chronicle: Q&A: Cramming for Tenure, Earlier Than Planned

Christy L. Haynes, an assistant professor of chemistry, expected to apply for tenure a year from now, or even later. But her department chairman at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities told her that her work was ready and encouraged her to apply this year. Ms. Haynes, who studies nanoparticles and how they affect the way cells communicate with one another, pushed to assemble her tenure dossier and is preparing for a September 29 “tenure talk,” a presentation about her research for professors in her department and from chemistry departments at other institutions­.

Columbia U. Provost Agrees to Meet With Critics of Palestinian Scholar’s Tenuring

The Chronicle: Columbia U. Provost Agrees to Meet With Critics of Palestinian Scholar’s Tenuring

Columbia University’s new provost, Claude M. Steele, has agreed to meet with several Columbia professors critical of the institution’s recent decision to grant tenure to Joseph A. Massad, a Palestinian scholar who has been accused of anti-Israel bias, according to a letter posted online by the Manhattan Institute. In a letter sent to Mr. Steele in July, before he had started his job, 14 professors argued that the university had violated its own procedural rules in granting Mr. Massad tenure after a second review they view as unjustified. In a response sent to the professors this month, Provost Steele said it was important for Columbia’s faculty members to have faith in the integrity of the tenure process.

Rethinking Tenure for the Next Generation

The Chronicle Review: Rethinking Tenure for the Next Generation

Is higher education in the same position as health care—ripe for reform by the federal government? Both sectors certainly face similar challenges to the established protocol: higher costs, diminished resources, uneven access, inconsistent quality, inadequate means of defining and evaluating results, greater demands, and expensive technology.

We must voluntarily initiate substantial changes. One central piece of the puzzle concerns the tenure system, hatched in another era by a

What Counts for Tenure

Inside Higher Ed: What Counts for Tenure

For all the talk about how research universities place an increasing value on teaching, a survey on tenure standards in political science departments finds not only that research remains dominant, but that poor teaching may be tolerated at doctoral-granting universities.

Brits discuss adoption of American university ranks

The Chronicle: Britain’s Title Wave

With its lords and ladies, ancient honorifics, and titles both inherited and earned, Britain is a status-conscious realm. The halls of academe are no exception.

At most British universities, the title of professor has traditionally been awarded only at the culmination of an academic journey beginning as a lecturer, progressing through senior and principal lecturer, and, finally, reaching reader. But some universities have remained aloof from common practice, conferring professorships with relative rarity.

Ward Churchill Asks Judge to Order His Reinstatement at U. of Colorado

The Chronicle: Ward Churchill Asks Judge to Order His Reinstatement at U. of Colorado

With the support of two major faculty groups and a long list of scholars, Ward Churchill has formally asked a judge to order the University of Colorado to give him back his job as a tenured professor, arguing that only his reinstatement will repair the damage that his dismissal did to his reputation and the greater cause of academic freedom.

May Day Meditation

howtheuniversityworks.com: May Day Meditation

If you think I’ve been hard on Mark C. Taylor and the New York Times for their “hey! I went to graduate school, therefore” theories of higher education, you should consider that bad journalism and bad leadership have real consequences for people I care about, like Jamie Owen Daniel and the young fellow pictured above.In point of fact: I was rather tame by comparison to pretty much everyone else who actually knows anything about academic labor, especially the always-blistering Historiann and Jonathan Rees. Even the guy over at Savage Minds who wants to agree with Taylor admits, “this op-ed sucks.”

Not Moving On Up: Why Women Get Stuck at Associate Professor

Inside Higher Ed: ‘Standing Still’ as Associate Profs

English and foreign language departments promote male associate professors to full professors on average at least a year — and in some cases, depending on type of institutions, several years — more speedily than they promote women, according to a study being released today by the Modern Language Association. Over all, the average time for women as associate professor prior to promotion is 8.2 years, compared to 6.6 years for men.

The Chronicle: Not Moving On Up: Why Women Get Stuck at Associate Professor

Message to deans, department chairs, and other administrators in higher education: Pay more attention to associate professors— particularly women, for whom the path to promotion is often murky and less traveled.

That’s one of several recommendations from a panel of the Modern Language Association, whose new report, released today, describes how male associate professors in English and foreign languages are routinely promoted to full professor quicker than women are. To help reverse that trend, the MLA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession suggested several moves, such as backing away from the monograph as the dominant form of scholarship that counts toward advancement, attaching bigger salary increases to the jump from associate to full professor, and creating mentor programs that focus specifically on preparing associate professors for promotion. The report, “Standing Still: The Associate Professor Survey,” is available on the association’s Web site.

“Leave-proofing” the faculty

Inside Higher Ed: ‘Leave-Proofing’ the Faculty

Tenure-track jobs are harder than ever to find, with the economic mess prompting many colleges to grow even more cautious about hiring anyone on the tenure track. Tenure-track openings are being put on hold. Searches are being called off every day. Many who worry that higher education has created a faculty of two tiers — the privileged tenured class and the overused and abused adjuncts — have been told that this year is simply not the year in which to promote change.

In this environment, Denison University might seem an unlikely institution to bolster the ranks of its tenure-track faculty. A liberal arts college in Ohio, Denison has never abandoned the centrality of tenure-track lines — and typically uses adjuncts only to replace those professors who are on leave. But now Denison is embarking a plan that will replace many of those adjunct hires with permanent, tenure-track lines, and as a result will soon be conducting searches for 12 tenure-track jobs in liberal arts disciplines — hiring that will lead to real faculty growth beyond the 200 tenure-track and tenured faculty members at the university today.

Virginia Tech Drops Diversity Requirement From Tenure Policy

The Chronicle: Virginia Tech Drops Diversity Requirement From Tenure Policy

The president of Virginia Tech has asked the provost to remove from the university’s new guidelines on tenure and promotion a requirement that professors show an “active involvement in diversity,” which some conservative groups had criticized as a violation of academic freedom.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and other groups had complained that the condition amounted to a political litmus test and that it had nothing to do with professors’ academic accomplishments. It did not belong, they said, in guidelines on tenure and promotion.

Controversial Tenure Case at Columbia U. May Be Over

The Chronicle News Blog: Controversial Tenure Case at Columbia U. May Be Over

It isn’t official, but word around Columbia University is that the controversial Palestinian scholar Joseph A. Massad will be awarded tenure.

Sudipta Kaviraj, chairman of the department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures, said in a telephone interview this afternoon that the proceedings involving Mr. Massad’s tenure case have not formally concluded. “When it is finished, the university writes to the department and writes to the individual concerned,” he said. “That hasn’t happened yet.”