Alan Kaylor Cline
(512) 471-9717
cline@cs.utexas.edu
September 23, 1996
Chancellor William H. Cunningham
The University of Texas System
601 Colorado Street
Austin, Texas 78701-2982
Dear Chancellor Cunningham,
Thank you very much for arranging
the meeting of the Faculty Advisory Council with you and Senator
Ratliff September 17. I believe we found it informative. I hope
that we were able to convince him that we do believe that faculty
- both pre- and post-tenure, are not opposed to review. Our
concern, of course, is with the haste with which new procedures
for review might be adopted and the unfortunate consequences to
the universities that might result.
Following that session with the senator,
the council was called into a special meeting to continue the
discussion. The discussion was quite varied - mostly the group
was concerned with what steps to take next be they with the legislature
or with the system office.
Our meeting resulted in the passage
of two resolutions. These were driven by the council's concern
that the policy making is proceeding too hastily and without sufficient
input from faculty. The resolutions, both of which were approved
unanimously, are as follows:
The UT System Faculty Advisory Council
requests that the Board of Regents postpone consideration of the
Post-Tenure Review proposal until their February meeting in order
for the UT System Faculty Advisory Council adequately to address
and study the many issues associated with the proposal.
The UT System Faculty Advisory Council
asks each component faculty governance organization to support
the UT Faculty Advisory Council resolution that the Board of
Regents postpone consideration of the Post-Tenure Review proposal
until their February meeting.
As of Friday, September 20, faculty
governance organizations on six campuses have passed such resolutions
of support. They are The University of Texas at Dallas, The University
of Texas - Pan American, The University of Texas at Brownsville,
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas,
and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
Without presenting an exhaustive
list of questions regarding your September 20 draft, let me offer
examples of several that have arisen.
1. Your draft says that the "evaluation
… is to be performed at least every 5 years". For some
individuals could it be more frequently, perhaps annually? At
whose discretion would the period be determined?
2. Early in the discussion of evaluations,
it was suggested that all tenured faculty without exception would
be evaluated. Later, it was indicated that some administrators
would be excepted. Has it been determined now whether there would
be such exceptions? Can you be specific about which administrators?
3. The draft proposal calls for reviews
"by a committee of tenured peers". Who selects such
committees? Could the "tenured peers" for non-administrative
faculty include administrators? Assuming administrators were
also subject to the review process, could the "tenured peers"
for administrative faculty include non-administrators?
4. Your September 9 draft called
for a "committee of tenured peers from the same department,
division, college, or school as the individual being reviewed...".
The new proposal deletes any reference to " the same department,
division, college, or school as the individual being reviewed...".
This alteration suggests that special committees might be brought
in from outside the universities to perform the evaluations.
Was that the intent?
In closing, may I add that a great
deal of the concern regarding this policy is that rather than
being a device for removing incompetent faculty members, it could
be employed against simply outspoken faculty members. I have trust
in my current department chair, dean, provost, and president.
In fact, my own case last year proved to me that these individuals
passed the acid test. Nevertheless, I could not have made such
a statement of trust twenty years ago nor can I guarantee the
future. Lastly, while I may be in a very fortunate position on
this campus, I have heard sufficient credible stories from other
campuses within our system to make me fear that a review could
be used to silence criticism. How could ensure that a review
policy contains adequate safeguards?
I believe the council highly appreciates
the preamble to the September 20 draft. It stands as an eloquent
statement in support of academic freedom and tenure. Furthermore,
we very much would like to work with the system on this important
policy but we feel that attempting to have proper deliberation
of proposals prior to November is impossible.
Sincerely,
Alan Kaylor Cline
David Bruton, Jr. Professor of Computer Sciences and
Chair, The University Of Texas System Faculty Advisory Council