Provost impedes tenure investigation
Robert Zaller
Issue date: 6/6/08 Section: Ed-Op
I got an e-mail last week from Provost Stephen Director. The Provost was announcing the happy news of his appointment as chief academic officer of Northwestern University, and, consequently, his resignation from Drexel, effective June 30.
What followed was a Homeric catalogue of the Provost's achievements during his three-year tenure at Drexel, which included everything, apparently, except the invention of the wheel.
What caught my eye particularly was the claim the provost made to have strengthened tenure at the University. Since I happen to know a little bit about this subject, I thought it would be a good time to share my experience with you.
From 2004 to 2007, I was a member of the University Committee on Tenure Appeals. This is a nine-member committee, with three of its members chosen by the Faculty Senate, three by the University Assembly, and three by the president.
Its function is to receive appeals of tenure denial, and to make direct recommendations to the president. The committee can sustain denial, recommend the award of tenure to the president, or, in the case of procedural error, refer the matter back to the level at which error had occurred for due correction. At least, that was where the committee stood when I served on it, and how it had traditionally understood and exercised its function.
The faculty handbook gives the committee great latitude in its investigation. It may call any witnesses and request any information that it considers pertinent to its investigation, subject of course to strict confidentiality.
One of the cases the committee dealt with during my last year on it concerned, among other things, a charge of gender discrimination. Such allegations are rarely easy to establish, and have significant legal ramifications. The committee nonetheless felt obliged to investigate the complaint as fully as it could.
The appellant asserted that a male colleague, with no better credentials for than her, had received tenure while she had been denied it. The committee requested the tenure file of the individual cited, to see whether the record backed up this claim.
What followed was a Homeric catalogue of the Provost's achievements during his three-year tenure at Drexel, which included everything, apparently, except the invention of the wheel.
What caught my eye particularly was the claim the provost made to have strengthened tenure at the University. Since I happen to know a little bit about this subject, I thought it would be a good time to share my experience with you.
From 2004 to 2007, I was a member of the University Committee on Tenure Appeals. This is a nine-member committee, with three of its members chosen by the Faculty Senate, three by the University Assembly, and three by the president.
Its function is to receive appeals of tenure denial, and to make direct recommendations to the president. The committee can sustain denial, recommend the award of tenure to the president, or, in the case of procedural error, refer the matter back to the level at which error had occurred for due correction. At least, that was where the committee stood when I served on it, and how it had traditionally understood and exercised its function.
The faculty handbook gives the committee great latitude in its investigation. It may call any witnesses and request any information that it considers pertinent to its investigation, subject of course to strict confidentiality.
One of the cases the committee dealt with during my last year on it concerned, among other things, a charge of gender discrimination. Such allegations are rarely easy to establish, and have significant legal ramifications. The committee nonetheless felt obliged to investigate the complaint as fully as it could.
The appellant asserted that a male colleague, with no better credentials for than her, had received tenure while she had been denied it. The committee requested the tenure file of the individual cited, to see whether the record backed up this claim.
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