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On January 9, 2018, Dr.
Shannan Butler and Dr. Corinne Weisgerber, each a tenured associate professor
with nearly twelve years of service at St. Edward’s University, were summoned
to a meeting with two administrators. To their surprise, they were handed letters
when they arrived. Since their behavior, the letters alleged, “reflect[ed] a
continued disrespect and disregard for the mission and goals of the
university,” their “employment [was] being terminated.” They were immediately
escorted from campus.
One month earlier, Dr. Katie
E. Peterson, a tenure-track assistant professor in her fifth year of service to
SEU, received a nonreappointment letter—to her surprise. It read in
part: “In accord with St. Edward’s current efforts to ‘right size’ the
University, the current enrollment trends in the Teacher Education Program make
it imperative that we reduce the number of faculty in Teacher Education. . . .
I regret to inform you that you will not be reappointed for 2018–19. Your
position as Assistant Professor of Reading in the School of Education will
conclude May 18, 2018.”
This report concerns the
actions taken by the St. Edward’s administration against Professors Butler,
Weisgerber, and Peterson.1
I. The Institution
St. Edward’s University is a
private, four-year institution affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church that
traces its beginnings to 1877, when the Congregation of Holy Cross, an order of
French missionaries, founded St. Edward’s Academy on farmland south of Austin,
Texas. St. Edward’s received its charter as a college in 1885 and as a
university in 1925, first began enrolling female students in 1966, and became
fully coeducational in 1970. The university’s accreditor is the Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. According to the
National Center for Education Statistics, in fall 2017 SEU enrolled 4,447
students, all but 506 of them undergraduates; there were 192 full-time and 263
part-time faculty members. In its mission statement, St. Edward’s describes
itself as “an independent Catholic university that welcomes qualified students
of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs.”
The institution’s president,
its twenty-third, is Dr. George E. Martin, who has been in office since 1999.
Previously, Dr. Martin was vice president for academic affairs at what is now
Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey. During most of the period covered in
this report, Sister Donna M. Jurick served as the institution’s executive vice
president and interim vice president for academic affairs. This position was
one of several administrative posts held by Sister Donna during her thirty
years at St. Edward’s, beginning in 1988 when she was initially appointed vice
president for academic affairs. Prior to her tenure at SEU, she had been
president of what is now Trinity Washington University in Washington, DC.
Sister Donna officially retired from St. Edward’s on June 30, 2018, and was
succeeded as chief academic officer by Dr. J. Andrew Prall, previously vice
president for academic affairs at the University of Saint Francis in Indiana,
whose new position as SEU provost began on July 1. An administrative officer
who played a central role in the cases of Professors Butler and Weisgerber was
Dr. Sharon Nell, dean of the School of Humanities since 2012. The interim chair
of the Department of Communication at the time of the action against Professors
Butler and Weisgerber was Dr. Nell’s associate dean, Dr. Richard Bautch, a
professor of religious studies. The administrative officer playing a central
role in the case of Professor Peterson was Dr. Glenda Ballard, who became dean
of the School of Human Development and Education in fall 2016.
II. The Cases of Professor
Butler and Professor Weisgerber
The following sections present
key facts regarding the action taken against Professors Butler and Weisgerber
and their response to that action.
A. The Termination Letters
Professor Shannan Butler and
Professor Corinne Weisgerber, a married couple, each of whom had earned a PhD
in communication arts and sciences at Pennsylvania State University, joined the
Department of Communication at St. Edward’s University in 2006, became
associate professors in 2012, and received tenure in 2013. According to all
available information, during their eleven and a half years of service to the
institution, they had become highly regarded members of the faculty, with
exemplary records of teaching, scholarship, and service.
On January 9, 2018, Professors
Butler and Weisgerber were summoned to a meeting with Sister Donna and Ms.
Kimberly Van Savage, the human resources director, and handed virtually
identical letters signed by Sister Donna notifying them that their “employment
with the university is being terminated” for “just cause.” As grounds for the action,
the letters charged the two professors with “behavior toward . . . colleagues,
department chair, and dean” that “reflects a continued disrespect and disregard
for the mission and goals of the university,” a basis for dismissal listed in
section 2.8.4 (“Dismissal for Cause”) of the St. Edward’s University faculty
manual.
According to the termination
letters, the precipitating event occurred a month earlier, at a December 8,
2017, department meeting, at which, the letters stated, the two professors
conducted themselves “in an unprofessional, intimidating, and bullying way
towards [their] colleagues and department leadership.” The letters construed
the incident as follows (quoting from the version addressed to Professor
Weisgerber):
Toward the end of what had
initially been a productive meeting, you began to question the future of the
department, a topic that was not on the agenda. When Interim Chair Richard
Bautch responded to the question, you and Dr. Butler singled out one person,
the Interim Chair, in a discriminatory manner and attacked his personal
judgement. When the Interim Chair asked you and Dr. Butler to return to the
agenda, you disputed that you were singling him out or treating him unfairly.
Even when other faculty members expressed support for the Interim Chair, you
persisted and disregarded Dr. Bautch’s request that you stop attempting to
intimidate him.
The letters stated that, after
the interim chair adjourned the “out of control” meeting, both professors
remained in the room and “persisted in attempting to intimidate Dr. [Teri Lynn]
Varner," the previous interim chair. The letters went on to say that
department members who had left the meeting “heard shouting coming from the
room,” an indication of an alleged “unwillingness” on the part of the two
professors “to engage colleagues in a productive manner.”
The conduct displayed at the
December 8 department meeting, the letters continued, was “neither an isolated
incident [n]or [a] moment of indiscretion”; it was “instead . . . the latest
instance in a continuing string of unprofessional and disruptive behavior
dating back over a number of years” demonstrating “a continued disrespect and
disregard for the mission and goals of the university.”
As a “summary of the
evidence,” the letters cited purported prior examples of Professor Butler's and
Professor Weisgerber’s behavior over a one-and-a-half-year period that
constituted this alleged “continuing string of unprofessional and disruptive
behavior.” In May 2016, the letters asserted, the two professors “launched an
attack” on the decision to appoint Dr. Varner interim chair instead of
Professor Butler. Without providing specific detail, the letters characterized
the alleged attack as “including efforts which constituted harassment,
bullying, and attempts at intimidation.” The letters further asserted that at
this juncture Professors Butler and Weisgerber “stopped participating as
collegial members” of the department and “began a campaign of disruption and
disrespect for university decisions.”
On September 23, 2016, the
letters stated, Dean Nell met with Professors Butler and Weisgerber to “address
[their] behavior” in response to Professor Varner’s appointment as interim
chair. To quote the letters, “Dean Nell clearly identified your behaviors,
which were inconsistent with the university’s standards and expectations, and
directed you to change your behavior and move forward in a manner that was
respectful of university decisions and mission.”
In August 2017, according to
the letters, Dean Nell placed into Professor Butler’s and Professor
Weisgerber’s personnel files a letter concerning their allegedly “disruptive
and unprofessional behavior.” This action, the letters charged, was taken in
response to the two professors’ “efforts to disrupt, intimidate, and interfere
with the Department’s meetings and activities through the 2016–17 academic
year.”
The last examples of
“unprofessional and disruptive behavior” alleged in both letters were “personal
attacks against Dr. Bautch” during March and November 2017 department meetings
and further instances of unspecified objectionable conduct by both professors
toward Professor Varner at an April 2017 meeting, which, the letters stated,
had to be “adjourned prematurely” because of Professor Butler’s and Professor
Weisgerber’s “disruptive behavior.”
There are only a few
differences between the two letters. Professor Butler, not Professor
Weisgerber, was portrayed as having expressed an interest in becoming
department chair and was charged with having “raised [his] voice” and “used
profanity” in addressing Dean Nell during the September 23, 2016, meeting.
Professor Butler’s letter contained a unique paragraph alleging that at the
December 8 department meeting, he “repeatedly referred” to his membership on
the Faculty Evaluation Committee (FEC) in a way that implied he “would or could
use” that role “for personal retribution.” “Any inference [sic] that you or Dr.
Weisberger would act in a retaliatory manner toward colleagues through your
service on a body such as the FEC,” the letter admonished, “is entirely
improper and undermines the integrity of the faculty review process.” And only
Professor Weisgerber was accused of raising unwanted questions “about the
future of the department” at the December 8 meeting.
After outlining these examples
of alleged misconduct, the letters provided this summary: “It is the
expectation of all faculty and staff at St. Edward’s to conduct themselves in a
civil, collegial manner toward colleagues. You have not fulfilled that
expectation. Your behavior constitutes a pattern of intimidation, harassment,
and bullying. This behavior is not acceptable, and you have been counseled
repeatedly to correct this behavior. You have failed to make any meaningful
changes, and your deliberate tactics derail meetings and their agendas, making
collegial, fruitful, and productive meetings impossible with your
participation.” In closing, the letters informed Professors Butler and
Weisgerber of their right to appeal the termination of their appointments under
provisions set out in section 2.8.8 (“Appeal of Separation Decisions”) of the
faculty manual. As their appointments had already been terminated, the letters
further specified, they were immediately suspended with pay and banned from
campus until the appeal process concluded. If they chose not to appeal, the
“termination[s] w[ould] become effectively immediately.” Professors Butler and
Weisgerber report that Sister Donna and Ms. Van Savage declined to discuss the
content of the letters with them, stating that the two faculty members would
need to address the charges through the appeal process. Following the meeting,
a campus security officer confiscated their keys and escorted them to their
car.
B. Professor Butler’s and
Professor Weisgerber’s Appeal Documents
On January 29, in accordance
with the provisions of section 2.8.8 of the faculty manual, both faculty
members submitted lengthy appeal documents to the president and an “ad hoc
Faculty Review Committee.” These documents, which for obvious reasons had much
in common, attempted to meet the burden of demonstrating that the action
against them resulted from “unlawful bias, arbitrary or capricious
decision-making, or a violation of procedures” in the faculty manual.
Their first line of argument
was that the termination action violated four sections of the faculty manual:
section 2.5.6.2, which describes the institution’s post-tenure review process;
section 2.8.4, which lists the grounds for dismissal, including the grounds
asserted in their case, “continued disregard for the mission and goals of the
university”; section 2.9.2, which incorporates the AAUP’s 1940 Statement
of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure; and section 2.5.4.5, which
contains a procedure for annual faculty evaluation.
The action violated section
2.5.6.2 because, they stated, that section requires that “a tenured faculty
member be given a performance improvement plan and two years to correct any
deficiencies before termination is considered.” Professors Butler and
Weisgerber argued that they were afforded no such procedure and in fact had
received no prior warning of their dismissals.
They argued that the
terminations violated section 2.8.4 because “the termination letter does not
offer specifics” related to the stated grounds for dismissal: conduct
manifesting “continued disregard for the mission and goals of the university.”
The terminations violated
section 2.9.2, they asserted, because the 1940 Statement “encompasses”
AAUP-supported standards of academic due process governing dismissal, which
they summarize as “(1) a statement of charges in reasonable particularity; (2)
opportunity for a hearing before a faculty hearing body; (3) the right of
counsel if desired; (4) the right to present evidence and to cross-examine; (5)
record of the hearing; and (6) opportunity to appeal to the governing board.”
They contended that when Dean Nell charged them with misconduct at the
September 2016 meeting (also attended by Dr. Bautch), they received no answer
when Professor Weisgerber “directly asked both Dean Nell and Dr. Bautch for any
example of [their] behavior that would constitute bullying, harassment, or
intimidation.” They also stated that for “more than a year” following that
meeting, the two professors “sought clarification on these allegations,” reaching
out for assistance to Dr. Bautch, Ms. Van Savage, and Sister Donna, but “were
never given an explanation or specific examples of these allegations.” By
“failing to make a statement of charges in reasonable particularity,” the
administration, they asserted, violated the due-process rights implied in
section 2.9.2. The administration also violated this section, they contended,
because it failed to afford them a faculty hearing and because it dismissed
them based on a charge not “related, directly and substantially,” to their
“fitness . . . in their professional capacities as teachers or researchers,”
citing the AAUP standard set out in Regulation 5a of the Recommended
Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. As evidence of the
latter alleged violation, they claimed that, during the January 9 termination
meeting, Sister Donna had “made it clear . . . that no one was calling into
question [their] performance as teachers or researchers.”
The terminations violated
section 2.5.4.5, they argued, because on August 31, 2017, a month after their
2016–17 annual performance reviews were completed, Dean Nell inserted a page of
new material into Professor Butler’s and Professor Weisgerber’s reviews (which
were part of their personnel files) without notifying the two faculty members
of those insertions, which they discovered only by accident. The page contained
a version of the statements Dean Nell had read to them during the September 23,
2016, meeting at which she first charged them with bullying, harassing, and
intimidating Professor Varner, the interim chair. Adding this material to their
annual performance reviews, they argued, violated this section of the policy
manual because (1) no evaluation by the dean is required in the second year of
a three-year cycle and (2) the policy “requires the dean’s evaluation to ‘be
forwarded to the faculty member.’”
The second line of argument
employed in their appeal documents was that the entire action against them was
arbitrary and capricious because it was not based on a “thorough
investigation.” Such an investigation would have found, they asserted, a record
of “positive performance reviews” that contradict the charges made in the
termination letter and would have revealed that most of the charges alleged in
the termination letter were “unfounded, general, and vague.”
With respect to performance
reviews, both appeal documents cited the fact that, during their eleven and a
half years of service at St. Edward’s University, neither of them had received
a negative performance review by their chairs or been charged with
“unprofessional behavior in any formal periodic reviews.” Additionally, they
argued, during the period in which they were supposedly harassing, bullying,
and intimidating their interim chair, Professor Varner, her department chair
reviews consistently rated them highly in the category of service, which
explicitly includes the criterion of collegiality.
With regard to the allegations
in the termination letter, both appeal documents provided an extensive point-by-point
rebuttal, with exhaustive documentation.
To cite a few examples, they
stated that the claim that they had been “counseled repeatedly to correct
[their] behavior is simply untrue.” They related that when they were called
into the dean’s office on September 23, 2016, along with Associate Dean Bautch,
Dean Nell read to them a prepared statement, which they wrote down as follows:
We are meeting to talk about
issues in the department of communications. The first thing I want to talk
about is the department chair nomination survey from last spring. I don’t want
to hear any more about this. The survey is over. There is no secret about the
survey, no conspiracy. It was decided we would include full-time faculty and
non-tenure-track faculty in the survey because we wanted their perspective. The
chair approved it, I approved it, the VPAA approved it. Dr. Varner will be
interim chair. An external chair will be hired. No one owes you an explanation
or apology for the way this was conducted. End of story. I don’t want to hear
anything else about this. The chair nomination survey has been alluded to as an
election. It was not an election. It was a nomination.
At SEU we treat each other
respectfully. You are to immediately cease actions in person or in writing that
attempt to harass, intimidate, and bully Dr. Varner. If harassment,
intimidation, and bullying continue, a letter will be placed in your permanent
file.
Afterward, they reported,
there was “no conversation.” When asked to provide specific examples of the
alleged behavior, the dean, they wrote, “simply said that she could not discuss
it at that time.” According to their accounts, the two faculty members reached
out to human resources officers and Sister Donna after the meeting to ask for
clarification of these charges against them but were unable to obtain it. They
stated that this meeting was the only one that took place regarding these
allegations and that they “never had another conversation with Dean Nell or any
other administration officer regarding any unprofessional behavior.”
The charge that they had
bullied, harassed, and intimidated Professor Varner, they claimed, was
“unfounded and untrue,” and they documented several examples of their efforts
to assist and encourage their former chair—from supporting her tenure bid to
sharing their course materials for her use—as well as of their collegial
relations throughout most of their time together at St. Edward’s.
To the charge that both
professors made “verbal attacks on Dr. Bautch” by “asking a question in a
discriminatory manner” during the December 8, 2017, department meeting, they
gave the following account of what happened (quoting Professor Weisgerber): “My
colleagues present at that meeting can attest that I simply asked Dr. Bautch
the following question: ‘Do you think it is a good idea to put our department
on pause for five years?’” (According to the minutes of a March 31, 2017,
department meeting, Dean Nell had informed the department’s faculty that she
would continue to keep the academic program review and other ongoing planning
activities “on pause” until a permanent chair was hired, a decision originally
imposed in 2013.) “I was concerned,” she continued, “about the direction of our
department and thought my question was professional in nature and substance. In
no way could my question have been construed as a ‘verbal attack.’ Even so, Dr.
Bautch thought the question was ‘personal’ so I immediately apologized to Dr.
Bautch. . . . Outside that conversation, Dr. Bautch and I maintained a
collegial conversation during that meeting, and I was never otherwise counseled
about my behavior at that meeting. . . . The allegation that I made ‘verbal
attacks on Dr. Bautch’ is untrue.” As to the “shouting” heard coming from the
room after the meeting, Professors Butler and Weisgerber stated that they had
remained to ask Professor Varner to explain how she thought they had bullied,
harassed, and intimidated her in spring 2016, an explanation they said they had
been seeking for a year and a half. They received an explanation—Professor
Weisgerber had sent “too many emails”—and acknowledged that there was shouting,
but noted that they were not the shouters.
To the general charge of a
lack of collegiality, Professors Butler and Weisgerber provided documents and
letters of support from colleagues that “speak to [their] collegiality and
active support and exemplification of all areas of the University mission.”
Professor Butler emphatically
denied the specific allegation that at the December 8, 2017, department meeting
he “repeatedly referred” to his membership on the Faculty Evaluation Committee
to suggest that he “would or could use” his membership “for personal
retribution.” He wrote, “Of all of the untruths, half-truths, and insinuations
in what has been purported as a letter of termination for cause, this one truly
does upset me. This single paragraph is a microcosm of this entire termination
letter. The events described in this paragraph did not occur—would not
occur—they are so foreign to me as to be laughable if they did not attempt to
cause so much harm.” What he claimed he had actually said at the December 8
meeting was that the communication faculty was ill served by letters from the
school’s personnel committee because they did not adequately explain to the
university’s Faculty Evaluation Committee how best to understand communication
faculty members’ creative work and publications. But “to insinuate in any way
that I would use my position as a form of retribution or in a retaliatory
manner is absolutely untrue and extremely defamatory.2
A final example of the many
rebuttals in their appeal documents was the response to the termination
letter’s allegation that Professor Butler, in the September 23, 2016, meeting
with Dean Nell, “raised [his] voice” and “used profanity.” Professor Butler
wrote, “I was rattled and anxious from Dean Nell’s baseless accusations and it
made my finger shaky as I pointed at her. I did raise my voice a bit and said,
. . . ‘This shit has got to stop.’” He continued, “Yes, I should have said
‘balderdash’ or something more creative, but I didn’t. Corinne and I were being
intimidated and bullied and it needed to stop. . . . I wish I hadn’t said it,
but I was being accused of harassment, bullying, and intimidation, and I think
my choice of terms could have been a lot worse.”
C. Appeal to the Governing
Board
On March 28, Professors Butler
and Weisgerber received letters from President Martin, dated two days earlier,
notifying them that the Faculty Review Committee, the membership of which has
never been revealed to the appellants, had “found that ‘the university
fulfilled its duty in reaching the decision [to terminate their appointments],
following the procedures as outlined in the Faculty Manual’ and recommended
‘that the decision to terminate for cause be upheld.’”3 “I
concur with the ad hoc Faculty Review Committee’s findings,” the president
wrote. “Therefore, your appeal is denied.”
On April 30, pursuant to
section 2.8.8.2 of the faculty manual, which provides that “[t]enured faculty
may request a review of the president’s decision by the Institutional Oversight
and Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees,” Professors Butler and
Weisgerber submitted a fourteen-page appeal document to that body. The document
argued that the decision to terminate their appointments “violate[d] St.
Edward’s policies, the professors’ contracts, minimum standards for protecting
tenure rights, and the University’s mission as a top liberal arts college.” It
attempted to demonstrate that the “professors have earned their place as valued
and tenured members” of the faculty, that “the charges against them are vague
and unfounded,” and that the university had “denied [them] due process.” With
respect to due process, it relied heavily on AAUP policy documents and the
letters written by the AAUP’s staff. It repeated the arguments made by
Professors Butler and Weisgerber in their appeal documents regarding the
university’s having violated its own policies in taking action against them. It
also contended that the “university violated due process” by treating the two
professors as a couple. “Instead of evaluating the allegations against
Professor Butler and Professor Weisgerber individually,” the document states,
“the University has evaluated them as a couple. This kind of collective
adjudication violates even the most basic understanding of due process.”
May 14 brought the news that
the Institutional Oversight and Academic Affairs Committee had found as
follows: “[T]he termination of your employment and appeal of the decision
followed the procedures required by the Faculty Manual, and the decision to
terminate your employment for just cause was not arbitrary or capricious, nor
was the denial of your appeal of these decisions. Therefore, we affirm the
decision of the President to uphold the termination of your employment.” “Under
the terms of the Faculty Manual,” concluded committee chair Dr. Margaret E.
Crahan, “the decision of this Committee is final.”
III. The Case of Professor
Peterson
In their communications with
the AAUP’s staff, Professors Butler and Weisgerber had referred to other SEU
faculty members whose situations might have implicated AAUP principles and
standards, including several who they said had been involuntarily separated
from service. One such faculty member was Professor Peterson, who first sought
the advice and assistance of the staff on May 9.
As noted in the introduction
to this report, Professor Peterson was a tenure-track assistant professor in
her fifth year of service in the School of Human Development and Education when
she received a letter dated December 11, 2017, from Sister Donna notifying her
that her “position as Assistant Professor of Reading in the School of Education
will conclude May 18, 2018.”
In a conversation with the
AAUP’s staff, Professor Peterson said that her five years at St. Edward’s had
been “turbulent,” especially since 2015, when she had filed a complaint with
the human resources department about the behavior of an associate dean in the
School of Human Development and Education who she claimed had subjected her and
other female faculty members to what she called “weird pseudo-sexual comments.”
Although the administration had taken some action to curb his behavior, she
said that it did not cease until he left the university in the 2017–18 academic
year, requiring her to file additional complaints. She said that the new dean,
Dr. Ballard, had made disparaging comments to her about her complaints and that
led her to believe that the dean perceived her as a troublemaker and therefore
a candidate for nonrenewal.
She also said that, despite
the administration’s invocation of financial constraints, all full-time faculty
members received 2 percent across-the-board raises in the 2017–18 academic
year; that enrollment in her classes had been good; and that, in fact, the
courses normally assigned to her were being taught by others in fall 2018. She
further informed the staff that she had originally been scheduled to stand for
tenure in the 2017–18 academic year (pursuant to the university’s tenure
policy) but that the dean had prevented her from doing so.
The AAUP’s staff informed
Professor Peterson that, under AAUP-recommended standards, a tenure-track
professor notified of nonrenewal in the fifth year of appointment was entitled
to written reasons for the decision, the opportunity to appeal the decision to
an elected faculty body, and at least a year of notice. The final two of the
six AAUP letters to the SEU administration regarding the case of Professors
Butler and Weisgerber introduced the case of Professor Peterson as an
additional matter of Association concern.
IV. The Association’s
Involvement
The AAUP’s staff wrote
President Martin on February 1, 2018, to communicate the AAUP’s concerns in the
case of Professors Butler and Weisgerber. The staff’s letter summarized what
the AAUP considers to be the basic elements of academic due process. The
staff’s letter also conveyed specific concerns regarding issues of academic
freedom evidently posed by the case, stressing that academic freedom, as widely
understood in American higher education, included the right to express
dissenting and critical views regarding one’s institution, its policies, and
its administration. In closing, the letter urged the immediate rescission of
the action against the two faculty members, adding that if the administration
still intended to effect their dismissals, it should afford them the
AAUP-recommended procedures outlined in the staff’s letter, noting that the
faculty manual’s silence regarding a particular procedure was not tantamount to
its prohibition.
In a two-sentence reply of
February 12, President Martin informed the staff that the administration would
be following the procedures set down in the faculty manual. Responding on
February 27, the AAUP’s staff emphasized that those procedures were “severely
deficient relative to normative standards of academic due process” and again
summarized for the president the basic elements of that process. After pointing
out that the president’s letter did not dispute the facts as presented in the
staff’s initial letter, the staff again urged the administration to afford the
two professors hearing procedures that comported with widely accepted academic
standards governing dismissal for cause.
On April 13, having learned
that the Faculty Review Committee had sustained the administration’s decision
to terminate Professor Butler’s and Professor Weisgerber’s appointments and
that the only recourse left to them was an appeal to the governing board, the
AAUP’s staff addressed a letter to Mr. Graham “Hughes” Abell, chair of the
board of trustees. After enumerating the serious procedural deficiencies that
had marred the appeal process, the staff urged the board to afford Professors
Butler and Weisgerber a hearing consistent with Regulation 6 (“Action by the
Governing Board”) of the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic
Freedom and Tenure. In such a hearing they would “be presented with specific
charges, could hear the specific evidence against them, [could] confront their
accusers, and [could] rebut the charges.” The burden of demonstrating adequate
cause, the staff further urged, should rest with the administration. The
staff’s letter concluded, “Given the severity of the departures from
AAUP-supported standards thus far evident in this case and the apparent
implications for academic freedom, the AAUP’s staff would be strongly inclined
to recommend . . . for formal investigation, absent a resolution that
reasonably comports with normative academic standards. In the meantime, we
would be more than willing to assist in achieving such a resolution.”
Having heard nothing further
from the administration or the governing board and having learned of the May 14
decision of the board’s Institutional Oversight and Academic Affairs Committee
to sustain the dismissals, the AAUP’s staff wrote President Martin on May 30 to
inform him that the AAUP’s executive director had authorized this
investigation. The letter also informed the president that the investigating
committee would be inquiring into the case of Professor Peterson, who, the
letter stated, “has advised us that she received notice on December 11 of the
nonrenewal of her appointment and was afforded no opportunity to contest the
decision with a faculty review body.”
This letter elicited a June 12
email reply from President Martin stating that the university’s dismissal
policy “was proposed by the St. Edward’s University faculty, approved by the
university’s Board of Trustees, and included in the university’s Faculty
Manual in 1989.” The process, he added, is “fair,” “includes independent
review by a faculty committee,” “comports with principles of shared
governance,” and, “of course, . . . honors the policy on Academic Freedom
included in [the] Faculty Manual.” In its June 13 response, the AAUP’s
staff emphasized the Association’s long-standing practice of opposing the
imposition of policies and procedures that disregard Association standards,
regardless of the degree of faculty involvement in their adoption.
With regard to the president’s
assertion that the institution honors principles of academic freedom, the staff
wrote, “Our investigating committee will doubtless wish to hear more from you
on that subject.” After informing the president of the names of the members of
the investigating committee and the dates of the investigation, the staff’s letter
closed by noting that the morning of the first day of the committee’s visit had
been set aside for a meeting with the administration.
Responding on July 3,
President Martin wrote, “On behalf of the University, I must respectfully
decline your request to meet with administrative officers of the University.”
Reiterating the points made in his previous letter, he stated that the staff’s
response “discounted the relevance of the University’s standards and system of
shared governance to the AAUP investigation.” “In light of your position,” he
concluded, “and the fact that the University does not consider it appropriate
to discuss individual employment matters, I do not believe a meeting would be
fruitful.” In its reply of July 10, the Association’s staff urged President
Martin to reconsider, stressing that the “investigating committee will wish to
hear from [him] and [his] administrative colleagues in person” regarding his
stated position that the actions against the three professors comported with
principles of academic freedom and shared governance. President Martin did not
respond.
During its visit to Austin on
August 3 and 4, the undersigned committee interviewed fifteen current and
former SEU faculty members. Prior to its visit, the committee had received
unsolicited letters regarding the cases from three St. Edward’s faculty
members. Subsequent to its visit, the committee chair, acting on behalf of the
committee, contacted ten additional individuals, including seven administrative
officers, by email to invite them to provide answers to specific questions that
emerged during the interviews as well as to submit “any [general] statement”
they “might wish to make” regarding the cases of Professors Butler, Weisgerber,
and Peterson. Ms. Van Savage did not respond. Mr. Abell, Sister Donna, Dr.
Ballard, Dr. Nell, and Dr. Bautch each acknowledged receipt of the chair’s
message but declined to answer any questions. The only substantive responses
came from President Martin, the faculty senate president, and two of Professor
Peterson’s colleagues in the School of Human Development and Education.
V. The Issues of Concern
The sections that follow
address procedural and substantive issues in the case of Professors Butler and
Weisgerber, procedural and substantive issues in the case of Professor
Peterson, academic freedom concerns in the cases of all three professors, the climate
for academic freedom, and the climate for academic governance.
A. Procedural and Substantive
Concerns in the Case of Professors Butler and Weisgerber
Under AAUP-recommended
standards, a tenured faculty member can be dismissed for cause only following an
adjudicative hearing of record before a duly constituted faculty body in which
the burden of demonstrating adequate cause rests with the administration. These
procedural standards are set forth in the 1940 Statement of Principles on
Academic Freedom and Tenure, the complementary 1958 Statement on
Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings, and, more elaborately,
in Regulations 5 and 6 of the AAUP’s Recommended Institutional Regulations
on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Among these standards the following are the
most basic:
Adequate cause for a dismissal
will be related, directly and substantially, to the fitness of faculty members
in their professional capacities as teachers or researchers.
A dismissal . . . will be
preceded by a statement of charges, and the individual concerned will have the
right to be heard initially by the elected faculty hearing committee.
During the proceedings the
faculty member will be permitted to have an academic adviser and counsel of the
faculty member’s choice.
A verbatim record of the
hearing or hearings will be taken, and a copy will be made available to the
faculty member.
The burden of proof that
adequate cause exists rests with the institution and will be satisfied only by
clear and convincing evidence in the record considered as a whole.
The faculty member and the
administration will have the right to confront and cross-examine all witnesses.
If dismissal or other severe
sanction is recommended, . . . the governing board . . . will provide
opportunity for argument, written or oral or both, by the principals at the
hearing or by their representatives.
In his correspondence with the
AAUP’s staff and the investigating committee, President Martin has never
asserted that his administration afforded Professors Butler and Weisgerber
these procedural rights. He has instead insisted on the appropriateness of
following the dismissal policy in the institution’s faculty manual. That
policy, however, is highly deficient relative to the above-cited standards, as
the AAUP’s staff repeatedly pointed out to him. Instead of affording faculty
members a hearing prior to dismissal, the SEU dismissal policy allows
for faculty members to be dismissed without any procedure and, if they wish, to
file an appeal of their already effective dismissals. Instead of assigning the
responsibility for demonstrating adequate cause for dismissal to the
administration, the appeal process requires faculty members to assume the
burden of proving that the action against them involved “unlawful bias,
arbitrary or capricious decision-making or a violation of procedures required
by this Faculty Manual,” a high bar indeed to have to surpass. Instead of a
faculty-elected body conducting a hearing, an “ad hoc Faculty Review Committee”
formed in part by the president reviews the written appeals. The faculty manual
is silent on such key standards as the necessity of relating cause to
professional fitness, the requirement of a specific statement of charges, and
the right to call and confront witnesses.
In an email message to the
chair of this investigating committee, President Martin defended the reliance
on the institution’s severely inadequate dismissal policy as follows: “As I
have stated in earlier correspondence with [the AAUP’s staff], the decisions
regarding Professors Shannan Butler, Corrine Weisgerber, and Katie Peterson
accord with the policies of the St. Edward's faculty manual. The policies are
fair, long-standing (since 1989), originated as a proposal of the Faculty Senate
approved by the Board of Trustees, and comport with the principles of shared
governance.”
With respect to the
president’s assertion that the policies in question were in part the product of
faculty governance, the investigating committee would point out that whether
the AAUP intervenes in a case depends entirely on whether the actions evident
in the case depart from core Association-supported principles and standards.
That the institution’s faculty may have, for whatever reasons, been complicit
in the adoption of policies and procedures that disregard those principles and
standards is unfortunate but largely irrelevant. As noted in the 1980 report of
an investigation at Olivet College,
the Association, with its
longstanding interest in the implementation of a widely accepted body of
academic common law, does not refrain from interest in a particular case merely
because a faculty, when it has been effectively denied free choice or when it
has taken a perhaps mistaken or narrowly prudential view of its own immediate
welfare, has acquiesced in the imposition of policies and procedures which do
not conform to Association standards. The Association does not acquiesce in the
internal procedures of an institution when those procedures contravene
Association standards. Nor, indeed, is the Association's primary obligation to
the interests of the affected faculty member. Its responsibility lies first and
foremost in the defense of standards of academic freedom and tenure which it
has been chiefly responsible for promulgating over half a century, a period in
which those standards have been incorporated into the regulations and
prevailing practices of colleges and universities across the country.
In addition to rejecting the
notion that faculty participation in formulating policies should inoculate
those policies against AAUP intervention, the investigating committee rejects
the president’s assertion that the decisions to dismiss Professors Butler and
Weisgerber “accord with the policies of the St. Edward’s Faculty Manual.”
We base this conclusion on the evidence from Professor Butler’s and Professor
Weisgerber’s appeal documents presented earlier in this report. To repeat one
example, neither Professor Butler nor Professor Weisgerber was “given a
performance improvement plan and two years to correct any deficiencies before
termination is considered,” as is required for tenured faculty members under
section 2.5.6.2 of the faculty manual. To repeat another, Dean Nell’s insertion
of a page of new material into Professor Butler’s and Professor Weisgerber’s
reviews, without the knowledge of the faculty members, violated section 2.5.4.5
of the faculty manual requiring the dean’s evaluation to “be forwarded to the
faculty member.”
The committee also rejects
President Martin’s characterization of the university’s processes and policies
as “fair,” since they enabled the following to take place: two tenured faculty
members were, without warning, summarily removed from their positions and
banned from campus; the unsubstantiated allegations against them were leveled
in writing by the provost, who was not in attendance at any of the meetings
referenced in the letters; the faculty members were not afforded academic
advisers or counsel, did not have the right to confront or cross-examine witnesses,
and bore the burden of proving that adequate cause did not exist; no record of
the Faculty Review Committee, the membership of which remains a secret, was
made available to them (or, to the investigating committee’s knowledge,
actually exists); and, ultimately, the faculty members were summarily dismissed
for reasons entirely unrelated to their fitness as teachers and researchers.
This process cannot, by any measure, be characterized as “fair.”
In light of the foregoing
analysis, which is based on the voluminous information cited in previous
sections of this report—including the two professors’ detailed and
comprehensive appeal documents—the investigating committee concludes that the
administration violated multiple university policies in dismissing Professors
Butler and Weisgerber. The committee, furthermore, concurs in the professors’
criticisms of the process. Neither of them was afforded even the full extent of
the severely deficient procedural protections required by the faculty manual,
let alone those recommended by the AAUP. In the absence of a single piece of
firsthand evidence in support of any of the claims made against them in their
termination letters—including the allegation that they manifested antagonism
toward the university’s mission—the committee finds that Professors Butler and
Weisgerber were treated arbitrarily and capriciously. It further judges the
administration’s stated grounds for the faculty members’ dismissal to be
grossly inadequate, especially in view of the professors’ claim that Sister
Donna told them, in the termination meeting, that “no one was calling into
question [their] performance as teachers or researchers.” Finally, and most
relevant to the purpose of this investigation, the action against Professors
Butler and Weisgerber flagrantly disregarded the procedural standards set forth
in the 1940 Statement of Principles and derivative AAUP documents.
B. Procedural and Substantive
Concerns in the Case of Professor Peterson
AAUP-supported standards
governing procedures related to the nonrenewal of tenure-track appointments are
set forth in Regulations 2c, 2e, 2f, 2g, and 10 of the Recommended
Institutional Regulations. Under Regulation 2c, full-time faculty members in
their fifth year of service (as Professor Peterson was) are entitled to twelve
months of notice—in other words, a “terminal year” in which to seek another
appointment. Regulations 2e and 2f specify that faculty members notified of the
nonrenewal of their appointments “will be informed of that decision in writing
by the body or individual making the decision” and will have the right to a
written statement of the reasons for the decision, if requested. Regulation 2g
affords affected faculty members the right to ask an elected faculty committee
to review the nonrenewal decision if the faculty members allege that it
resulted from a lack of “adequate consideration.”4 Under
Regulation 10, if faculty members allege that the nonrenewal decision was based
on considerations that violated their academic freedom, they are entitled to
review by an elected faculty body, and, if they can make a prima facie case of
an academic freedom violation, to an adjudicative proceeding before a faculty
hearing body, in which the burden of proof rests with those who made the
nonrenewal decision.
The relevant provisions in
section 2.8.3 (“Non-reappointment of Probationary Faculty”) of the SEU faculty
manual are terribly inadequate compared to these standards. For one, they made
it possible for Professor Peterson to be notified of her nonrenewal merely five
months before her position would “conclude,” rather than to be afforded the
terminal year to which she was entitled under AAUP-supported standards. In
addition, they do not require an explanation—in writing or otherwise—of the
reasons for a nonrenewal decision in cases involving faculty members with fewer
than five years of service to the university. Finally, the appeal option
afforded tenure-track faculty members is the same as that afforded tenured
faculty members, with the single difference that, in cases of nonreappointment,
there can be no further appeal to the governing board. In other words, at St.
Edward’s a probationary faculty member notified of nonreappointment has only
two rights: to a simple written notice of nonrenewal and to an appeal (through
the president) to a three-person ad hoc Faculty Review Committee, one member of
which is appointed by the president.
Because the university’s
policies are so deficient in relation to AAUP-recommended standards, it gives
the committee no comfort that the administration adhered to them in its action
against Professor Peterson. To the contrary, the committee finds it deeply troubling
that a tenure-track faculty member at SEU can be afforded even fewer procedural
rights than what Professor Peterson was afforded, in that nothing in the
faculty manual stipulates that she had to be given the reasons for her
nonrenewal. Under SEU’s remarkably inadequate procedures, tenure-track faculty
members come awfully close, in the committee’s judgment, to being at-will
employees.
The reason Professor Peterson
was in fact given for her nonreappointment also raises substantive concerns
about her case. As noted earlier, Professor Peterson’s notice of nonrenewal
cited “current efforts to ‘right size’ the university,” and she informed the
AAUP’s staff that, in the meeting in which she was handed her nonrenewal
letter, she was told by Sister Donna that “financial exigency” was the reason
for her nonrenewal. Yet the nonrenewal letter cites the action as having been
made pursuant to section 2.8.3 of the faculty manual (“Non-reappointment of
Probationary Faculty”) and does not cite the university’s financial
exigency policy (section 2.8.7.2). As far as the committee is aware, the
governing board had not declared that the university was in a condition of
financial exigency, nor had the administration followed any of the other steps
outlined in the faculty manual that are supposed to precede terminations and
nonrenewals because of financial exigency, much less the policies and
procedures recommended by the AAUP in Regulation 4c (Financial Exigency) of
the Recommended Institutional Regulations.
C. Academic Freedom Concerns
in the Cases of All Three Professors
In light of the foregoing
analysis, the committee is left to wonder about the real reasons not only for
Professor Peterson’s nonrenewal but also for the dismissals of Professor Butler
and Professor Weisgerber. The available evidence immediately points to at least
one common element among the cases: the three faculty members’ criticism of
administrative decisions and actions.
One interviewee confirmed this
characteristic of Professors Butler and Weisgerber: “They’re seen as squeaky
wheels—first in line to complain when things are bad.” This person quickly
added, “But that’s no reason to get rid of faculty, especially tenured
faculty.” The committee concurs. As the Association’s 1994 statement On
the Relationship of Faculty Governance to Academic Freedom points out,
“[T]he academic freedom of faculty members includes the freedom to express
their views (1) on academic matters in the classroom and in the conduct of
research, (2) on matters having to do with their institution and its
policies, and (3) on issues of public interest generally, and to do so even if
their views are in conflict with one or another received wisdom” (emphasis
added).
The investigating committee
concludes, based on the totality of the evidence, that what the administration
deemed “misconduct” on the part of Professors Butler and Weisgerber was nothing
more than persistent and conscientious questioning of administrative decisions.
The language in their dismissal letters is revelatory: the two professors’
“manner . . . was disrespectful of university decisions,” they conducted “a
campaign of disruption and disrespect for university decisions,” and their
administrative superiors had directed them to “move forward in a manner which
was respectful of university decisions.” From the committee’s perspective,
“university” appears to have been synonymous with “administration.”
An interviewee stated the
following: “When you have faculty members who are strong and will ask a
question at a meeting, not attacking, but just asking why we’re doing
something, those are the folks I’ve seen leave [the institution].” Although
this person was not describing Professors Butler and Weisgerber, the committee
believes the description fits them. The available evidence forces us to the
conclusion that, in direct contravention of Regulation 5, the dismissals of
Professors Butler and Weisgerber were “used to restrain [these] faculty members
in their exercise of academic freedom,” specifically on matters having to do
with the university and its policies.
In addition, the available
evidence indicates that Professor Peterson’s nonrenewal was used as a means to
the same end. As already indicated, Professor Peterson questioned the reason
provided for her nonreappointment. In a May 11 email message to the AAUP’s
staff, she provided the following chronology to support her belief that other
unacknowledged factors may have played a role:
October 2015: The associate
dean made inappropriate comments about my body in front of the chair at the
time. He also gave me a lollipop and leered at me as I unwrapped it and put it
in my mouth. On another occasion he offered me candy and said, “You can have
some of my sugar any time.” The incidents involving me sparked an HR investigation
where several other women came forward. HR informed me that they told the
associate dean not to hand out candy any more.
Spring 2016: The associate
dean requested to be placed on the School Committee, which was an organization
in the School of Education charged with evaluating faculty files. I asked that
he be removed from that committee, which he was.
Two Weeks Later: I found that
all faculty in the School of Ed. had lollipops taped to notes that said “Happy
Teacher Appreciation Day.” I received one of two notes that was printed in
color and noted that the lollipop in my box was the only one that was wet (had
been unwrapped and re-wrapped—was oozing sticky goop). I have pictures of all
of this. After this the associate dean was removed from his position and his
office was moved across campus. However, he still taught in the same building
as I and continued to use proximity threats and bullying techniques to threaten
and intimidate me, including sitting outside of my office waiting to go into HR
when there was an open waiting area inside. This continued until he retired in
Spring 2017.
In the fall of 2016 the new
dean [Dr. Ballard] started. The former associate dean took her to lunch. Dean
Ballard reported later to me that over lunch he had explained that he was “not
a bad guy” and that she had told him that “little girls” from this generation
didn’t have to deal with that kind of behavior. But she generally dismissed the
idea that there was even an issue.
May 2017: I asked my dean to
sign paperwork so that I could go up for tenure and promotion.
August 2017: My dean told me
that she’d lost the paperwork and “dropped the ball” and that I could go up the
following year.
Fall of 2017: The dean gave me
a lower rating than what was deserved on my performance evaluation. She later
admitted that she was wrong about the score, but said that she’d “prayed about
it” and that she wasn’t going to change it.
Also, Fall 2017: The dean
rehired the former associate dean to do administrative work in an admin’s
office while she was out of the office. In that role, he had access to keys and
files. I requested that he not be allowed back into that kind of role.
December 2017: I was told that
my contract wouldn’t be renewed due to financial exigency with no right to
appeal.
The investigating committee
confirmed this chronology of events, both in person with Professor Peterson and
through a thorough review of relevant documentation, including email messages,
screen shots, and pictures.
The timeline above suggests a
prima facie case that the decision not to renew Professor Peterson’s
appointment was based on considerations that violated her academic freedom.
Specifically, the committee deems it credible that Professor Peterson’s
resistance to alleged harassment on the part of an associate dean led Dean
Ballard to perceive her as a troublemaker and therefore a candidate for
removal. Professor Peterson’s colleagues in the School of Human Development and
Education—one of whom witnessed the associate dean’s inappropriate
conduct—confirmed this view. One informed the committee, “I do think the dean’s
deteriorated relationship with Dr. Peterson made it far easier to take the
easiest way out in terms of reducing faculty size—fire her based on
seniority/probationary status.”
D. Climate for Academic
Freedom and Tenure
According to faculty sources,
the climate for academic freedom at St. Edward’s has been deteriorating for a
number of years and now appears to be at its lowest point. It is characterized,
above all else, by fear.
One longtime faculty member
volunteered the following as we settled in for the interview: “I was scared to
come here today. When I got out of the car in the parking lot, I literally
looked over my shoulders to see who might see me.”5 Fear
was a disturbingly common theme during the committee’s interviews. When asked
about the climate for academic freedom at SEU, Professor Peterson, for example,
replied without hesitation: “Fear. If you go to HR it’s like a death sentence.
Fear. And just anger. People are angry about what happened. People came up to
me all spring and they were angry. And they said, ‘Message received.’” Later in
the interview, she said, “I think everybody’s afraid of President Martin, and I
think everybody was afraid of [Sister] Donna.”
Another longtime faculty
member, when asked about the climate for academic freedom at SEU, offered this:
“It’s become phenomenally more problematic. I have been shocked at the actual,
real fear that has been manifested even by long-standing faculty over the last
five years. I would say the last five years have seen a noticeable decline [in
the climate for academic freedom].” This person added that there is a “palpable”
feeling of “menace” on campus, “in terms of anything an administrator might
perceive as criticism of the university.” Another veteran faculty member took a
longer view of the problematic climate for academic freedom: “The poor climate
predates me. Today, in this room, is the first time this university has been
held to account in twenty-five years. Period. That’s the level of fear and
intimidation at this school.”
The expression of fear became
so common that the members of the committee began asking interviewees whether
they felt safe in meeting with us. One long-serving faculty member answered
indirectly: “I have an exit strategy. I want to be around for five more years
and then retire. After what happened to Corinne and Shannan, I was terrified. .
. . I’m so sick and tired of the whole hypocrisy of being at a university whose
mission is social justice. This has been going on for a long time.”
In an attempt to probe further
into the conditions for academic freedom at SEU, the committee explored with
interviewees the meaning of tenure at the university. Here, the responses were
also uniform. One faculty member put it plainly: “Tenure is a joke. It’s a
joke. It really is.” Multiple interviewees asserted that “tenure doesn’t mean
anything” at St. Edward’s.
This apparently widespread
belief is likely the reason no one volunteered the view that the security of
tenure at SEU had been weakened by the summary dismissals of two tenured
faculty members. Tenure at SEU—such as it is—evidently did not mean much before Professors
Butler and Weisgerber were dismissed. One faculty member explained why:
“Functionally, you can continue working at SEU in a faculty position without
going up for tenure, so it doesn’t have the force of necessity if you want to
maintain your position that it does at most other universities. So, in that
sense maybe the effect of [tenure] is a little weaker than it would be
elsewhere.” As another interviewee explained, SEU lacks an “up or out” system
in which a faculty member, after a probationary period, is either granted
tenure or receives a terminal appointment. This person said, “Tenure is not
tenure at SEU. Tenure is not up or out. It’s voluntary; it’s basically a
promotion between associate and full professor. It doesn’t come with the
guarantees of tenure, like the academic freedom component [or] the extra bar
for having to give reasons for dismissal . . . [T]he only thing [tenure]
affords you is a bump in pay—a pretty small one. It’s not the tenure in the
Redbook for sure.” Another interviewee explained that Sister Donna often
remarked to faculty members that St. Edward’s has a “de facto system” of
tenure. In light of the circumstances of Professor Butler’s and Professor
Weisgerber’s summary dismissals, the committee questions the existence even of
de facto tenure at the university, let alone a tenure system consistent with
the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
The security of tenure is all
the more important at an institution like St. Edward’s, which interviewees
described as having a “toxic” or “hostile” environment. Regrettably, the
university’s virtually nonexistent tenure system does not provide such
security. The result is an abysmal climate for the exercise of academic
freedom, particularly in the course of participation in institutional
governance.
E. Climate for Faculty
Governance
Measured against the
principles set forth in the AAUP’s Statement on Government of Colleges and
Universities, the current climate for faculty governance at St. Edward’s is
dreadful. Several faculty members provided the committee with historical
context. One put it this way: “This used to be a faculty-governed university.
It is not anymore. The faculty senate is a shadow of what it was thirty years
ago.” Another asserted that “faculty governance is captive to the
administration,” adding that “long-standing senior faculty feel the heat of the
administration on their back.” A third faculty member simply told the
committee: “There’s no shared governance. None. Nada.” A fourth explained that
“SEU is a command and control organization. It goes from the board on down.
Faculty governance plays a 5 percent role—de minimis.” The very real result of
this common perception is that fewer and fewer faculty members are involved in
governance. As an interviewee said, “I just put my head down and do my job.”
One faculty member offered to
the committee that “shared governance is not so much shared anymore. It’s more
top-down. And it’s partly faculty’s fault. The senate is very weak.” Regarding
the role of the senate, or “collegium,” specifically, another faculty member
reported that “the collegium is totally captive to [the] administration.” Yet
another, when asked about the reputation of the senate, said, “It doesn’t enjoy
a whole lot of respect and never did from the administration.” A current member
of the senate observed that “we’re supposed to represent the faculty’s
interest. We haven’t discussed anything of substance regarding due process at
all. [We’re told by the administration,] ‘No, we can’t talk about that
[because] it’s confidential.’ It’s this culture of conformity, compliance, just
go along to get along.” This interviewee also pointed out that the senate
executive committee is under no obligation to inform the senate of the
membership of the Faculty Review Committee—an example, in this person’s view,
of a lack of accountability on the part of the faculty’s elected leaders. A
former president of the senate also expressed frustration over the relationship
between the senate and the administration: “We’d pass a lot of stuff
unanimously in the senate and it would go up [to the administration] and then
disappear. No answers.”
A faculty senate that is
weak—either in perception or in reality—is not the only factor that has
evidently contributed to the erosion of faculty governance at St. Edward’s. The
school deans represent another. Like many other small private colleges and
universities, SEU has seen a shift over the last several decades from academic
deans who came from the faculty to deans who were hired from another
institution. One longtime faculty member explained that SEU’s deans “arrived
with little knowledge of the institution, little if any allegiance to the
faculty, and little willingness to stay the course.” Another asserted that “new
deans were hired to clean house and get rid of any faculty members who
questioned decisions, questioned authority, stood up to the new rules of
faculty participation.” The result, this person continued, was that “we’ve
dropped like flies.” The high degree of turnover among the academic deans has
wreaked havoc on faculty governance. One faculty member with whom we spoke had
participated in nine dean searches and described the situation over the last
decade as “longevity at the top [with President Martin and Sister Donna] and
musical chairs below.” The “inevitable result,” this person went on, is
“constant turmoil.”
Faculty members interviewed by
the investigating committee reported that senior-level administrators and the
governing board have also been impediments to faculty governance, at least
since 2013. The committee learned of unilateral program and school closures by
the administration, unexplained vetoes of faculty senate legislation, and
dismissals of faculty members other than the three who are the subject of this
report, all during the last five years. The president, according to all the
people with whom we spoke about him, is “disconnected” from the faculty, to use
a term we heard repeatedly. Our interviewees were unanimous in the perception
that President Martin left his chief academic officers to “run the show.” When
asked about the relationship between the president and the faculty, another
interviewee said, “There’s a gap. It’s a distance. [President Martin] is very
remote. I’ve never seen a college president more remote from the faculty than
George. He’s on the surface very friendly, very affable, but questions have to
be written in advance, and he has to approve them.” The latter observation was
in reference to President Martin’s once-a-year visit with the faculty, before
which questions need to be submitted to him and approved by him; many
interviewees pointed to this particular practice as both inconsistent with
traditional shared governance at SEU and insulting to the faculty.
It was clear to the committee
that St. Edward’s, like so many other small institutions, has seen a great deal
of structural and cultural change over a relatively short period of time.
Equally clear was that much of the change has been driven by the administration
and that a large segment of the faculty feels that its voice has not mattered.
The administration’s recent actions against three respected and dedicated
faculty members have only made the relationship between the administration and
the faculty significantly worse, for they further alienated the faculty from
the institution so many of them told the committee they “used to love.” As one
faculty member lamented, “This place has lost its soul, and I feel like I’m
losing mine.”
VI. Conclusions
1. In dismissing
Professor Butler and Professor Weisgerber, the administration of St. Edward’s
University violated basic tenets of the joint 1940 Statement of Principles
on Academic Freedom and Tenure and derivative procedural standards set
forth in the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and
Tenure. In so doing, the administration also violated policies contained in the
university’s faculty manual.
2. The dismissals
of Professor Butler and Professor Weisgerber appear to have been the direct
result of their persistent outspokenness about administrative decisions and actions,
both in their department and at the school and university levels. Absent
affordance of a faculty hearing consistent with Regulation 5 of the Recommended
Institutional Regulations, the claim that their dismissals were effected for
impermissible reasons remains unrebutted.
3. In not renewing
the tenure-track appointment of Professor Peterson, the administration followed
the university’s policies as set forth in the faculty manual. However, these
policies are so egregiously deficient when compared with Regulation 2 of
the Recommended Institutional Regulations that all tenure-track
faculty members at St. Edward’s are vulnerable to the same type of unilateral
and arbitrary administrative action as that taken against Professor Peterson.
4. Professor
Peterson has credibly alleged that the decision not to renew her appointment
was, to an extent, the consequence of her having lodged complaints of sexual
harassment against an associate dean and thus based on considerations that
violated her academic freedom. Since she was not afforded an opportunity to
contest the nonrenewal decision through a procedure consistent with Regulation
10 of the Recommended Institutional Regulations, that allegation stands
unrefuted.
5. Current
conditions for both academic freedom and faculty governance at St. Edward’s
University are abysmal. The administration’s heavy-handedness, the university’s
so-called de facto tenure system, and the faculty senate’s weakness, among
other factors, have combined to create widespread fear and demoralization among
the faculty.6
Michael DeCesare (Sociology)
Merrimack College, chair
Merrimack College, chair
Allison Buskirk-Cohen (Psychology)
Delaware Valley University
Delaware Valley University
Mark Criley (Philosophy)
Illinois Wesleyan University
Illinois Wesleyan University
Investigating Committee
Committee A on Academic
Freedom and Tenure has by vote authorized publication of this report on the
AAUP website and in the Bulletin of the American Association of University
Professors.
Chair: HENRY REICHMAN (History),
California State University, East Bay
Members: JEFFREY A.
HALPERN (Sociology), Rider University; EMILY M. S. HOUH (Law),
University of Cincinnati; IBRAM X. KENDI (History and International
Relations), American University; MICHAEL E. MANN (Meteorology),
Pennsylvania State University; MICHAEL MERANZE (History), University
of California, Los Angeles; WALTER BENN MICHAELS (English), University
of Illinois at Chicago; ROBERT C. POST (Law), Yale University; JENNIFER
H. RUTH (Film Studies), Portland State University; JOAN WALLACH SCOTT (History),
Institute for Advanced Study; DONNA YOUNG (Law), Albany Law
School; RUDY H. FICHTENBAUM (Economics), Wright State
University, ex officio; RISA L. LIEBERWITZ (Law), Cornell
University, ex officio; JULIE M. SCHMID (English), AAUP
Washington Office, ex officio; IRENE T. MULVEY (Mathematics),
Fairfield University, liaison from the Assembly of State Conferences
1. The
text of this report was written in the first instance by the members of the
investigating committee. In accordance with Association practice, the text was
then edited by the staff and, as revised with the concurrence of the committee,
was submitted to Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. With the approval
of Committee A, the report was subsequently sent to the faculty members at
whose request the investigation was conducted, the administration and governing
board of St. Edward’s University, and other persons directly concerned. The
final report has been prepared for publication in light of the responses
received and with the editorial assistance of the staff.
2. The
undersigned committee learned in the course of its investigation that human resources
office staff interviewed only a few members of the department regarding what
transpired at the December 8 meeting.
3. The
investigating committee asked multiple interviewees about the three members of
the Faculty Review Committee. No one could name a single member. In writing to
the president of the faculty senate afterward, the committee chair asked the
following: “Your July 30 letter also describes the process by which the Senate
Executive Committee, under your leadership, selected two of the three members
of the Faculty Review Committee that considered Professor Butler’s and
Professor Weisgerber’s appeals. At the time of this writing, the membership of
the Faculty Review Committee remains unknown to the investigating committee as
well as to Professors Butler and Weisgerber. Could you provide us with the
names of the faculty who served, and inform us of the chair of the
committee? We do not intend to contact any of them; we simply wish to
complete the factual record” (emphasis added). The senate chair declined to
divulge the committee’s membership, explaining that she had “committed to
keeping these names confidential and to protecting the anonymity of the two
committee members we selected.” It is worth noting that there is no provision
in the faculty manual requiring confidentiality or anonymity regarding the
Faculty Review Committee’s membership.
4. According
to the AAUP’s Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or
Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments, adequate consideration in a reappointment
or tenure review “refers essentially to procedural rather than substantive
issues: Was the decision conscientiously arrived at? Was all available evidence
bearing on the relevant performance of the candidate sought out and considered?
Was there adequate deliberation by the department over the import of the
evidence in light of the relevant standards? Were irrelevant and improper
standards excluded from consideration? Was the decision a bona fide exercise of
professional academic judgment?”
5. It
is worth noting that the interviews were held off campus in a hotel conference
room.
6. President
Martin, along with the other administrative officers named in this report and
the present and immediate past chair of the university’s board of trustees,
received a draft text of the report with an invitation for corrections and
comments. None of these individuals accepted this invitation. On September 21,
the deadline for submitting a response, President Martin did, however, post the
following statement, titled “AAUP update,” on his Facebook Workplace page: “As
some of you know, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has
circulated a draft report in response to their August 3–4th visit to review the
complaints of Professors Butler, Weisgerber, and Peterson. The content of the
draft letter [sic] is disappointing, but I will withhold judgment or response
until the final report is published. You can be assured that when the final
report becomes public, I will share a response with the university community.”
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