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An Open Letter to the Arts and Sciences Faculty
 

Over the past year, the AAUP Executive Committee has carried on a dialogue with Dean Richard Edwards about the proposed A&S Professional Review for Tenured Faculty. From the beginning, we found the professional development ideas laudatory, but had strong concern that the plan would involve faculty in unneeded reviews, and that it did not sufficiently protect the faculty's rights of due process and academic freedom. Dean Edwards, responding positively to suggestions from AAUP and individual faculty members, made many improvements embodied in successive drafts. During this time AAUP developed an alternate proposal, which we shared with the Dean early in 1994, and which was circulated to you early in March. Since the March 3 faculty meeting, in which it was announced that the A&S faculty would be asked to vote on the plan, we have had several meetings with the Dean who has agreed to incorporate most aspects of our proposal into either the policies related to the plan dated February 10 or in procedures relative to the operation of the A&S college generally. Consequently, despite some lingering concerns, we have voted to favor implementation of the February 10 version of the Professional Review for Tenured Faculty on a trial basis and to inform the A&S faculty of our reasons for doing so.
 

Our favorable stance was decided by consideration of the following points:

• Written assurance from the Dean that criteria for the performance of faculty in the several departments would be in place before the initiation of the plan. The development of such departmental criteria has been a long-standing AAUP goal;
• The Dean's willingness to encourage yearly DOE/FMER meetings between each faculty member and her or his chair, regardless of performance, to promote mutual understanding and forestall future problems;
• Written assurance from the Dean that chairs will be expected to conduct DOE/FMER discussions at least yearly, beginning this spring, with faculty members having a 4.0 or lower on a 7 point scale in any area in which the faculty member was to spend more than 25% of her or his effort (only those with 2.5 or under in two successive biennial evaluations would face mandatory review);
• Elimination of mandatory review solely at the request of the chair;
• The option in the 2/10/94 draft to allow the adjustment of the DOE as a mechanism to accommodate a faculty member's changing interests and professional strengths. The opportunity to modify one's distribution of effort should have a positive effect on both performance and performance evaluation ratings;
• The focus of mandatory review, which would now fall only on those faculty for whom there is strong evidence of serious disengagement;
• The expanded options for choice by a faculty member of reviewers which may better insure impartial judging of performance, which may, in turn, increase the fairness of the FMER process itself;
• Our belief that the plan, with the agreed upon safeguards in place, will not reduce academic freedom nor deny due process for any faculty member, and may enhance faculty welfare and overall faculty performance;
• The institution of a mechanism, triggered by the request of a faculty member, for aid in professional development;
• The elimination in the current draft of the overt threat of reassignment or dismissal;
• The reliance on already existing procedures of appeal;
• The fair and gradual implementation of the plan over time, coupled with the provision that, after four years, another affirmative vote by the A&S faculty is required if the plan is to continue, on a trial or permanent basis.

We invite you to inspect the documents, which have been exchanged between AAUP officers and Dean Edwards, and we encourage your questions as well -- either about the proposed policy or about your particular situation with respect to any matter relating to academic freedom, tenure, or faculty welfare.