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3 Colleges Censured
Inside Higher Ed ^ | 6/13/05 | Scott Jaschik

Posted on 06/25/2005 1:16:56 PM PDT by freespirited

The American Association of University Professors on Saturday added three colleges to its list of censured institutions, and took two institutions off the list. The net change leaves 47 colleges on the list of colleges “not observing the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure.”

The association voted at its annual meeting to censure Meharry Medical College, the University of the Cumberlands, and Virginia State University. Southern Nazarene and Wingate Universities were voted off the list. In addition, the association condemned recent actions at Benedict College and at the City University of New York.

Institutions are placed on the list following investigations by an AAUP investigating committee and a review by the association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom. Typically institutions are only removed from the list after negotiations with the association and changes in policies.

Joan W. Scott, chair of the academic freedom committee, said that the cases of censure this year illustrated a continuing problem with “autocratic presidents” who ignore faculty rights.

Two of the colleges censured Saturday (Meharry and Virginia State) along with one of the colleges criticized (Benedict) and the only college added to the censure list last year (Philander Smith) are historically black. Scott, a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J., said that she thought there was “a culture of autocracy” at some historically black colleges. A similar problem exists at small religious colleges, she said, a group that is also disproportionately represented on the AAUP’s censure list.

“Too many presidents at these institutions have a sense of being outside the general rules of shared governance,” she said.

Scott stressed that the actions against historically black colleges were all taken at the request of faculty members — most of them black — and that problems at the colleges were hurting black students and professors.

The stars of Saturday’s session were in fact professors from Benedict, who received three standing ovations and an award from the AAUP.

Benedict is only the fourth college in the AAUP’s history that has been deemed worthy of special condemnation after already being on the censure list, where the college has been since 1994 because of its policies on faculty appointments. The more recent controversy involves Benedict’s policy of grading freshmen and sophomores as much on their effort as on their actual accomplishments. Professors complained that the policy forced them to pass students whose achievement did not come close to demonstrating basic concepts of their courses.

The AAUP found that Benedict’s president dismissed professors and demoted department chairs who disagreed with the grading policy, which was adopted without faculty input. Benedict officials could not be reached for comment on the AAUP’s vote this weekend. But David H. Swinton, the college’s president, wrote to AAUP investigators that “we are confident that our policies are appropriate and do not seek your support to deal with our internal personnel matters.” Swinton also published a defense of his grading policy on the college’s Web site.

On the List

The colleges censured this year all dismissed faculty members in ways that violate AAUP principles about tenure and due process.

Meharry Medical College was criticized for its dismissal of 11 professors. The AAUP’s investigative report found that although they had served at the college well beyond the probationary period, they were never given the protections of tenure and that in fact the college had downgraded the concept of tenure so that it provided only minimal protections. The AAUP also found that two of the professors at the Tennessee institution who had lost their jobs were being punished for their disagreements with administrators. “Beyond its treatment of the issues of academic freedom at Meharry Medical College, the investigating committee found that the administration had virtually abrogated any system of faculty governance,” the report said.

Officials at Meharry could not be reached for comment. John E. Maupin, Jr., Meharry’s president, did write to the AAUP, however, that “your investigation placed too much credence upon the statements of a few disgruntled former faculty members” and that “our system of faculty governance does in fact share authority.”

The University of the Cumberlands was placed on the censure list over a dispute that started because of a Web site (currently viewable only on an archive of defunct sites) created by a professor who criticized some of the financial decisions being made at the college and who questioned whether the Kentucky Baptist institution needed to do more to invigorate religious life on the campus. The AAUP found that the university forced the professor out of his job and then forced out of a job the department chair who had not wanted to get rid of the professor.

“The institution’s policies and practices, the committee concluded, precluded any effective faculty role in academic governance and contribute to an atmosphere that stifles the freedom of faculty to question and criticize administrative decisions and actions,” the AAUP report said.

University officials told the AAUP that there were errors in its report, but declined to elaborate on what they were.

Virginia State University, which has seen repeated faculty-administration strife in recent years, was cited by the AAUP for how two faculty members were dismissed following post-tenure reviews. The association found that officials judged the professors unfairly, denied them fair reviews, and then denied them due process after the reviews. More broadly, the AAUP found serious flaws in the system of faculty governance at Virginia State — flaws that severely limited professors’ rights.

Officials of Virginia State were not available this weekend. Previously, they have said that there were unspecified mistakes in the AAUP’s investigation.

Concerns Over CUNY

The association’s decision regarding the City University of New York relates to a report that is months old — and to events in the last few weeks. The main issue in the report was the dismissal of Mohamed Yousry from his position as an adjunct at York College of CUNY. Yousry lost his position after he was indicted on charges of assisting terrorist organizations through his work translating Arabic for a lawyer who was the main target of the indictment.

The AAUP investigating team found that Yousry’s rights were violated because he did not receive due process before losing his position. Yousry has since been convicted, although he is appealing, and CUNY officials have said that they would reinstate him if he is ultimately cleared.

Beyond the Yousry case, association members said that they feared a general erosion of academic freedom in the CUNY system. Several cited the way the central administration and the leaders of Brooklyn College did not defend Timothy Shortell, a professor who was elected to chair the sociology department, but withdrew amid press criticism of his previous writings that harshly criticized religious people.

The AAUP adopted a resolution expressing “grave concern” about the state of academic freedom at CUNY and ordering a broad investigation of the state of faculty rights there.

Scott, the chair of the AAUP’s academic freedom committee, said that she was concerned about CUNY leaders “readily capitulating to outside pressures,” and she said that whenever university leaders do that, “others are emboldened” to attack faculty members.

Jay Hershenson, CUNY’s vice chancellor for university relations, said in an e-mail message Saturday that administrators would review the AAUP resolution when they receive it. “We are confident that CUNY has acted consistently with the important principles of academic freedom,” he said.

Off the List

At the two institutions at which the AAUP lifted censure, administrators have both changed policies that led to censure and offered compensation to faculty members who were hurt by the old policies.

Southern Nazarene University was placed on the censure list in 1987, after eight professors lost their positions. The university originally cited financial problems to explain the dismissals, but then said that the professors had lost their jobs for issues related to performance. The AAUP said that the university’s actions violated the due process rights of the professors since they did not have the chance to appeal the decisions to terminate them. And the association found more broadly that there was not a tenure system in place.

In the last year, however, Southern Nazarene has instituted policies that grant tenure after five years of service and define circumstances under which finances could be used to justify dismissing a professor. The university also reached settlements with the four faculty members from the original eight who had not previously reached settlements with the university.

Wingate University was placed on the censure list in 1979, after it decided not to renew the contracts of six faculty members whose one-year contracts had expired. The AAUP found that three of the instructors had been on the faculty for more than a decade, but — in violation of association policy — had not been granted tenure or the right to seek tenure. In the other three cases, the association found that Wingate had not provided the faculty members with basic rights about contract renewal, and that the university “lacked a meaningful system of tenure.”

In the last year and a half, the association said, Wingate’s faculty and board have adopted a series of policies to create a tenure system and to provide rights to those working on contracts. Of the six faculty members who were dismissed, three sought the AAUP’s help. In the intervening years, one of them died, but the other two reached financial settlements with the college.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aaup; academia; benedictcollege; censure; meharrymedical; vsu
Benedict is the college that fired two science professors for refusing to comply with a grading policy called SEE (Success Equals Effort). Professors have to calculate grades based on a formula that weights actual achievement at only 40%. The other 60% is effort.

http://www.benedict.edu/divisions/acadaf/office/policy_n_proc/bc-acad_affairs-see_policy-letter.html

1 posted on 06/25/2005 1:16:56 PM PDT by freespirited
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To: freespirited
"...“autocratic presidents” who ignore faculty rights... at Black Colleges..."

Also known as the 'Robert Mugumbe Syndrome.'

2 posted on 06/25/2005 1:26:52 PM PDT by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: freespirited

I think the CUNY case is more interesting. The college is in trouble because it fired a convicted terrorist. (Sheik Rahman's translator who worked with Lynn Stewart to pass on messages from the thug to his cohorts abroad.)


3 posted on 06/25/2005 1:30:03 PM PDT by the Real fifi
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To: freespirited
In addition to gagging at the 40% academic achievement rule you rightly cited, I was strangely drawn to this headache inducing statement:

“Too many presidents at these institutions have a sense of being outside the general rules of shared governance,” she said.

4 posted on 06/25/2005 1:33:23 PM PDT by JimSEA
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To: freespirited
The net change leaves 47 colleges on the list of colleges “not observing the generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure.”

If you add to this "list" those colleges and universities that have unconstitutional PC speech codes, compounded by the intense harassment of conservative and Christian students by liberal professors, then we can add 400 more to the "list."

5 posted on 06/25/2005 1:34:36 PM PDT by SkyPilot
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To: SkyPilot
If you add to this "list" those colleges and universities that have unconstitutional PC speech codes, compounded by the intense harassment of conservative and Christian students by liberal professors, then we can add 400 more to the "list."

Only 400? I thought this was almost universal these days.

6 posted on 06/25/2005 1:42:46 PM PDT by freespirited
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To: freespirited

"...association members said that they feared a general erosion of academic freedom in the CUNY system. Several cited the way the central administration and the leaders of Brooklyn College did not defend Timothy Shortell, a professor who was elected to chair the sociology department, but withdrew amid press criticism of his previous writings that harshly criticized religious people."

Timothy Shortell is a Ward Churchill wannabe that writes about how it was the fault of Jews, Christians, and the US in general that the twin towers were attacked. And that it was an appropriate response by the oppressed peoples of the world (you know, the ones that wouldn't exist except for the US). In addition, he regularly consorts with folks that advocate the violent overthrow of the US Government.

In his 'scholarly' writings, he advances the notion that it is the IDEA of EVIL (rooted in Judeo-Christian ideology) that CAUSES EVIL. His conclusion is that if we stopped thinking, believing and speaking about evil, it would disappear. More specifically, if there were no Christianity or Judaism there would be no evil.

Guess what? This stuff didn't play to well in Brooklyn. People got pissed off, he then responded by calling his detractors "Moral Retards" -- which didn't help the situation -- and CUNY canned him.

The truly amazing part of the whole story is that the flaming liberal administration of CUNY had the balls to kick him out.

dung.


7 posted on 06/25/2005 1:57:58 PM PDT by Moose Dung (Soiling the Shoes of the Lunatic Left)
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To: freespirited; JulieRNR21; Joe Brower
"The main issue in the report was the dismissal of Mohamed Yousry from his position as an adjunct at York College of CUNY. Yousry lost his position after he was indicted on charges of assisting terrorist organizations through his work translating Arabic for a lawyer who was the main target of the indictment."

The AAUP also stood behind Sami Al-Arian and threatened to censure USF if they suspended him. The AAUP chapter, headed by a professor who blamed the situation on "right wing yahoos", was quoted then as saying, "the investigating committee believes that Professor Al-Arian's statements fell well within the (bounds) of academic freedom..."

8 posted on 06/25/2005 1:57:59 PM PDT by jim macomber (Author: "Bargained for Exchange", "Art & Part", "A Grave Breach" http://www.jamesmacomber.com)
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To: Moose Dung

Are you sure that they kicked Timothy Shortell out of CUNY? All I have read is that he dropped his bid to become chair of the sociology dept.


9 posted on 06/25/2005 2:09:44 PM PDT by freespirited
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To: jim macomber

I'm no fan of the AAUP. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they dont. But it's better to have them take the right position half the time than never.


10 posted on 06/25/2005 2:15:58 PM PDT by freespirited
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To: freespirited

Sorry, you are correct. They didn't "can" or "kick him out." That *would* have been amazing. My anger got the better of me as I finalized my post and I lost site of this important fact.

(a moose is now thoroughly embarrased)

In my opinion the guy belongs in Gitmo and the "Censoring" of Brooklyn College just shows how far left these nut jobs are.

dung.


11 posted on 06/25/2005 2:17:29 PM PDT by Moose Dung (Soiling the Shoes of the Lunatic Left)
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To: the Real fifi
truth bump
12 posted on 06/25/2005 2:28:50 PM PDT by tomkat
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To: freespirited

bump


13 posted on 06/25/2005 3:35:16 PM PDT by Enterprise (Thus sayeth our rulers - "All your property is mine." - - - Kelo vs New London)
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