Tenure issue has faculty, administration at odds

by BenjaminLunn editor in chief

Recently heated controversy and deliberation have engulfed the faculty and administration because of a decision made in early 1994 regarding faculty tenure, and possible alternatives to that plan.

Tenure basically grants the faculty member a greater amount of freedom in his or her actions and an amount of job security. Firing a tenured faculty member is not impossible, however even if the reason meets all requirements for firing a faculty member, it usually is a long, difficult process. Valid reasons typically are based on severe difficulties faced by the college, or immoral or illegal actions by an instructor. A tenured faculty member can be let go if money becomes an issue for the school, or if it can be shown that the faculty member has some moral deficiency. Again, these both must be proved, which can be extremely difficult.

Based on the information Vice President for Academic Affairs Jonnie Guerra was given when she began the job, the board of trustees expressed concern over the number of faculty here that was tenured, and requested an alternative to tenure be proposed. Since that time, tenure at Cabrini College has been a heated and misunderstood issue.

Shortly after the concern was raised, the vice president for academic affairs at that time, Dr. Thomas Boeke, presented four proposals: one, to declare a moratorium on tenure; the second was to make available non-tenure track positions. The third was to limit tenure to only some departments and evaluate faculty in those departments on case by case negotiation. The fourth and, ultimately, the one approved was to place a cap on the number of tenured faculty, and when the cap was reached, place the rest in a sort of "holding pattern" with three-year rolling contracts until a tenured position became available.

A rolling contract would give the faculty member a three-year contract that ideally would be renewed every year. That way, if a faculty member's contract was decided to not be renewed, he or she would still have two more years to work here. Most other plans give only a one year grace period rather than a two. The cap on the faculty was placed at 70 percent. In 1994 the reports on percentage of tenured faculty varied from 92 to 98 percent.

The idea was approved, and although many faculty members weren't very happy about it, according to Dr. Jolyon Girard, history professor, the faculty agreed because the plan was much better than losing all tenure.

Over the next few years the issue silently fell by the wayside because there was no faculty that were due up for tenure for a few years. Currently the issue has become rather heated because many of the faculty that were hired during the time that the original tenure talks were happening are coming up for tenure now.

There are several points of controversy in this issue. The original plan for a three year rolling contract was as Dr. Sharon Schwarze, philosophy department chair and faculty senate chair, put it, "Very skimpy and never really fleshed out." This causes much confusion when new faculty are hired, and that confusion seems to increase every day. 'There aren't two set sides to this; there are more like 30. There are so many different ideas of what's going on, it's easy to see why people are confused," Guerra said.

Filling in those blanks and putting in the fine print is one major point of discussion that needs to be dealt with. When the idea was first proposed, there was no real criteria given to decide who would receive tenure and who would not.

Schwarze believed that the faculty was only aware of the cap, but new criteria were considered. Criteria that faculty never knew were ever considered came into the discussion. "Some said it [additional criteria] was always intended, but if that's what was intended, it wasn't told to the faculty," Schwarze said

The committee on rolling contracts released a listing of additional criteria that were considered, some of which include academic program vitality, percentage of tenured faculty within the departments, college goals and date of hire. Guerra specified, though, that all of these criteria were just ideas discussed and were never voted on.

Other heated areas that faculty have been up in arms about were the fairness of this change in tenure. According to Schwarze, many of the new hires were led to believe that only the 70 percent cap was the deciding factor between tenure and a rolling contract. Also according to Schwarze, some of the new faculty have become worried that they might not get tenure and have begun to look around for other jobs.

Dr. Joseph Romano, a philosophy professor, feels that the idea of unfairness goes even deeper than misleading statements. He feels that tenure is absolutely necessary to a good educational institution. "A tenured faculty has the freedom to teach critical thinking, new ideas and discuss risky opinions without worry of personal disagreement or retaliation." He feels that the freedom to teach controversial ideas is absolutely necessary to teaching critical thinking, and that is what would be at the mercy and whims of an administrator. forthright in her attempts to find some compromise. Dr. Schwarze has done an equally impressive job representing the faculty. We shall see." the future of an institution of learning is based on. If an institution could not guarantee tenure to incoming faculty, it severely hurts the quality of the education here. Most people seeking a faculty position are seeking one that has a possibility of tenure. If they feel like they can not be guaranteed that, many prospective faculty members would just up and go somewhere where they would be guaranteed it According to Romano, that would therefore seriously affect the quality of educators that the college would get, and the quality of the students' education would decline.

The administration, however, is not without any valid reasons. According to Girard, the original question raised was one of why nearly l 00 percent of the faculty that came up for tenure received it. Upon closer inspection it was discovered that nearly 100 percent of the faculty was tenured. Also according to Girard, in addition to having an entire faculty that was guaranteed jobs, where it would be legally harder to let any faculty go, the sheer salaries of an entire faculty that never would have to leave and could not be fired is enough to raise severe financial questions.

Guerra couldn't comment in any detail on the reasons the three year rolling contract was approved because she wasn't working at Cabrini during that time. Guerra did, however, make reference to an article in the recent Chronicle of Higher Education where the question was raised as to what the effect tenure had on younger up-andcoming educators. James Shapiro, the author of the article, noticed that a colleague having tenure for the rest of his life would keep a younger scholar who is just as capable from getting a chance for a job. This was another concern that the administration has been contemplating in the rolling contract.

Last week the faculty senate voted on a proposal to solve some of the problems and confusions regarding rolling contracts. In this proposal, current non-tenured faculty contracts would be subject to the tenure policies in the 1993 Faculty Handbook with the outline in the 1994 tenure letter. Their argument is a type of grandfather clause in which any changes to the criteria and procedures created for the rolling contract would not apply to the current non-tenured faculty because they were hired before any changes were approved. The conditions set at the time of hire are made up of four criteria. The first is the 70 percent cap. According to the second criteria a person steps up for tenure on his of her sixth year. The third and fourth criteria pertain to the rolling contract itself. If a candidate completes the tenure process and is approved, but the 70 percent cap had been reached, that person will be put on a waiting list of sorts based on their date of hire. While on that list the faculty member will be given a three year rolling contract which will be renewed each year until a tenured spot becomes available.

Romano also believes that the problems with tenure arise because he feels that the administrators have a very business-like attitude towards running the institution, and the ability to hire and fire people at will is reminiscent of a business.

The faculty would be afraid to speak up simply because they

In defense of the rolling contract, Girard said that a faculty member that originally was denied tenure would have a one-year grace period whereas the new policy with the rolling contract would keep the faculty member around on the premise that under ideal conditions a tenured spot would open up or the contract would be renewed, and under the less than ideal conditions, a faculty member would have a two-year grace period.

Guerra did assure that although some faculty expressed concerns that they feel a rolling contract to be a step towards abolishing tenure, there is no plan to ever abolish tenure, she said. The tenure and alternative to tenure plans are meant to co-exist so that no deserving faculty member is fired due to a cap.

Girard was rather pleased with the dialog between the representatives on the subject, and feels that a compromise should arrive soon.

"Dr. Guerra, the vice president for academic affairs, has been very

Guerra declined to comment on the proposal, except that that she will represent the proposal to the academic affairs committee of the board of trustees to the best of her ability, regardless of whether or not she agrees with it. She feels that it is impossible to completely please both the faculty and administration, but is confident that they will come to some type of resolution on the problem. They have no choice. A final proposal is to be sent to the President by April 17th so that it may be reviewed and submitted to the board of trustees for a vote at their May meeting.

Some students expressed concern over the future of their education with this problem and feared a strike by educators. When asked if that was ever a possibility, Schwarze replied that, "We wouldn't strike. That's not the "Cabrini way."