Uncollegiality, Southern Utah Style
Rees gives three reasons for the university’s decision to deny Roberds tenure. First, he states that Roberds was uncollegial with students, citing a heated exchange between Roberds and a student in class (for which the professor apologized and which the college has claimed in other forums was not a reason for its decision) and a similarly heated exchange between Roberds and a student who opposed gay marriage at a student rally against gay marriage. (He also claims that other incidents occurred, but doesn’t cite any, and there has been no evidence of any other incidents.) Second, Rees deems uncollegial Roberds’ attacks on a new Faculty Senate constitution authored by Rees and supported by the SUU administration. Finally, he cites process: that as “the tenure process requires input from several faculty committees . . . even after meeting several times to discuss Roberds' application for tenure, a faculty committee did not approve it,” and therefore “it can be argued that tenure to Roberds was denied by his peers.”
On the first point, SUU offers a definition of collegiality in dealing with students that I fully support—to wit,"Faculty members will provide a respectful atmosphere and not reward agreement or penalize disagreement with their views on controversial topics." Certainly, if there was evidence that Roberds violated this policy in the classroom, his denial of tenure might be justified. There is, however, no evidence except for the October 2004 incident, for which Roberds immediately apologized. There’s an additional problem here: the students of SUU voted Roberds the university’s professor of the year in 2003. Is the SUU administration really willing to claim that the professor who the students consider the institution’s finest is “uncollegial” to students?
As to the second point, there seems to be no doubt about the following facts: Rees was the primary author of a proposed new Faculty Senate constitution, Roberds fiercely criticized it as unfriendly to faculty, especially to those faculty who dissent from the dominant culture of the institution, and Rees took personal offense at Roberds’ criticism. Apparently SUU has a policy that states it’s OK to deny tenure to junior faculty who criticize institutional initiatives that enjoy the support of administrators and powerful tenured faculty on campus. As I looked through SUU’s faculty handbook, however, I couldn’t locate that policy. Perhaps Professor Rees will pen another op-ed explicating it.
As I learned from my own tenure case, when all else fails, institutions fall back on the procedural argument: “There is a ‘time-tested’ process, and there must be a justifiable reason for our decision, even if we can’t articulate it publicly for reasons of—as Rees puts it—privacy and gentlemanly conduct.’ Just trust us.”
When an institution has violated procedure, however, it no longer can credibly call on the sanctity of the process to justify its decision. In this case, Roberds’ chairman, Lamar Jordan, summoned students into his office under false pretenses, asked them leading questions, refused to take notes (according to the students) when they offered positive remarks about Roberds’ classroom performance, and then instructed them not to reveal the contents of the meeting. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t strike me as particularly “gentlemanly conduct.”
So, to sum up: the president of the SUU Faculty Senate has said that his institution fired its 2003 Professor of the Year because he was uncollegial to the students who voted him their professor of the year; because he criticized a new Faculty Senate constitution coincidentally written by the same Faculty Senate president who now deems him uncollegial; and because SUU has a process in which all tenure candidacies are considered by multiple committees in a gentlemanly fashion. A piece of unsolicited advice to Professor Rees: the next time the idea of penning an op-ed crosses your mind, sleep on it for a day or two.
Update, 2.24pm: It turns out that the student who crossed swords with Roberds at the anti-gay marriage event was none other than Professor Rees' son. Funny how that doesn't get mentioned in his article.