Volume 6 Number 2 Spring 1995

SPRING MEETING May 23, 1995 4 pm

Eagle's Nest North, Haley Center

Featured Speaker: Kent Fields, Chair, University Senate
PRESIDENT'S NOTES:
by Joe Renden

The success of the United States compared with other countries is due to the freedoms provided to its citizens that insure liberty and individual dignity. Democracy requires intellectual freedom. Thomas Jefferson said, "if a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." The achievements of the American university have been the result of academic freedom--the right to discuss, debate, and test conventional wisdom. Academic freedom is the source of the university's intellectual vitality and provides immunity from intellectual conformity. Like other rights and privileges, academic freedom cannot be taken for granted, and it must be constantly nourished and defended. Diversity of opinion is a valued element of academic freedom and is vital for effective scholarship, teaching, and learning. Restrictions on academic freedom can lead to teaching and research marked by timidity and stagnation of learning and inquiry. The faculty must stand ready to act with speed and certainty when intellectual liberty is threatened.

The idea of tenure is to protect academic freedom and to provide a degree of economic security to attract and retain quality individuals. Tenure was never intended to provide employment for life, but to provide some measure of economic security. Many academicians have an aversion to economic risk. Without tenure, universities would have to provide higher salaries to attract the same quality and quantity of new assistant professors. Ninety-nine percent of all research universities award tenure because it is the least costly means of attracting and retaining qualified professors.

In the last several months, however, tenure has been under attack. The Washington Post (January 11, 1995) ran an editorial questioning the continued need for tenure; the CBS program Sixty Minutes (February 26, 1995) referred to tenure as lifetime job security; legislation has been introduced (March 1995) in South Carolina to eliminate tenure in the state's public colleges; and the American Association for Higher Education has started a two-year project titled "New Pathways: Faculty Careers and Employment in the 21st Century" to examine alternatives and modifications to tenure. As a member of the academy, it would be hypocritical for me to suggest that tenure is beyond debate. Tenure, like any other idea in the intellectual marketplace, should be periodically questioned, challenged, and reevaluated. Examination of the status quo does not necessarily mean its rejection. If an idea or belief has merit, questioning its value will strengthen its acceptance.

Yet most of the driving force behind the recent questioning of tenure is budgetary, with financial constraints being faced by higher education throughout the country. The university's current funding problems are compounded by the removal of mandatory retirement, which in the past dictated regular turnover of senior faculty and hiring of young assistant professors at supposedly lower salaries. Salary compression has added to this problem, and looming in the background is equitable funding for female faculty members. Attacks on tenure are misdirected. Is tenure being used as an excuse or is it the reason for current difficulties in higher education?

There is increasing demand for post-tenure review, the charge being made that tenure allows the accumulation of deadwood in the university. Tenure is a conditional continuing contract, not an invulnerable shield for incompetency. If there is deadwood in the university it is because we have not been honest in our evaluation of probationary faculty members during the promotion and tenure review process, we have not taken needed steps for termination of tenured faculty members for due cause, or we have not provided assistance for improving or retraining older faculty members. If there is deadwood, corrective measures already exist in the university for its removal.

The terminology of post-tenure review has a deliberate negative connotation. At Auburn University, all faculty members undergo annual evaluation, and graduate faculty members are evaluated every seven years. Every time we submit a manuscript for publication, our research is evaluated. Every year, and in many instances in every course, our teaching is evaluated. Our academic programs periodically undergo external evaluation, and the university is reaccredited every 10 years. Departments and colleges at Auburn are currently being evaluated and ranked. Academicians are the most evaluated professional group in this country. Why not, instead, introduce a program of post- tenure development? Associating tenure with performance evaluation is inappropriate to the purpose of tenure. What may be at issue is the continued protection of academic freedom.

The majority of our society is slow to accept change or challenges to its basic beliefs. The university, by its very nature of independence and objectivity, continually questions society and the physical world in its pursuit of knowledge and truth. The pursuit of truth is inherently disruptive and antiauthoritarian. Society has placed great faith in the university because of its objectivity and counts on the university's reputation for disinterested inquiry to provide for the common good. There has, however, always been a fragile relationship between society and the university. If society does not perceive the pursuit of truth, knowledge, and progress to be in its best interest, will there be social justification for academic freedom and tenure? With the severe budgetary problems in our state, it is imperative that we substantiate our value to the common good of the people of Alabama and confirm the trust that has been placed in the university.

THOUGHTS ON DEPARTMENTAL RANKINGS: By Sonny Dawsey

Along with approximately half of the people on this campus, I was dismayed when Geography received a priorities and goals verdict placing us in the lower half of the departments in the College of Liberal Arts. Although the dean determined the final order, it was based on votes taken by members of a college committee made up of my friends and colleagues. Rejection, in any guise, doesn't come easy. A brief passage of time, however, has given me a chance to reflect on what took place last month.

My first thought is that the clock moves forward, not backwards. After initial doubts, I am convinced that we in Geography did all that was possible to promote our department and discipline. I am satisfied, therefore, that the outcome is an honest perception by the members of the college priorities and goals committee and by the dean of our relative merit. The process was rushed, was based on poorly defined data categories, and was less than objective, but nothing can be changed for the current year.

The ranking was touted as part of the ongoing strategic planning process, but in fact, the two are largely unrelated. Strategic planning is necessary and beneficial, allowing us to review and improve our efforts to the ultimate benefit of our students and the people of Alabama. Ranking departments has been divisive and has provided little that can be used for program betterment. It is not conducive to self-assessment.

The forces that brought on this process actually originated outside of Auburn. The need to rank is a response to projected state allocation reductions caused by changing political priorities in Alabama and the nation. It reflects popular concepts that have swept through the corporate world where firms have gone through drastic downsizing. It also stems from misconceptions among the general public regarding the type and quantity of work that we do to sustain a quality institution of higher education. Although I am not pleased by the course selected by our administration nor by the lack of alternatives, I do recognize the forces that led to this action.

The rankings don't tell us everything about a department. They don't show trends, which programs are improving, which are declining. Though the concept of centrality was supposed to incorporate anticipated future importance, I am convinced that the results focused more on where the departments have been rather than where they are going. Also not considered were the conditions under which the faculty have had to perform--which units have received support for research and travel, adjustments to teaching loads, and whether or not the department has a graduate program.

Departments, not individuals, were ranked. The results have been damaging to the self-esteem of many who feel personally rejected after years of service to this university. But all units include individuals with different levels of ability and energy, and we must keep in mind that the rankings are tied to the collective rather than to any individual. The results should not be taken personally.

Where do we go from here? It is always useful to try to extract something positive from any experience, and for me, this one has served to focus the tasks at hand. The first is to maintain a constant vigilance in protecting hard-won faculty rights such as due process (what tenure really means). Only recently have we had a comprehensive handbook that identifies our obligations and the commitments of the trustees and central administration.

Second, we must concentrate harder on the long-range strategic planning process. The problems that we face will not go away, and we will all have to learn to maintain and improve quality with fewer resources from the state. The mission of a university is changing rapidly, and with it, the responsibilities of its faculty. If there ever were any, the ivory towers of yesterday have long since been torn down. We must learn to be more responsive to the needs of society around us.

Third, each one of us must do more to demonstrate to the people of Alabama that higher education, especially at Auburn, is critical to the future of this state. We must convince Alabamians of the need for increased state support. Outreach (formerly extension) will have to become a significant component of all programs.

Finally, we need to maintain a sense of campus community. Barry Burkhart (Psychology) spoke eloquently in the University Senate about the potential divisiveness of this process. If we are not careful, it will create a class structure that divides the campus into haves and have-nots. We remain a collection of scholars and educators committed to common goals. I fully realize that the second shoe will fall when the rankings are used to determine budgets and reallocate scarce resources. The heaviest responsibility will fall on faculty and administrators in the higher ranked departments. I am hopeful that all of us will continue to interact with consideration and respect toward the entire campus community, regardless of the results of this process.

In conclusion, the hurried creation of a new hierarchy does a poor job of showing the unique importance and accomplishments of the programs on this campus. More important, the rankings say little about an individual's merit as a scholar and faculty member and nothing of our worth as persons and community citizens. Although we have gone through a process that has been difficult and at times painful, we can learn from the experience. I remain optimistic that we will be able to face the difficulties ahead with a spirit of solidarity and community rather than competitiveness and isolation.

WARD RECEIVES ACADEMIC FREEDOM AWARD

The AU chapter presented its 1995 Academic Freedom Award to Professor Charlotte R. Ward at the spring university faculty meeting on April 11. The award recognizes Professor Ward's long service to the AAUP at the local, state, and national level as well as her dedication and commitment to shared university governance and faculty rights. Professor Ward retired from the physics department at Auburn in the spring of 1994.

NEW OFFICERS AND CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES:A slate of new chapter officers will be presented at the May 25 meeting: In addition, chapter members should be prepared to consider proposed changes to the constitution. Article V, Section 3 will be changed to delete the Secretary-Treasurer's responsibilities as news editor and add the following duty to the Executive Committee: "(g) appoint a chapter newsletter editor." Article V, Section 5 will be a new section with the wording: "The editor of the chapter newsletter will serve as an ex officio member of the Executive Committee."