Posted on 04/22/2019 5:23:04 AM PDT by reaganaut1
The end of the spring semester marks the 20th anniversary of my professorship at Duke, first as an assistant professor and then as an associate professor of the practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy. During this time, I regularly taught the required ethics class for all undergraduate public policy majors. I won multiple teaching awards, consistently received scores on student teaching evaluations above the school average and, in a Duke Chronicle poll of undergraduates, was ranked as one of the three most popular professors at Duke University for several years.
Therefore, I was blindsided last April when informed that my contract would not be renewed, particularly given that for the past five years (I was on a five-year renewable contract) I was never informed of any problem with any aspect of my performance. Nor was I given an evaluation, despite a change to the Duke bylaws in 2017 mandating such reviews (see here).
When word of the non-renewal of my contract got out, a letter written in my defense, signed by 100 former students, was published in the Duke Chronicle, and these same students and others began a letter-writing campaign imploring the Sanford administration to reconsider their decision.
Last April, I filed a complaint with the Faculty Hearing Committee (FHC), a university-wide committee tasked with hearing faculty complaints on matters such as tenure and contract renewal. In their written report, they made clear (as Sanford never did) the actual reason for the loss of my job: Dissatisfaction with my “classroom performance.” Specifically:
Professor Charney’s tendency to provoke negative reactions, and perhaps harm, among some students in the classroom due to his confrontational teaching style—a style that had a tendency to be polarizing among students, particularly in a required Sanford course
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
“Welcome to the party, pal.”
It’s not unusual. Tenure track faculty are required to split their time between teaching and research. Non-Tenure Track focus on either teaching or research. These faculty have anywhere from 1 to 5 year contracts. While under contract, you have the same rights regarding termination that a Tenure Track faculty member has. Normally, if you have satisfactory performance, your contract is renewed. A lot of schools have a promotion scale for these faculty too.
Did you click on the site and read the whole article???
It seems the complete opposite of what you think is what has has happened to this professor....
His complaint, from the professor’s article, thatSuch protectiveness is motivated less by a reasonable concern for students’ mental health and more by political ideology. The complaint of a group of conservative students who felt singled out or disrespected or uncomfortable in class would be taken far less seriously. I have been on the receiving end of faculty emails making light of just such complaints.does not give me the same impression that you came away with.Nor would a complaint by religious students that God and Christianity were mocked by their professor have much purchase. And I have never heard that Sanford’s “safe space” is a welcome refuge for the (generally reviled) minority of “open” Trump supporters on campus, nor have I heard of “trigger warnings” for depictions of disrespect to the American flag or harm to the unborn.
While virtually everyone is familiar with the ‘Duke Rape Case’ how many are familiar with the real Duke Rape Case of Frank Lombard?
I retired after almost 40 years of university teaching and my experience is that after 6 years, you applied for tenure or you left. I ended my teaching at a Big Ten university and research was very important. However, I also taught at a smaller school where teaching was emphasized. Both valued research, but I don’t think larger schools give a damn about teaching...it’s all about the research money that you bring in. Much of the bloat universities have now are non-teaching administrators, many of whom have been hired to make sure the provisions of the research grants have properly dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. Personally, I never thought tenure was a good idea. If you were a productive asset to the university, they could weight the good versus the bad in terms of keeping you.
Firing the coach who can do that much would be a pretty arrogant stroke. Who you gonna get to replace him - someone who has never won the Final Four? And certainly, no one who has ever recruited "the most talented freshman class of all time” - since that is who they would be firing.And he did that notwithstanding the fact that he works for a university which is infamous for having thrown one of its athletic teams under the bus.
You couldn’t have a “Professor Kingsfield” today.
Well said, Savage. And when a teacher gets fired the teacher feels ashamed.
ROFLMBO... and who exactly replaces him?
5 Championships (second most ever, behind THE Coach, John Wooden, 10)
12 Final Fours (ties with Wooden for the most ever)
12 ACC Regular Seasons titles
15 ACC Tournament Titles
Most NCAA Basketball wins ever (1132 in 44 years... Wooden had 664 in 29 years)
Most NCAA Tournament wins, by far... 94... second place is Roy Williams at 77... 4th place is Jim Boeheim at 57.
5 Gold Medals as head coach (2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics, plus 2010 and 2014 FIBA), plus 1 more Gold as an assistant (1992 Dream Team)
Highest winning percentage among all coaches with 900+ wins
There are only 15 coaches with more than 1 Title in NCAA Div I Basketball history... only 5 others, ever, have 3+ Rings (4- Rupp, 3- Williams, Calhoun, Knight). Again, he has 5.
Had 4 losing seasons in his first 8 as a coach... and none in the last 36 years.
He retires when he is good and ready. He will never be fired or ever face a "hot seat". If he wants to coach to age 93 and have some losing seasons in the future, he will be allowed. He has earned it.
(He is 72. I predict that he retires at 77.)
He was one of my econ professors. Brilliant, sharp as a tack, into his 90s. I knew him when he was in his late 70s.
My one semester, macroeconomics, was brutal. I was one of 5 students in the class, there was nowhere to hide. God help you if you came to class unprepared, or answered his questions wrong.
He was harsh with female students, too: "Why did you come to Gonzaga, Miss Smith? You came here to get married, yes, yes!" Back then, the ratio of male to female students was probably 2 to 1, so there was great truth in that politically incorrect statement.
Just by being in that class, you couldn't help but learn a lot.
Ask anyone who attended his class, and you'll invariably hear his favorite saying: there are no free lunches!, said with a distinct German accent.
As my first faculty advisor, he was on me for my first 3 semesters to change my major from management to accounting. I finally did that the spring semester of my sophomore year, and went in whole hog, opting for the public accounting degree with 30 hours of upper level accounting.
Turned out to be a pretty wise move. Although the Army put me in Air Defense Artillery (my first choice was Finance Corps, where I could command a desk...lol), as a 25 YO 1st LT, I became the Battalion S-4 (Supply Officer). With my degree, I ran circles around higher HQ staff during annual budgets and financial briefings.
My battalion commander actually laughed when I challenged Group and Division field grades during our discussions.
Thanks Dr. Graue. You were a helluva professor.
Your memory is longer than most of the bandwagon Duke fans today. Good job.
Non-tenure track lines have been around for some time and exist at several schools I have had exposure to through my work.
The original NTT’s were research associates and lecturers. They now have promotion levels similar tenured faculty but are still on contract instead of lifetime positions. Sometimes the length of the contract mirrors their level (Assistant, Associate). They are, from what I know, paid a little less and don’t end up with positions like department chair.
The fragility of these snowflakes is off the charts. When they get their way like this, they turn into adult monsters. They need four years in USMC to make them adults.
The author nails it here:
Nor would a complaint by religious students that God and Christianity were mocked by their professor have much purchase. And I have never heard that Sanford’s “safe space” is a welcome refuge for the (generally reviled) minority of “open” Trump supporters on campus, nor have I heard of “trigger warnings” for depictions of disrespect to the American flag or harm to the unborn.
So called "scholarly" works are published that are read by very few and actually contribute to anything.
The funny thing is the professors pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves on their brilliance.
Most couldn't get or hold a job in the real world if they had to.
It's an echo chamber.
If you don't sing the song you aren't going to go far in that institution.
Only if you don't count the 94-95 season. LOL...only pUKe could get away with not counting a losing season as a losing season.
Was he the head coach? Yep.
Was he having a say in the season? Yep.
The losses are on him.
Ha! Very good.
Yep, he very likely could have been hired for a tenure position at a less prestigious school had he been willing to make the move. He presumably liked the status until his bargain backfired.
Exactly.
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