Hearing Panels. The
Handbook of Operating
Procedures requires that hearing panel members be randomly
drawn from the pool of hearing officers, but it also requires
that the president approve the panel membership. The president
can ask that representatives be removed or can require that certain
expertise be represented on the panel (e.g., by not approving
the panel until it includes the membership he or she wishes to
have). The grievance subcommittee has asked President Faulkner
to approve the following recommendation:
Hearing panels will be constituted according to the
procedures described in the Handbook of Operating Procedures.
Panels will be drawn at random from the pool of hearing officers
and the panel will routinely be approved by the provost as drawn.
In rare cases, if the provost and the chair of the Grievance Committee
mutually agree that specific expertise must be represented on the
panel, the panel will be drawn to ensure such representation. Alternates
will also be drawn at random in instances when a panel member is
challenged and voluntarily disqualifies himself or herself, or
when, after consultation with the Grievance Committee chair, the
panel member decides that he or she cannot serve with fairness
or objectivity.
Legal Counsel. Current policies allow the
hearing panel to ask the dean of the Law School or the president
to provide legal counsel to the hearing panel. Having the administration’s
legal counsel also act as counsel to the panel represents a potential
conflict or an appearance of conflict of interest. We have thus
asked the president to approve the following recommendation:
If legal counsel is needed by the Grievance Committee
during the informal phase of the grievance process or is requested
by a hearing panel, the chair of the Faculty Grievance Committee,
working with the dean of the Law School or the dean's designee,
will request such counsel directly from the Law School.
Increased Legalization. We are concerned that
legal tactics can be used to interfere with, or slow down, the
efficient conduct of hearings and to create unreasonable burdens
for the grievant. Such tactics reinforce perceptions that the grievance
process does not serve the faculty well and raise questions of
conflict of interest. Examples of such legal tactics include charging
for discovery, claiming that documents are privileged and thus
cannot be shared with the grievant, or denying the grievant access
to tapes of hearings. The subcommittee on policies and procedures
is discussing these issues with Provost Ekland-Olson. In addition,
the chair has named a subcommittee on the role of general counsel
chaired by Jack Getman, with Alan Cline and David Rabban (Law)
serving as members.
Due Process. The Grievance Committee strongly
supports the recommendation approved by the Faculty Council calling
for mid-probationary period reviews of tenure-track faculty and
urges the administration to implement this recommendation as quickly
as possible. Frequently, promotion and tenure grievances arise
because faculty (a) do not receive systematic feedback about their
progress toward promotion during their probationary period, or
(b) receive positive annual reviews, but then are denied promotion.
Formal mid-probationary period reviews can help alleviate these
issues.
The
Handbook of Operating Procedures makes
clear that faculty members cannot grieve because of a "good
faith" dispute over the outcomes of the promotion and tenure
process. They can grieve serious violations of the procedures that
result in a denial of due process. Consequently, faculty are increasingly
grieving promotion and tenure decisions on procedural grounds.
They grieve because they do not believe they received a fair, customary
review by their department or college, and that violations of procedures
were intended to "stack the deck" against them. To provide
better guidance to faculty and to avoid frivolous complaints, the
Grievance Committee will work with the administration to develop
operating guidelines as to what constitutes "substantive" or "egregious" violations
of the promotion and tenure guidelines, and procedures that would
allow faculty members to grieve on procedural grounds.
Faculty Ombudsperson.
We are also concerned about the increasing number of faculty grievances
that allege vindictiveness/retaliation/discrimination
on the part of administrators. Such complaints reinforce the need
for a faculty ombudsperson. The Grievance Committee supports the
Faculty Council’s recommendation that the
585
administration appoint
a faculty ombudsperson. The committee recommends that the ombudsperson
be a former Grievance Committee chair given these individuals'
familiarity with the University’s policies and procedures
and experience in handling faculty complaints.
In the absence of
a faculty ombudsperson, the Grievance Committee chair, by default,
serves in this role. In addition to
handling active cases, the chair is the point of contact for faculty
who simply seek advice on how to handle problems they are experiencing
in their department or college, for those who want to explore informally
whether their problems are covered by the grievance process, and
for those who want to understand how the process works in order
to decide whether to file a grievance. Because of the excessive
time commitments, it is increasingly difficult to find faculty
willing to serve as vice chair of the Committee; the vice chair
becomes the chair the following year. The vice chair position is
vacant at this time. Until the position of ombudsperson is created,
the Grievance Committee recommends that the chair of the Grievance
Committee be given release time (one-course during the academic
year).
Past Chair
The past chair of the Grievance Committee serves
in an important advisory capacity to the current chair and to the
committee. Moreover, the past chair typically continues to handle
cases that were initiated, but not resolved, during his or her
term of office. The Grievance Committee therefore recommends that
the past chair of the Grievance Committee serve as an ex-officio,
voting member of the committee.
Respectfully submitted,
Alba A. Ortiz, Chair
On behalf of the Grievance Committee members who
have so ably served the University community:
|
Mark Alpert (marketing administration)
Phillip Barrish (English)
Gerard Behague (music)
Alan Cline (computer sciences)
Robert Duke (music)
Alan Friedman (English)
Julius Getman (law)
John Ivy (kinesiology and health education)
Robert Koons (philosophy)
|
Parker Lamb (mechanical engineering)
Joseph Malina (civil engineering)
Madeline Maxwell (speech communication)
David Nancarrow (theater and dance)
David Rabban (law)
Gretchen Ritter (government)
Stanley Roux (botany)
Dorothy van Soest (social work)
Kamala Visweswaran (anthropology)
|
Motions for Action by the Faculty Council
|
1.
|
Move that membership on the Grievance
Committee be expanded to include the immediate past chair as
an ex-officio, voting member of the committee. |
|
2.
|
Move that the chair of the Grievance
Committee be given release time, equivalent to four and one-half
teaching credits, until the position of ombudsperson is created
and filled.* |
* Motion 2 was amended by the Faculty Council on May 8,
2000, to read "equivalent to four and one-half teaching credits," instead
of "one course during the academic year."
