Long-time Lecturers and de facto Tenure: A Recent Case at UVU
Early this fall semester, a member of the faculty of the UVU College of Humanities and Social Sciences—with eighteen years of service as lecturer and as Program Coordinator for an especially influential studies program—received a letter from the Provost stating that his contract would be terminated at the end of the academic year. No reasons were given. No appeal was available except for one based on “discriminatory or prejudicial treatment in violation of his or her constitutional or statutory rights.” In support of our colleague, we responded to the Provost with the following:
The David R. Keller Chapter of the American Association of University Professors
at Utah Valley University
and
The UVU Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers
24 August 2022
Dear Provost Vaught,
Dr. […] has asked us to assist him as he appeals the notice of dismissal from his nearly two-decade continuous appointment as a lecturer in a department in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Dr. […] (whose long-term continuing appointment the AAUP considers “de facto tenure”) has not been afforded due process. As noted in the examples below, the AAUP has censured administrations for dismissals of adjunct faculty and lecturers without due process. None of the cases is an exact parallel to this one, but they have in common the fact that due process was not afforded.
Should Dr. […] not be afforded adequate due process, including a hearing before an elected faculty committee and with considerations broader than the narrow terms Section 4.3.2 of UVU Policy 648 allows, we will turn to our national organizations for assistance in resolving the issue.
Sincerely,
Scott Abbott and Lydia R. Kerr
For members of the AAUP and AFT
___________________________________
AAUP Censured Administrations, relevant cases:
· On November 20, [2022] the governing Council of the AAUP voted to remove the University of Nebraska–Lincoln from the Association’s list of censured administrations. . . . a “terminal suspension”—is tantamount to dismissal, and its imposition requires the affordance of a prior adjudicative hearing of record before an elected faculty body in which the burden of proof rests with the administration. At the time of the incident, the University of Nebraska’s bylaws did not require such a hearing for terminal suspensions, and the administration did not provide one.
https://www.aaup.org/article/censure-removed-university-nebraska–lincoln#.YwQKVC-B04d
· Pacific Lutheran University, located in Tacoma, Washington, serves about 3,100 students and is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In November 2018, the PLU administration terminally suspended a part-time faculty member with forty years of service in the Department of Music without affording her academic due process. An AAUP report found that the terminal suspension was tantamount to a summary dismissal and thus effected in violation of the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The report also found that the dismissal hearing the administration eventually afforded the faculty member, at the AAUP’s urging, was a “sham exercise” conducted in “bad faith.” The report concluded that the available evidence supported the inference that the administration may have dismissed the faculty member based on its long-standing displeasure with her advocacy for the rights of faculty members on non-tenure-track appointments. On the basis of the report, the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure recommended that the administration of Pacific Lutheran University be added to the Association’s censure list, with the AAUP’s Council casting the final vote imposing censure.
· Clarkson College, a health science-focused institution located in Omaha, was placed on the AAUP’s censure list in 1993 after the college’s administration summarily terminated the services of four full-time faculty members who had attained de facto tenure through length of service. The AAUP investigating committee determined that the college’s policies lacked provisions affording minimal protections of academic due process. The cases of three of the subject faculty members were resolved in 1995, and the fourth faculty member passed away in 2003, leaving only the policy issues to be addressed in order for censure to be removed. In spring 2020, with the encouragement of the interim president, herself a former faculty member at the institution, the faculty voted to adopt AAUP-proposed language that addressed the procedural deficiency, and two administrative bodies voted final approval.
· This report concerns actions taken by the administration of the Community College of Aurora, during the fourth week of the fall 2016 semester, to terminate the appointment of part-time instructor of philosophy Nathanial Bork without affordance of academic due process. https://www.aaup.org/report/cca-colorado
_________________________
Because letter of dismissal gave no reasons for the decision, Dr. […] asked for clarification so he could draft an appeal. He received this answer from his Department Chair:
As your annual review made clear, there were significant, longstanding issues with your performance. Those issues factored into the decision not to reappoint you as a faculty member after the 2022-2023 academic year. Problems included serious, persistent complaints from students about your failure to provide clear instruction and timely feedback. Additional concerns included, but were not limited to, your failure to complete required HR trainings on schedule and submit annual reviews according to stated deadlines.
How many “serious, persistent complaints” are involved? How do these complaints compare to positive comments by students? Recent cases at UVU involving denial of tenure and promotion have been overturned by faculty appeals and review committees because judgments relied entirely on SRI numbers and negative student comments without the full context of the professors’ teaching portfolios. An appeal before a Faculty Senate-appointed body of colleagues would have allowed Dr. [...] to more fairly contextualize his work as a teacher.
In such a hearing, committee members could have noted that the problems reported by the Chair occurred primarily during the pandemic years and in the context of lung surgery and knee replacement. They could have read repeated annual glowing accounts of teaching excellence, including, for instance, the Department Chair’s 2019 evaluation: “a talented and knowledgeable professional, wholly at ease and highly effective in the classroom . . . patient and encouraging, an instructor who clearly cares about students and wants them to learn. Based on what I observed today, the department is fortunate in having such a talented individual doing such dedicated work on behalf of students’ learning.” They could have noted the Chair’s abrupt refusal to comment on last year’s scholarly and service work because lecturers have no such responsibilities—this after his positive comments in earlier years praising work far beyond the teaching required of lecturers. [The sharp distinction between teaching and scholarship reveals a fundamental flaw in university hiring of adjunct faculty and lecturers to teach higher numbers of students more inexpensively with no support of the research and creative work that would inform the quality of students’ education.]
Appeal-committee members could have weighed the the quality of our colleague's contributions to UVU against the questionable value of completing required trainings and submitting annual reviews according to stated deadlines—both fairly recent additions to policy that mirror corporate practices but have little to do with quality education.
In short, while not provided by UVU policy, a hearing before an elected faculty committee would have afforded a measure of due process and respect for a colleague whose contributions to UVU have been substantial.
In reply to our colleague’s eventual appeal, the Provost cited UVU policy that designates lecturers as at-will employees and dismissed the appeal.
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