To:
Members of the UW System Tenure Policy Task Force
From: Wisconsin Chapters of the American Association of University Professors
Date: November 27, 2015
Re:
Proposed UW System Policies on Layoff and Post-Tenure Review
We write to you on behalf of the UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Whitewater
chapters of the American Association of University Professors (“AAUP”). This
memorandum summarizes our serious concerns about draft policies on Faculty
Layoff and Tenured Faculty Review and Development for consideration by the
Tenure Policy Task Force on November 30, 2015. For convenience, we have
attached annotated versions of both policies highlighting in detail specific areas
where the proposals fail to uphold professional standards promulgated through the
Statement on Government of Universities and Colleges by the American Council on
Education, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges and the
AAUP (“Statement on Government”), the Recommended Institutional Regulations on
Academic Freedom and Tenure (2014) of the AAUP (“RIR”) and other AAUP policy
documents.
Our first overarching area of concern is that both draft policies fail to meet
professional standards of academic due process. First, we draw attention to the
proposed policy on layoff due to budget or program decisions requiring program
discontinuance, curtailment, modification or redirection. It is critical to distinguish
formal discontinuance of a program from reducing a program’s size through
“curtailment, modification or redirection.” Because it is significantly easier to target
individual faculty or politically disfavored lines of scholarly activity through
selective reduction of programs than to do so through program discontinuance, the
former poses an unacceptable risk to academic freedom. Consequently, except in
case of a bona fide financial exigency, AAUP standards “do not permit the
termination of faculty appointments in order to reduce a program” [AAUP,
Responding to Financial Crisis, emphasis added]. Hence, curtailment, modification
or redirection should not be permitted to result in termination or layoff for budget
or program decisions.
Second, we note that the draft policy on layoff incorporates “due process
procedures” as set forth in Wis. Stat. 36.22. Unfortunately, these procedures fall
short of professional standards. Wis. Stat. 36.22(7)(a) states that “[t]he budget or
program decisions made to discontinue, curtail, modify, or redirect a program are
not subject to review in the hearing.” [emphasis added]
Memo to the Tenure Policy Task Force
November 27, 2015
Page 2 of 4
To the contrary, AAUP standards on academic due process require that “[t]he issues
in such a hearing may include the institution’s failure to satisfy any of the conditions
specified in Regulation 4d,” [RIR 4.d.(4), emphasis added] including whether the
decision was “based essentially upon educational considerations, as determined
primarily by the faculty as a whole or an appropriate committee thereof.” [RIR
4.d.(1), emphasis added]. Furthermore, “[i]n the hearing, a faculty determination
that a program or department is to be discontinued will be considered
presumptively valid, but the burden of proof on other issues will rest on the
administration.” [RIR 4.d.(4), emphasis added]
Third, with respect to the decision on whether to implement performance
remediation, the draft policy on post-tenure review states: “This decision shall be
final and not subject to institutional grievance processes.” The right to grieve to an
external peer review body any materially adverse finding with regard to a faculty
member’s performance is fundamental to academic due process. Therefore, this
provision stands in direct and material conflict with AAUP’s minimum standards on
post-tenure review, which clearly state: “A faculty member should have the right to
comment in response to evaluations, and to challenge the findings and correct the
record by appeal to an elected faculty grievance committee” [Post-Tenure Review:
An AAUP Response (“PTR Report”), emphasis added].
Our second overarching area of concern is that both draft policies separate faculty
from their primary responsibility for educational concerns. The proposed policies
outline criteria and processes in which the UW System’s rich and effective traditions
of bona fide shared governance are set aside in favor of procedures that provide
merely the gloss of inclusivity. The Statement on Government articulates that “the
faculty has primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject
matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and those aspects of
student life which relate to the educational process.” [emphasis added]
First, as the faculty’s primary responsibility for educational concerns relates to
program discontinuance, AAUP standards specifically require that “[t]he decision to
discontinue formally a program or department of instruction will be based
essentially upon educational considerations, as determined primarily by the faculty
as a whole or an appropriate committee thereof.” [RIR 4.d.(1), emphasis added] The
Statement on Government further holds that on matters in which faculty have
primary responsibility, “the power of review or final decision lodged in the
governing board or delegated by it to the president should be exercised adversely
only in exceptional circumstances, and for reasons communicated to the faculty. It is
desirable that the faculty should, following such communication, have opportunity
for further consideration and further transmittal of its views to the president or
board.” [emphasis added]
Memo to the Tenure Policy Task Force
November 27, 2015
Page 3 of 4
To the contrary, the proposed policy on layoff allows for both the origination and
final decision to come from university administration. Despite a lengthy process for
arriving at a consensus recommendation, the proposed policy offers no statement
on the obligation of a chancellor and the Board of Regents to act on that
recommendation in accordance with principles of shared governance.
Second, in the matter of post-tenure review, the Statement on Government holds
that “Faculty status and related matters are primarily a faculty responsibility; this
area includes appointments, reappointments, decisions not to reappoint,
promotions, the granting of tenure, and dismissal.” [Statement on Government,
emphasis added] The AAUP’s recommended minimum standards of good practice
for post-tenure review states that “[t]he written standards and criteria by which
faculty members are evaluated in post-tenure review should be developed and
periodically reviewed by the faculty… The faculty should also conduct the actual
review process.” [PTR Report]
The proposed policy on post-tenure review falls short of this minimum standard by
specifying that the criteria “shall be established at the institutional level,” and the
process for conducting the review shall “be developed at each campus” without
specifying the faculty’s primary responsibility through a process of shared
governance. Furthermore, the initiation of remediation and determination of
whether progress has been made under any individual performance remediation
plan primarily should be a matter of faculty determination, with any given case
being administratively referred only in the event that no agreement can be reached
on a remediation plan or if an agreed upon remediation plan has failed.
Moving forward, we urge that the Tenure Policy Task Force recommend to the
Board of Regents that they should take a step and directly engage the faculty across
the UW System through established processes of shared governance and should
closely collaborate with the AAUP in ensuring that any resulting policies uphold the
widely accepted standards of the profession. We point to the constructive process of
faculty-led shared governance, in consultation with both the local chapter and
national organization of the AAUP, which has resulted in thoughtful (yet timely)
development of new layoff and termination policy at UW-Madison.
Memo to the Tenure Policy Task Force
November 27, 2015
Page 4 of 4
It is clear that passage of Act 55 has threatened the reputation of the UW System as
a world-class institution of higher education by enabling policies that threaten
academic freedom, tenure and shared governance. Our leaders at both the system
and campus level have repeatedly reassured us that the permissive language of Act
55 allows Regental policy to protect tenure and shared governance to the
professional standards of the AAUP. The Board of Regents can send a clear signal by
adopting policies restraining the use of these new powers. Failure to do so risks
irreparable harm to the UW System and to the citizens of the State of Wisconsin.
Sincerely,
David J. Vanness,
President,
UW-Madison Chapter
cc:
Rachel Ida Buff,
President,
UW-Milwaukee Chapter
Beth L. Lueck,
President,
UW-Whitewater Chapter
UW System Board of Regents
UW System President Ray Cross
UW System Shared Governance Representatives
UW System Chancellors
UW System Provosts
Rudy Fichtenbaum, President, AAUP
Hank Reichman, First Vice President and Chair, Committee A of the AAUP
Julie Schmid, Executive Director, AAUP